Go Nursultan!!!

Hi all! Today's picture is to show that big plastic toys suck and little plastic toys rule. These are his favorite stacking cups that he loves to knock down and chew on. They're hours of fun- well 2 hours anyway. That and a foam number 8 that he chews on. It's disgustingly dirty, but oh well he loves it... So we had a really fun night tonight. We met up with everyone for dinner at this place called Ali Babba. They, of course, have shashlyk (kabobs) just like everywhere else. But the restaurant itself is really nice. It is outdoors and is decorated all beautifully and the waiters are dressed up in what I guess are Kazakh clothes. Our waitress was super sweet and was very patient with us non-Russian-speaking idiots. Around the perimeter they have these low tables for lounging with smushy seats and pillows all around it. They also have hookahs although we decided against polluting our lungs any more than the exhaust fumes already do. But the boys did have Sambuca shots. Gross. The ladies instead decided to gorge on Kazakh chocolate. Yum. Then we heard music and decided to wander and figure out what was going on. We had seen the big stage being erected in the plaza for the last few days and were wondering if it could be coming from there. There was a nice crowd and fabulous Kstan pop music- pop is just as cheesy in any language. And there were people everywhere flying the Kaz flag along with some other one with writing on it in Kazakh (which we don't see too often). We watched for a while wondering what it was all about until some boys asked us in English what we were doing here. We chatted for a second and it turns out it was a rally and concert in support of the current president, Nursultan Nazarbaev. It was kind of nice. There were lots of families there with kids running around and teenagers. The crowd was relatively subdued but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Especially the kids. And Peter and I had a contest to spot which our kid would be- the one being fairly calm and staying by his mom's side or the one running around like a maniac? We're guessing he'll tend more towards maniac. And speaking of the little guy, he hit not one but two milestones today. Firstly, we swear that he took a few crawls today. He also did his army crawl, frog hop, and one footed nosedive, but we swear he took about 3 or 4 crawls several times today. And even more important to me, when I put him down for nap today he started to whine and give me the sad eyes and reach for me. I think he knew it'd be until Monday afternoon until he saw us again. Either that or he's just practicing up on his manipulation skills. But naptime is naptime, right? Alright, off to bed. We'll let you know how the lake is tomorrow! Have a great Saturday! -m