Day 3 - Photoshoot and fishing!

Day three started with my sister telling me that she felt like being a photo model. I'm always happy to have a photoshoot, so right after breakfast we went on a little shoot by the lake. Here's what came out of it!

While Alina was trying to climb from one rock onto another one, I made a new friend. He was totally willing to pose for me and I got pretty close! Adorable bird :)

Then we went on with our shoot, but the bird was too cute not to involve it in our little adventure. So we tried our best... :)

She did her make-up to match the water :)

Taking off... not really! Well, we wanted to get a shot of the bird flying, so my sister went to scare it so that I could tak some pictures. And you would think the bird would fly away, right? No, that lazy thing just barely walked on water from this rock to the very next one and kept staring at me!

My mommy was walking by us while we were shooting, so I got to take some photos of her, too!

And now back to my sister, some shots in the water...

It's been a fun morning, we did great, felt great and decided to treat ourselves to some ice-cream!!

Later that afternoon my cousin Ilya, who was also on vacation in Balkhash, just in a different place, about 20 minutes away, came to visit us with his girlfriend Yana and his friend Anton. They wanted to go fishing so we went with them, only I didn't get to fish at all, but everybody else at least tried :) Not that anyone caught any fish, but it was fun. Meanwhile, I was walking around and taking some shots of what was going on and trying to see if anyone caught any fish so that I could take pictures!

Yeah, it leaves me speechless how dsguisting people are... if you come to fish, yeah, it is pretty obvious you will have a bottle of beer with you, but hey, since you brought it there, why not take it back? People don't though, so this is what happens, piles and piles of empty bottles right in the middle of the lake... :( And no, my sister isn't really drunk... :)

Anton and Alina - good actors! :)

...just me trying to be a little artistic with the fishing pole...

Some guys actually managed to catch this beautiful fish! Someone had a good dinner...

...Taking a break and just chillin' on the rock for a few minutes...

And I'm back to work! Love the waves at that lake!

My dad caught this little fish! We set it free right after the photo was taken...

Mommy and Marina

My cousin Ilya

Peaceful evening fishing... oh, and yes, most men wear this type of swimsuit in Kazakhstan...

My sister and I on our favorite swing right outside our room. We spent every evening just hanging out there.

Excited about dinner! It's been a long day and I was pretty tired and ready for some super-tasty shashlik!

Here it is! Dinner!

Another wonderful day was over and we were getting ready for the next one when our new friends took us out to lunch on a boat! Can't wait to tell you all about it in my next post!

Balkhash: Day 2

The next day we woke up to a beautiful day and it was very hot from early in the morning. So to cool down right away we decided to have watermelon for breakfast :) Yummy!

And then we all went to the beach and took some photos on the way!

Mommy and Daddy

My sister and I were having so much fun jumping in the water :)

The sky is always pretty in Kazakhstan... I love it!

In the evening we met the owner of the resort and he invited us to join him for dinner, along with some of his other friends and the Mayor of Balkhash. It was a great honor to meet all of them and we had a good time. The owner of the Blue Lagoon is also the chief of the police department of Balkhash, Colonel Kiyakin. As it turned out later that night he is also a great singer and simply a wonderful person. My sister Alina sang quite a few songs with him that evening (they have karaoke at that little restaurant). It was a really fun evening filled with good mood, beautiful songs and super tasty food!

Colonel Kiyakin

After the dinner we were still wide awake and the three of us, my mom, my sister and I went for a walk along the lake and just took some fun shots on the way :)

The view of one of the resorts from the lake

It was getting really late, but we didn't want to go to bed yet. We had a flashlight with us so we decided to play with the light and draw funny figures around each other with a flashlight! Great times!

My mom was an angel

My sister was a little devil-girl

I was a.... daisy?

Alina as a butterfly!

Mommy as dragon!

Believe it or not, but my sister said she was making a cat out of me here :)

After a little while we finally got tired and went to sleep. The next morning was great and my sister and I had a photo shoot during the day, and then went fishing (or at least we went to the place where people fish) in the evening... But I will tell you about all of that tomorrow!