Jan 20 2010

Round Belly, Square Eyes

Category: Anna's Photos — ChrisM @ 1:28 pm

One of my earliest New Years’ memories is being allowed to sit in the living room, watching cartoons on TV, and eating my breakfast cereal at the same time. It now sounds very silly, but back then, this seemed like the most extravagant of treats, and I can still remember watching Road Runner avoid Wile E. Coyote, whilst simultaneously trying not to spill and Shreddies or milk onto the living room carpet. Why this sudden recall of something that happened almost 25 years ago? I was just looking at the photo below, before uploading it, which features Anna having a special treat of watching her DVD and being allowed to eat at the same time 🙂

Anna Allowed To Eat And Watch TV (Christmas Treat)

Anna Allowed To Eat And Watch TV (Christmas Treat)

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Jan 20 2010

Boxing Day With Ira’s Parents

Category: Anna's Photos — ChrisM @ 1:52 am

The day after Christmas (26th December) saw Irina’s parents come to our flat to spend some time with Anna, and enjoy a meal together. Whether that day was actually Boxing Day or not, I’ll leave you to decide. Wikipedia has a good article on the subject, but as we don’t live in a country where St Stephen’s Day or Boxing Day is recognised, all arguments are null and void 🙂

A Light Boxing Day Meal With Ira's Parents

A Light Boxing Day Meal With Ira's Parents

Anna Watching Her Wheels On The Bus DVD

Anna Watching Her Wheels On The Bus DVD

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Jan 18 2010

Christmas Day Meal

Category: Anna's Photos,Friends — ChrisM @ 11:57 pm

After saying goodbye to Walton we relaxed for a few hours at home with Anna, and then travelled over to JohnA’s for a delicious Christmas Day meal. This was the first year I wasn’t at home in Britain for Christmas with Mum et al, so I was really glad to be in a friendly and happy atmosphere with Anna and Irina. DanD and his family were there, as well as Innessa’s parents, which meant I wasn’t alone in toasting the day with vodka and beer, rather than wine 🙂 The food was great, and we even had some entertainment laid on – you’ll need to wait for the video to catch a clip of that…

Anna, DanD and a Dombra T-Shirt Model

Anna, DanD and a Dombra T-Shirt Model

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Jan 18 2010

Opening Presents With Anna

Category: Anna's Videos — ChrisM @ 11:48 pm

As previously mentioned this was Anna’ first Christmas, and so we wanted to make sure she had a good day, even if she was totally oblivious to the date 🙂 We had a couple of presents for her to open on the 25th, a few more on New Year’s Day (which is celebrated a lot more over here), and we’re hoping to have a mini-belated-Christmas again once we arrive in Britain.
Anyway, these videos concentrate on Anna opening one of her presents – a match the animal to their hole jigsaw type of thing. As expected the wrapping and gift card were initially of a lot more interest, and as Irina had wrapped it, it took Anna a while to break into the securely packaged gift 🙂

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Jan 18 2010

Christmas Day Morning With Anna

Category: Anna's Photos,Friends — ChrisM @ 11:26 pm

So, these photos of Anna were taken on the 25th of December… Something about that date rings a bell…
Oh well, sure it’ll come back to me. Walton had seen in the transition of 24th/25th with us, and wasn’t driving home straight away for once, meaning we could all have a few drinks together properly, for the first time in ages.
This was obviously Anna’s first Christmas, and although it isn’t really noticed/celebrated by locals over here, we had a great day, though it was sad Assel had to work both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day – we’re hoping we’ll manage to meet up with them once they return from their trip to America, before we head over to Britain.
Later on in the day we went to another friend who was hosting a proper Christmas Day dinner, but these photos are just from the morning, where we ate, drank a little and Anna opened her presents…

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Jan 12 2010

Christmas Eve Dancing From Anna

Category: Anna's Videos — ChrisM @ 9:41 am

You may remember I received some sort of automated warning from YouTube as they noticed I had a Christmas tune on in the background when we recorded Anna dancing. Well assuming they don’t remove it before this post goes live (a gap of four days or so), you should be able to see it below…

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Jan 12 2010

Davay Davay Baris!

Category: Pictures,Sport,Videos — ChrisM @ 1:28 am

It was around two years ago that I went to my first ice hockey game, and just before Christmas (Xmas Eve’s Eve I think) I went with DanD and JohnA to go and see Baris (Astana’s team) play a Russian side. Having now been to two matches, I almost feel confident enough to guess what the hell is going on. Sometimes. DanD found the following website, that does a pretty good job of explaining what is going on, in simple terms. Just wish he’d found it before hand 🙂

INSERT LINK HERE…

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Jan 08 2010

Man Flashing Outside Our Window

Category: Pictures — ChrisM @ 9:21 am

Living on the fourth floor, it isn’t really that often that we tend to see people outside our windows. A couple of weeks before Christmas however, we noticed someone was hanging around our kitchen window. It turned out we were getting Xmas (well more likely New Year, as Christmas isn’t really observed in this Muslim country, certainly not the 25th December Western version) lights installed on the front of building.

Christmas Light Floating Man

Christmas Light Floating Man

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Jan 07 2010

Happy (Russian) Orthodox Chris…

Category: Tweets — ChrisM @ 2:02 pm

Happy (Russian) Orthodox Christmas! Hope Mum has a safe journey in a 4X4 to work today. All fine here, at the in-laws.

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Jan 02 2010

YouTube Issues

Category: Personal — ChrisM @ 5:44 pm

I uploaded a video that has Anna dancing in it. In the background, you can hear the music she was dancing to at the time.
I’m hoping it was just an automated system that decided to send me a warning from YouTube.
The following is my reply to YouTube through their Dispute Claim. If someone really wants to ban my video, or try and make me pay, to show Anna dancing to Jingle Bells, BITFO.

User Name: AstanaClydach

2. This video uses copyrighted material in a manner that does not require approval of the copyright holder. It is a fair use under copyright law.
Our baby daughter is dancing to a Christmas tune. On Christmas Eve. I have not tagged nor titled this video with anything that would lead people to find it who were searching for the song. I believe the use of the song in the background comes under fair use. The video is still apparently available, dispite what I’m forced to type in the statement of good faith box below.

Signature
Christopher Merriman

Statement of Good Faith
I have a good faith belief that the material was disabled as a result of a mistake or mis-identification and that I am not intentionally abusing this dispute process.

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