Beautiful Kazakh Wedding

We attended a beautiful Kazakh wedding back in September 2012.  It was simply amazing!  We got to enjoy Kazakh culture up close and so soon after our arrival.  As you can see it's taken me quite a long time to catch up to posting about this, but it's still worth sharing.  Most of the delay was because I made sure all of the people who appear in these pictures are okay with their appearance on our family blog.  I had also forgotten to bring our camera, so I gathered pictures taken from a variety of sources.  Thanks to everyone for sharing and allowing us to tell about this experience.

The wedding couple.  Just look at that gorgeous dress!

First, I should explain that we were attending a party given by the bride for her friends and extended family.  After the wedding ceremony took place there would be another reception for the groom and his extended family.  Throughout the celebration we had a friend explaining the various elements of the reception since most of it was conducted in Kazakh.  At this point, Nils and I were equal in our understanding what was going on.  The program was conducted by a Master of Ceremonies, a well-dressed young man in a navy blue shiny suit.  He would call up groups of guests and allow them time to publicly shared with the couple their advice and good wishes.  Mixed among the well-wishers' words, the evening included singers and dancers who performed traditional dances and modern songs.  We also played a few games, one in which Nils was called upon to participate as a "camel" where the emcee asked him to pantomime riding a camel and then produce a "camel sound" for the couple.  Other animals included a horse, a bull, and a donkey.  There was a small dance competition between couples selected randomly by the emcee.  Two of the contestants were family members of the bride and it became quickly clear that her family has a talent for dancing!

The Emcee demonstrating how to ride a horse... or was it the donkey? 

Nils, receiving his instructions and giving responses to various questions.

You can see behind us the beautifully decorated platform where the wedding party sat.

 The food was very delicious.  Upon arrival the tables had a wide variety of hors d'oeuvres including pickled herring, salmon, carrot salad, and vegetables and vinaigrette.  Once the wedding party arrived and were seated, and after a few toasts, the servers brought out the traditional Kazakh feast of Besbarmak, boiled horse with noodles and onions.  They also brought out huge pitchers of milk - mare's milk that is.  Because mare's milk is so strong, the only way to drink it is fermented.  Nils and I tried some.  It's definitely an acquired taste.

As we left the sister of the bride gave us parting gifts and explained that traditionally you also send guests home with a package of leftovers from the dinner.  We had to leave early because of the children's bedtime, but I was quite impressed with the hospitality and generosity surrounding their wedding.

Jane had a great time dancing and attracting lots of attention.

These hats were the gift for each of the guys.  The ladies received a beautiful scarf.

Owl Shirt Project

For a friend's baby shower, I decided to attempt to make a little 12-month T-shirt.  I had a pattern and figured it couldn't be that hard, especially with the help of my new serger.  Turns out I had to make it twice because I didn't follow the instructions very closely.   So after much time and persistence, here's the result.  Now I understand why people just buy clothes!

Nils did a great job complimenting my work and helping me feel good about all the effort that went into it, in spite of the flaws.  Then he made a really good suggestion to create more woodland creatures to decorate the children's room.  Hmmm... I may just have to get to work on that....

Adventures in India - Delhi

Our trip to India back in February was amazing.  Because we took over 1,000 pictures (between our camera and Maren's), I've been working to organize our trip into logical segments.

The format for our India trip is going to be slightly different.  Since pictures say a 1,000 words (hmm... 1,000 pictures times 1,000 words would be....) the majority of our story-telling will come from our picture albums and the captions made to particular photos.  Just click on the links below for the different parts of our Delhi tour.   Once you're on the webpage with the photo album, click on the first photo and you'll see the pictures and comments, as well as have the option to view it as a slide show.

The streets of Delhi spoke a lot about the people's energy and how well they could cram things in.  Included in these pictures is the outside of a Hindu Temple where we were not allowed to take pictures.  We'll show pictures of other temples we visited later in our tour which look similar.

The Jama Masjid Mosque was one of the first places we visited after arriving into Delhi.

The Mahatma Gandhi Memorial was the highlight of the trip for Nils.

The Qutb Complex included several ancient memorials and monuments. Click here for more information on the Qutb complex.

Humayun's Tomb resembles the Taj Majal without all the people.

We spent the end of our tour in Delhi as well.  We managed to visit the Red Fort and the Zoo.  Hoping to see a tiger in captivity since we had missed being able to see one in the wild, we spent most of the afternoon at the zoo.  We still didn't get to see a tiger, even a caged tiger!  Ah, well.

As you can see there's a lot, and this is just Delhi.  I'll work on organizing the other parts of our trip and hope to share those with you soon.  At the end I'll give my lessons learned and other little anecdotes that didn't make it in with the pictures.