Cheap Whine

One more year 'til double digits

2012-02-12T12:51:00.009+01:00

Family party

Presents

The birthday boy had requested a checkerboard cake

Not quite as fancy as the bakery cake he wanted for his laser tag party

Nugget geared up for the battle

He never made it past the door and into the arena though

2012 Chinese New Year - Phuket, Thailand

2012-01-29T23:26:00.003+01:00

Since Chinese New Year is determined by the cycles of the moon, the dates change every year. This year there were only two weeks between our Christmas break and Chinese New Year. After a weekend in Harbin, it was nice to head somewhere sunny and warm. The weather was perfect in Thailand and the boys had a blast doing all things water related. Some of these pictures I also posted on Facebook, but since my blog is the only real journal I have of our travels I'm posting them again here.

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Harbin Ice and Snow Festival 2012

2012-01-16T00:33:00.005+01:00

After a week home (during which time Kenny flew to Seattle and back for one day's meeting), we headed to the airport again to fly to Harbin, China for their famous ice festival. It's the red "A" pin on the map which is included for my Dad and anyone else that can study a map like they're plotting the next Lewis and Clark expedition.

Per Wikipedia, Harbin is the 10th most populated city in China with the city being home to almost 6 million people and if you include the surrounding area the population is near 11 million. With it's proximity to Russia and being on the Trans-Siberian Railway route (called the China Far East Railway in China), there is a strong Russian influence. Japan occupied Harbin during WWII and the Soviet army took the city in 1945 handing control back over the China in 1946. Being under the influence of the winter wind from Siberia, it was COLD. We saw temperatures around -10 F (-23 C) at times. The boys handled it surprisingly well especially when there were ice slides they could play on. Thank goodness for the warming houses scattered throughout the festival.

Now for some temperature whiplash we are off to the beaches of Thailand on Saturday which is the beginning of the Chinese New Year holiday for the boys and Kenny.

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Christmas 2011

2012-01-09T03:01:00.005+01:00

For the first time in 7 years we made the trip to Colorado for the holidays. Of all the places the boys have been, Colorado is easily their favorite which says a lot about our families. They love time with their grandparents and cousins. In addition to Christmas and New Year's, we were able to celebrate Kenny's parents' 50th wedding anniversary. The flights were long and the jet lag in Colorado was horrible, but all worth it judging by how happy the boys were. I'd like a bit of a break from airports, but we have two more trips coming up. Friday we fly to Harbin, China for their famous ice/snow festival. The following Saturday we are off to Thailand for Chinese New Year. Love travel, but wish we could spread it out a bit.

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Best Santa EVER

2011-12-11T03:49:00.004+01:00

From our clubhouse Christmas party. He had the red suit and plumpness covered, but missed the mark on jolly and white bearded. Actually he appeared to have no interest in what the mark even was.

According to the boys he also doubles as one of the pool's lifeguards. Did I tell you I have the boys in swimming lessons again?

Christmas cheer China style

2011-12-04T10:53:00.009+01:00

Christmas tree lighting

One way for Santa to get down from the roof. The rappelling equipment was hell on his beard though. It took a minute or so to get all untangled.

Peace loving Santa in a bar

Following the tree lighting we went to a Japanese restaurant where we had a private room, which was a good thing for our families and everyone else in the restaurant.

Nugget tried his first candy cane last weekend at a charity holiday bazaar

And a couple of random pictures....the boys had been bugging Kenny to use the telescope and when we got back from the tree lighting there was an unusually clear sky. We had unbelievable views of Jupiter and it's moons.

Someday he will pay for this

2011-11-21T12:36:00.007+01:00

I will make sure of it. Be it graduation, rehearsal dinner, engagement party, these pictures will make another appearance. I'm not sure we're going to get a Christmas card put together this year given Jack's recent level of cooperation during photo ops.

So not his natural smile - the beaver

My personal favorite

Prepping for Thanksgiving

2011-11-06T09:32:00.004+01:00

You all are welcome to join

Plenty of lamb for all, but sorry it won't be served in the beautiful Mongolian ger

If you really can't stomach the main course, we could always take you out for dumplings

Fall Favorite

2011-10-22T10:34:00.006+02:00

Caramel apples that require two hands to pick up

Consider yourself warned

2011-10-16T10:19:00.010+02:00

There is no such thing as down time if you visit us. After returning home from the cruise we had less than one week to pack full of sightseeing, shopping, restaurant sampling and touring. We had prescription glasses made at Glasses City (a bust), went on a food walk tour of the hutongs (a highlight, at least for me. Dad may beg to differ), toured Lama Temple and the 2008 Olympic sights. Dad received compliments on his chopstick use at a hot pot restaurant which was probably the most unexpected event of the whole trip. Up until 2 years ago he swore he'd never even try Chinese food. The boys loved all of the attention and especially Grandma and Papa picking them up from after school activities. They've been in a funk and crying off and on ever since we took them to the airport yesterday.

Beijing Food Tour

Lama Temple

Dad's favorite part of the day - analyzing the welds that hold the Bird's Nest together

Cruise 2011

2011-10-11T14:32:00.004+02:00

My parents got here Sept. 29th, we gave them one day to rest and then we were off on a cruise. We went in and out of Shanghai, had two ports in Japan, Osaka and Fukuoka. From Osaka we took the train to Kyoto and spent one night there. We also had one port in Busan, South Korea. Jack celebrated his 7th birthday on the cruise and the two big boys hit the big 5-0 for countries visited. Nugget is 30 countries behind, but now has 20 countries under his belt. As always, cruising with the grandparents is our boys' favorite kind of vacation.

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School hike

2011-09-25T11:54:00.009+02:00

We just got back from a beautiful day hiking around Mr. Mao's chestnut orchard (not that Mr. Mao) and had a great time. I love getting away from the city and the boys had fun doing what boys do while hiking.....swinging sticks, throwing rocks, falling in mud. Here are few pictures. You can click on any of them to enlarge. The parts of the Great Wall we saw were really beautiful in their unrestored state with trees and bushes covering the top.

Resident goats including a lot of babies as you can see in the second picture

Me performing my usual role of sherpa. Notice I'm carrying small backpack, kid backpack, lunch and Nugget. Kenny was carrying, oh, say the camera used to snap this shot:

View of parts of the Great Wall on the way up

798 Art District

2011-09-18T13:23:00.005+02:00

China Aviation Museum

2011-09-13T01:37:00.007+02:00

Inside one of Mao's personal planes

End of summer, start of school

2011-08-26T09:36:00.011+02:00

I've been a bad, bad blogger lately I know. Although, I do have to place some of the blame on our almost nonfunctioning internet connection. Kenny finally talked me into calling someone to troubleshoot, which earned him some serious hubby points because the guy quickly determined that our modem was bad. For under $50 we got a house call, new modem and lightening fast (for China) internet speeds. I'm so angry that I suffered for so long and also angry that despite the fact that I told our management multiple times I thought it was the modem, they dismissed me and tried to blame it on my Apple router - ha! I KNEW it couldn't be anything Mac related.

And now courtesy of my quicker-than-you-can-say-Lion-OS internet connection, here are some pictures from summer activities and the obligatory first day of school shots which happened to be

today.

Nugget and I used the scooter quite a bit, but mostly just around the compound

A little Mario Kart tourney on a miserably hot day

The boys spent two weeks in golf camp and loved it.

One of many days spent at the pool

Ready for school and despite the look of dread on Jack's face, both boys said they had a great day and Jack even said it was the "best day of school ever."

Borneo...who knew?

2011-07-28T04:45:00.008+02:00

We certainly didn't. In fact, we didn't even know that's where we were going until we landed there. I had made our reservations for a trip to a resort in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia a few months ago and had put it out of my mind until we were leaving. Then we had a trip from heck to Malaysia and ended up getting stuck over night in Hong Kong, so I really didn't have time for my normal guide book research/reading. The overnight in Hong Kong turned out fine after Kenny scored a 5 star hotel and tickets to Disney out of the deal, but it cut into a day relaxing in what turned out to be paradise. The resort was gorgeous and was attached to a rehabilitation center for orphaned orangutans. We learned that Borneo is home to almost 90% of the world's orangutans. The beach, jungles, mountains and sunsets were some of the most gorgeous we've ever seen. We also found out that Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is divided into three countries - Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei (again, couldn't have found that country on a map if my life depended on it). Other than the Amazon, Borneo is the oldest rainforest in the world.

After the awful trek to Borneo, we figured it couldn't get worse for the trip home.....wrong. We made it back to Hong Kong with no problem, took off for Beijing and thought we were about half way home when the captain came on and said we'd actually just been flying in circles for the last 30 minutes due to thunderstorms in Beijing which had closed the airport. We were turning around and heading back to Hong Kong. After much confusion and a complete lack of organization on the airline's and hotel's part, we ended up at a hotel around 12:30 in the morning and then had to be back at the airport around 10am. Anyway, 36 hours after beginning our journey we were safely home and we had made some new friends along the way including a Russian woman with her two daughters who had been stranded for two days and had very limited English. They made our trip home seem like a breeze.

Unexpected trip to Disney

Elvis has entered Borneo

The sunsets were amazing

We found out Dominic loved chicken satay

We already knew that Luc loved dessert

Katie - one of the orphaned orangutans at the rehabilitation center attached to our hotel

Warming up to the beach

All in

First teppanyaki experience for the boys

Treated to a view of Mount Kinabalu on the way to the airport

Future pilots

New friend, Sophia. Thank goodness for new friends who helped pass our time stranded at the airport.

FINALLY he gave up

Beautiful Day Trip

2011-07-09T10:48:00.012+02:00

Given the gorgeous weather and clear skies, we decided to drive about an hour north to the Silver Mountain Pagoda Forest. According to my tour book, these are the ruins of the once great Fahua Temple. At one time over seventy temples were in this valley. Today there are five Jin towers where the Fahua Temple once stood. The towers hold the ashes of important monks and the oldest structure dates around 1145. The boys had a blast and about half way up Jack noted, "This is way funner than I thought it would be."

All three rock scrambling (you may have to click on the picture to make all three out)

On the trek up to the bell pagoda

View when we made it to the bell pagoda

Ringing the bell

Fantabulous start to summer

2011-07-03T04:31:00.027+02:00

What could be a better way to start summer vacation than with visitors? My cousin Debbie and her family flew in July 20th and left today. We could not have had a better time. The boys are lost today without their playmate and sleepover buddy, Liz. Our house seems sad and empty as it always does after guests leave. Here's a slideshow with some pictures of adventures over the past two weeks. Lots of sightseeing, great food, and they also fit in some overnight trips to the Great Wall and Xian.

A trip to Fundazzle for the kids - biggest ball pit we've ever seen. We tried to mix it up with sightseeing and kid's activities. They were all pretty good little sightseers though.

Acrobat show - the kids hadn't quite warmed up to each other yet

Toy Market

Kung Fu show

The Bird's Nest

Dominic says, "Seriously, what's up with me not being the focus of the picture & where's the peace sign?" Silly Americans!

The Water Cube

Inside the Water Cube. Half of the Cube was left the same as when the Olympics were here and half is now a water park.

Temple of Heaven - can't believe all three are smiling and looking at the camera

Now this is how a photo is taken in China...Liz and her peeps.

And the hits just keep on coming

2011-06-17T11:18:00.003+02:00

Bathtub faucet - 1

Nugget's tooth - 0

Mishmash of a whole lot of nothing very exciting

2011-05-26T07:18:00.009+02:00

I haven't blogged in a long while because there really hasn't been anything noteworthy to blog about. We still have 3½ weeks left of school. The boys have been learning/playing baseball and loving it. Jack lost his first tooth. Nugget and I have been going to a music class that he thoroughly hates for about the first 20 minutes and then throws a tantrum when it's time to leave (school is going to be rough for that little man). Luc had a science fair (picture below). I'm busy researching summer camps with an emphasis on Chinese language (they'll thank me later). That's about it. Here's a picture of Jack after losing his tooth. He'd been begging me for weeks to "pin me down Mom" and pull it so the Tooth Fairy could come.

And the latest "Just Jack" - While playing with Dominic and being warned he was being too rough he ONCE AGAIN pushed things too far and Nugget ended up with a bloody lip and crying. He knew he was in trouble and before I could even start scolding him he said, "Sorry, sorry, sorry.....I just don't get when fun ends." That excuse ain't gonna cut it when your sixteen kid, but it's pretty funny now.

Here's a picture of Luc at his science fair. He did a great job and made us really proud.

And the streak continues

2011-04-20T12:06:00.006+02:00

I thought it was five visits, but it's actually been four ER visits in four different countries. Monday's trip occurred after a he slipped and fell on the playground at school. I saw it happen and didn't look like anything major, but he hit his brow bone just perfectly and needed five stitches to close the gap.

Clean up crew

2011-04-19T06:42:00.003+02:00

We should all enjoy licking the bowl so thoroughly.

Whiplash

2011-04-06T02:57:00.002+02:00

I feel like we have it after going from the Chinese countryside one week to the next week being in one of the most densely populated cities in the world with one of the most famous skylines. The boys are on spring break and there was a Chinese holiday (Tombsweeping Day) so we flew to Hong Kong for a few days. Great city....you can definitely feel the English influence and I've never seen so much high end shopping or ultra luxury cars in my life.

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My Little Nugsters is Two

2011-03-30T13:56:00.005+02:00

We had a family celebration in honor of my baby turning two. He was thrilled with the cake and a couple of bootleg Mickey Mouse DVDs for the car. Such is life as the third kid celebrating his second birthday in China.
Love, love, love that little man with the sunny personality and beautiful blue eyes. You make our family complete. Happy 2nd birthday Dominugget.

Guilin/Yangshuo

2011-03-25T23:42:00.006+01:00

As promised, here's the post about our trip to Guilin and Yangshuo with my Mom. I'd heard the area was beautiful and it didn't disappoint. It was so nice to get out of Beijing's dry, polluted air and be somewhere green and rural.

Some highlights and lowlights (dog meat):

~ Fields full of yellow canola flowers. This is a huge deal here and people were stopping everywhere to take pictures of them. It reminded me of the Netherlands when we'd go during tulip time. Funny thing is that our guide kept making such a big deal about them (and the fields were gorgeous), but these fields literally surrounded us in Germany and they were the bane of my existence there. I've never had such bad allergies in my life as when they were releasing their pollen.

~ Karsts - the area is littered with this beautiful topography (the hills/mountains in most of the pictures). I had no idea what a karst was until we moved here and went to Vietnam.

~ Visiting a farm house where 12 generations have lived over the past 300 years.

~ The farmer's market in Fuli which was both interesting for the fruits, vegetables, eggs, poultry we saw for sale, and seeing the food stands selling different dishes featuring dog meat. I literally saw the hind quarters of dog carved up and it's in the picture of the market on the slideshow, but hard to see. It's on the white freezer behind the woman with a teal coat and blue apron.

~ Watching the water buffalo at work in the fields

~ Going cormorant fishing on the Li River. From Wikipedia: Cormorant fishing is a traditional fishing method in which fishermen use trained cormorants to fish in rivers. Historically, cormorant fishing has taken place in Japan and China from around 960 AD.^[1] and recorded from other places throughout the world.

To control the birds, the fishermen tie a snare near the base of the bird's throat. This prevents the birds from swallowing larger fish, which are held in their throat, but the birds can swallow smaller fish. When a cormorant has caught a fish in its throat, the fisherman brings the bird back to the boat and has the bird spit the fish up. Though cormorant fishing once was a successful industry, its primary use today is to serve the tourism industry.

It's a long slideshow. I was snapping pictures of the gorgeous countryside the whole time, but I tried to spare you having to wade through too many. I had a hard time getting the captions to show up, so they are a mix of all different colors and in different spots on the pictures. The playback is also kind of slow, so you can click through faster at the bottom, right corner. There is one random one thrown in at the end where I took Mom to a restaurant featuring duck, which is famous here. I still haven't found a duck dish that I like - yuck.

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Cooking Lessons

2011-03-25T09:20:00.009+01:00

Kenny had a bad stretch of travel over the past few weeks, so my Mom flew in to keep us company and do some traveling of our own. Kenny made my Mom promise to teach me how to make her Bolognese pasta sauce which we accomplished yesterday. Today my cousin Debbie posted on Facebook that she'd just made our Grandma's breadsticks and this inspired me to whip up a batch with Mom today. While we were at it, we thought "Kenny would really love some of gnocchi when he gets home" so we made those too. I've put my Mom to work for part of this trip teaching me her secrets, but her trip wasn't without some adventure. I'm working on another post about our trip to Guilin and Yangshuo. Travel and cooking - two of my favorite things in life.
We had lots of "help" because we rolled the gnocchi after the boys got home from school, hence some uneven and unusual shapes.

A little fatter than I remember Grandma's. I had lots of questions for you Debbie, but it was two o'clock in the morning your time.

It's been awhile, but he did it again...a "Just Jack" quote

2011-02-23T06:27:00.004+01:00

"Mommy I like your new haircut. It's just like a pretty lady's haircut."

I would never have believed it...

2011-02-23T01:52:00.008+01:00

If I hadn't witnessed it with my own two burning, red eyes.

I think I'm going to have to change the name of my last blog post to "Four trick pony" because I need to add one more theme to our time here in Beijing - pollution. You seriously can not understand it if you don't live in it. Last week we had blue skies, warmer weather and I was starting to get spring fever. This week we have had the most unbelievably vile, nasty, tear inducing air pollution. My spring fever has changed to get-me-the-hell-outta-here fever. It has to be the one of the worst polluted cities in the world. I haven't had time to Google it, but my eyes, nose, head and throat tell me it's so. I had no idea air like this existed before we moved here.

Like I commented on a friend's Facebook wall who was also lamenting our wretched air, I needed to blog and post pictures so someday when my boys are trying to explain to the doctors why their fiercely antismoking Mom is in the small percentage of nonsmokers with lung cancer, they can just pull up pictures. This is pure pollution. No fog, no haze, no mist.

It's funny because there are quite a few expat blogs that I cycle through and read when something catches my eye. 100% of them have posted something complaining about the pollution and how grumpy and depressed it's been making them. Add me to the bunch.

Three trick pony

2011-02-21T11:45:00.004+01:00

When I think back about our time in Germany three main blog post topics come to mind: 1) poor customer service, 2) poor hair services, 3) healthcare fiascos. I'm beginning to get a grasp on what my themes for China will be: 1) poor drivers, 2) food, 3) the crazy utility purchasing process. This post is regarding number three and something, one year later, I have become especially frustrated with.

I was told that I needed to go to our clubhouse to buy gas. As usual, I take my wallet and march into the clubhouse to tell them I had been informed we were low on gas. You'd think they were used to this declaration and thus, prepared to assist the residents on purchasing this fairly important commodity, but nooooo. It seems to take longer each time I go and I usually leave more confused about whether I have purchased something, or not. Every single time I ask them, "how much gas, electricity, water do most people buy at one time?" I never get a clear answer, so today I tried a different tactic. I happened to only have a small amount of cash on me, so I fanned it out in front of her and said, "I want to buy this amount of gas." That really seemed to confuse the poor girl. She asked, "How much gas do you want to buy?" Now after laying out your cash how would you answer this query? I started by pointing out the obvious. Um, 1500 RMB worth?....blank stare. Um, ten gallons?.....blank stare. A tankful? 42 quarts? 14 inches? A bushel? Eventually she took my money, gave me some type of receipt and as of 8:00 pm this evening our gas stove top is still working.

I could do what a lot of others do and let my Ayi handle this process, but what fun would that be? And what would I have to blog to you all about?

"Hmmm, any gas?"

"Yep, we got gas. Or is that just Indy?"

Lantern Festival

2011-02-17T05:28:00.008+01:00

Today/tonight is the lantern festival which marks the end of the Chinese New Year festivities. Per Wikipedia "Lantern festival is a festival celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunisolar year in the Chinese calendar, the last day of the lunisolar Chinese New Year." I guess there will be a lot more fireworks tonight, but we missed the big fireworks shows on New Year's Eve because we were in the Philippines. As you can see by the picture Kenny didn't miss out on buying fireworks though....about $150 worth. There are fireworks stands set up all around our area and we're not talking sparklers. Here are also a couple of pictures from Jack's lantern day parade this morning.

Nickel and Pesoed

2011-02-09T01:57:00.011+01:00

So I'm sure "pesoed" isn't a word, but most people know the expression "nickel and dimed." Well, we felt completely nickel and pesoed after a week in the Philippines for Chinese New Year. Yes, we were just in Thailand for Christmas and this break was WAY too close to that one which may have contributed to our feeling of "I just want to go home." But, if Kenny and I had a peso for every time someone said to us, "that will be xxxx pesos more than your reservation/menu/contract/agreement says" we'd be rich. Well, not rich, but we could buy a few more of their delicious mangos.

Here are some of the positives for our trip:
- In general, wonderfully friendly, beautiful, hospitable, generous, English speaking people
- Manila is Little America as far as shopping, restaurants, English signage if that's what you're looking for in a vacation
- Great food. We were hosted in both Manila and Bohol by coworkers of Kenny and their families. We had some amazing Filipino food and wonderful hosts.
- Beautiful beaches, seas/reefs and nature (unfortunately it seems animal welfare and protecting the environment are not high priorities here, more later).

A few of the negatives:
- Aforementioned request for more money around every turn

- A couple of bad hotel experiences and a terrible experience with Philippine Airlines

- Scariest taxi ride of my life and that's saying something after some that we had in Egypt. I think the guy was drunk or stoned, but he WOULD NOT take us in the direction we wanted. Our friends provided us a driver on the first two days, but we ventured out on our own the last day. They told us they all have drivers because it's safer and now I know why. I was in the back seat with all three boys when things got serious. Kenny was yelling at the guy in the front seat and I was quietly telling the boys to be quiet and if I say move, they don't ask questions. I told them to just bail as fast as they can while I continued to mentally calculate how to grab all three of them. At that point we luckily slowed down and I saw a hotel and yelled at the guy to pull over. I grabbed the boys and ran to the security guard. They driver obviously had something to hide because he was one of few people that didn't ask for any pesos and drove off.

- Animal welfare and environmental protection, or lack thereof. A quote from the front of our tour book reads "Filipinos pollute like they smile - copiously." Very true, although this was not glaringly obvious to me (I think because I see so much litter here in China every day) until we went on a snorkeling boat. The beautiful water is literally littered with trash. When we got out to the "protected" reef we were asked for more pesos for an entrance fee and asked to rent (more pesos) boots so we could walk around on the reef - what??? And that's exactly what people were doing. Anyone who has dove or snorkeled knows a reef can't last long when treated like a mountain. I felt bad the whole time and Luc was so good about trying not to touch or walk on anything. Jack was freaked out by the current and was on the boat with Dominic most of the time.

It seemed that every attraction we wanted to see we were unwittingly paraded in front of animals kept in very sad conditions. On the walk up to the highest point on Borocay there were monkeys, bats, raccoons, etc. in little cages. Some were missing feet and legs because of trappings for display. Outside one restaurant we ate at there was a monkey tied to a tree, pacing back and forth. Then there is the legal cock fighting. I was hoping against hope for a somewhat gentler answer than I figured was coming when I asked a man how they determine the winner in a cock fight. He started out giving me a little hope by saying there are judges. I thought, "maybe they just peck each other a bit and then a winner is declared." The explanation went on, but ended with "Ma'am it's really pretty easy to tell though because the loser is dead." Well, there you go. Don't ask if you don't want to know.

I know, I know....poor Kerry had to travel twice within a month boo hoo, but I really think a lot of my negativity comes from just not being ready to travel again after Christmas (except for the animals and litter, those still bother me).We probably should go back someday when we're really ready for a vacation and like I said the Filipino people are some of the nicest we've ever met. Now we have a dry spell until a break in April so I'm sure I'll be ready to go again by that time. All these breaks are also the reason our kids don't get out of school until almost the end of June. The boys had a great time. As long as they have a beach and a pool that makes for a perfect holiday.

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One of the funnier online videos I've seen in quite some time

2011-01-19T23:28:00.002+01:00

Kids, don't text and walk:

Santa, Elves and Buddhas

2011-01-05T10:16:00.005+01:00

Beaches, pools, water parks, snorkeling, zip lines, snakes, elephants, lizards, laser guns, fireworks and wats. We just got back from a trip to Thailand for Christmas and New Years. Kenny and I visited Thailand back in 2002 and loved everything about the country. We were reminded why on this trip. It's such an easy country to travel in, plus the people are so friendly and the food is amazing. We only visited Bangkok and the island of Phuket this time around. I'd like to go back to Chiang Mai and explore more of the coastline and islands in the future. We did a lot of scuba diving in '02, this trip Kenny taught the boys to snorkel while Dominic and I played on the beach. They picked it up quickly and both are now saying they want to scuba dive once they are old enough which looks like age 10. It's a long slideshow (35 pictures), but we packed a lot into our fourteen days there.

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My laugh this morning

2010-12-11T23:27:00.014+01:00

Stole this link from my friend Liz's Facebook and since I have a few friends who haven't joined the FB cult, I'm posting my favorites here with the link. These are the blogger's comments which I found to be the best part. I only wish I was this witty. Here is the link.

At first I thought "Nothing symbolizes maternity better than a watermelon and a gun" and then I thought "Actually, nothing *does* symbolize maternity better than a watermelon and a gun". Bravo Mad'am.Wee, you're in great shape and I've gained 60lbs! Let's take a picture of it. You're a douche.

Why do I feel like this woman was talked into this? I could see her thinking, "I'm just too tired to argue plus the kids won't be able to take off because hockey equipment will slow them down and I'll hold their heads. I'm sure it will look fine."

And my favorite:

Um, yeah. No. I'm just going to go with a solid no on this one.

Tree decorating weekend prep

2010-12-03T02:26:00.007+01:00

Christmas music on the Ipod - ✔

"The Santa Clause" movie ready for Saturday night's showing - ✔

Baby/doggie gate located for Christmas tree protection - ✔

Christmas cookie dough made with a lot of "help" - ✔

Good thing these cookies are only for our family

He didn't fall Sara....even when l went into the office for a bit to work on Christmas cards and left him in charge....kidding Sara.

Eight under eight

2010-11-24T11:29:00.019+01:00

We're kind of new to the play date thing. When we left Germany the boys were almost too young for play dates where the parents weren't also invited. Then we had a bit of time in limbo here in Beijing while the boys made friends that they were interested in having play dates with. Lately it seems the boys have been invited to a lot of play dates and they were bugging me about having their friends over to our house. I figured this week was as good a time as any.

I should have known I had possibly bitten off more than I could chew when all of the teachers were saying, "You are so brave" as our pack was leaving the school. I should have known I had possibly bitten off more than I could chew when I had to do a head count of our pack around 6 times before we made it to the car.

When I got to the school the teachers told me that the kids were all extremely excited and had been all day. I got that impression as I walked into the school and could see Jack and his friend Izzie's faces pressed up against the windows staring at the school's entrance.

After a short ride home with kids screaming and my driver laughing, we made it to our house. To the kids it might as well have been the gates of Wallyworld the way they acted once I opened the front door. Kids scattered everywhere. I had kids upstairs, downstairs, outside, going potty, hungry, scared of Indy, wanting to play with Indy. For the next two hours I had kids needing their gloves on, shoes off, diaper changed (Nugget), hands washed, nose wiped. Kids drawing, playing soccer, playing Legos, doing experiments, building with Magnetix, playing sword fight. I can't believe it was only two hours.

We had a busy, loud house for those two hours and to you play date veterans I probably sound a bit dramatic, but it was our first "official" play date and in hindsight I'd say I probably should have started with one friend each AND enlisted another adult to help. I've also gotta say, boys have A LOT of energy (like I didn't know that already). Even the girls seemed to sit back once in a while seemingly blown away by all the testosterone.

All's well now though. The boys went to bed tired and happy, and after 3/4 bottle of wine I'd declare our afternoon a success.

Kiddos after school snack:

Mommy's pre-play date snack:

Jack and his best friend Izzie:

Again, all of this happened in about two hours:

To my boy's credit, they lived up to their promise of cleaning up the basement after everyone was gone.

Made me ALMOST want to quit using Facebook

2010-11-24T01:59:00.004+01:00

I read that it was pretty fictionalized, but Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Parker (from Napster infamy) come off as major @holes. Still a good movie and an interesting look at the general process that has created a revolution in communication and the youngest billionaire in history.

Dance party

2010-11-16T12:11:00.003+01:00

The boys and I have started having dance parties around dinner most nights when Kenny's out of town. I'm probably way behind the curve, but did you know you can search for most songs on YouTube and there are karaoke videos for them with the lyrics? Through this process I've learned that I basically have been singing the wrong lyrics for most every song I thought I knew. I've also learned that the song "Kung Fu Fighting" would have probably never flown in our hyper-pc times.

Here's a picture of the boys dancing. Nugget really gets into it, but of course always gets shy when the camera comes out. Luc's "worm" dance looks more like upward dog and Jack, aka John Travolta, is stuck in the 70's. The only trace of Mommy in the picture is the half empty bottle of wine on the counter. She was shakin' it though.

Beijing has one more crappy (scooter) driver hitting the streets

2010-11-08T05:24:00.005+01:00

It's electric and so far I haven't gone any faster than I do on a bike. I will need A LOT of practice before I feel comfortable (or maybe I will never feel comfortable) taking the boys on it. I just keep seeing all these women shuffling around 2 and sometimes 3 kids on scooters and think, "if they can do it, I can do it." Sometimes I think we should just go all in and get our licenses and a car, but at least with a scooter/bike you can ride down the bike lanes or sidewalk and be out of traffic. Nugget's nap times on days our Ayi is here are now dedicated to practice runs with my new found freedom. Maybe Kenny will get me a set of leathers for Christmas.

My first lesson started with me leaving skid marks from my shoes down the almost nonexistent slope of our driveway and Kenny giving me these words of wisdom, "You're not Wilma Flintstone. Use your brakes."

Favorite night of the week

2010-11-07T02:14:00.005+01:00

Saturday nights have morphed from being just sleepover night to movie, popcorn and then sleepover night. All five of us look forward to this night and even Nugget can sit through about 20 minutes of the movies (anything to act like his big bros.). The movies we watch have slowly been creeping up the rating scale into PG and last night's showing was "Night at the Museum." I'm more amused by the boys fits of laughter over physical, slapstick type humor than by the movie usually. I try not to dwell on the fact that these moments and stages go by way too quickly and enjoy the moment.....BUT, every Saturday night I can't help but think someday Saturday night will probably take on a new title for our boys that doesn't include their parents. Where I grew up Saturday night was "date night." Lord help us.

Speaking of growing up too quickly and on another subject, I sure wasn't prepared for the word Luc came home from school asking about yesterday. After a few seconds of stuttering, and A LOT of explaining (Luc never stops with one question), I hope he mostly came away knowing he can ask me anything. Again, Lord help us.

I blew it when I was supposed to suck it....

2010-11-05T05:15:00.007+01:00

My little nibbles and licks of the duck heads were pretty amateur as far as how they were actually meant to be eaten. A work colleague of Kenny's told me I was actually supposed to suck the brains out. Damn, and I'd already thrown them out when I was given that bit of culinary advice. The ones I bought seemed jerkied though, so I probably would have had an aneurysm trying to get the goodies out of those. It seems someone has actually put thought, time and energy into different preparations of this delectable dish. She also told me that her favorite part of the duck is the skin on the feet and the webbing between the toes. It's no wonder these people are so skinny. The calories expended gnawing off the food have to be more than you ingest.

In other news, Kenny had another chichi lunch today where they try to impress people with fancy food. He was served pig sphincter.....from the end of the food pipe.....and he said you could tell that this is what it was. I didn't ask any further questions.

And now a photo to change your "ew" to an "aww:"

Well, will you get a load of this....

2010-10-28T05:09:00.006+02:00

A nice, big, headless, footless chicken. I found it today while shopping at a store that is a bit out of the way, so I don't shop there often. It's a big store and right now with Dominic in tow I need to be in and out in less than 15 minutes. Today I didn't have anything I desperately needed to buy or hunt for so I had our driver take us there. I always start out my trip through this store in good spirits thinking "why don't I come here more often?" It's a nice, clean store with an amazing bakery. Then we hit the live food (or what we would call pet) section and I leave feeling a bit queasy. Today was the first time I'd noticed live frogs between the turtles and fish. I can't believe they don't make a break for it.And just for a great blog picture I had to buy these jerkied duck heads. I know they are jerkied because since I called myself "adventurous" in a past post I didn't want to risk being called out so yes, I tried one. I'm not sure if "tried" is the right word or why you would buy them other than to suck on because there isn't any meat on them. And they're spicy.

Reserve my bed now

2010-10-26T12:18:00.005+02:00

If this company ever decides to manufacture crack make that call to Promises rehab clinic now. I'm loving the Ipad and even this photo of Jack touching my new toy makes my heart skip a beat. I seem to be raising future addicts because I stupidly ignored the advice of my friend Jean and let Jack play some games tonight. The fit he threw at dinner when I made him put it down probably resembled an addict jonesing. Then he told me the Ipad was "the best thing ever and I want one." That company is GENIUS!

Facinating

2010-10-20T10:58:00.003+02:00

Whenever I hear the name Temple Grandin it piques my interest. Not only because I've been extremely interested in the whole autism spectrum since I did an internship in a special needs class way back when I was at CSU, but also because she's now a professor at CSU. This movie is extremely well done and acted, but mostly it's a fascinating look into how a person with autism sees the world. It's unreal how similarly both Temple Grandin and John Elder Robison (from the book I mentioned some time back called "Look Me in the Eye") describe some of the traits they share.

What an amazing woman and life.

"If I could snap my fingers and become nonautistic I would not do so. Autism is part of who I am." ~Temple Grandin

2010-10-17T04:25:00.002+02:00

Here are a few random pictures from the trip. We always tease my Dad that as soon as the car hits about 35 MPH, he's out like a light. I don't think his head bobbed more than 2 times on this trip because he was so fascinated by the farming techniques, especially the rice farming.

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Halong Bay

2010-10-15T13:14:00.003+02:00

Following our two days in Hanoi we headed out on a two day cruise of Halong Bay. It was truly beautiful and the floating fishing villages were a glimpse into a fascinating, unimaginable (for me) way of life.

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Hanoi

2010-10-15T10:59:00.003+02:00

We flew into Hanoi from Beijing and spent 2 days touring around the city. I'd heard many times about all of the motor scooters there, but it's hard to appreciate until you're literally surrounded by them 24/7 and try to cross a street for the first time. We happened to be there for Hanoi's 1000 year anniversary so the city was even busier than usual. We did a lot of walking, visited the Hanoi Hilton where John McCain was a POW, and took in the tourist mandatory water puppet show.

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Back from Vietnam

2010-10-14T15:02:00.004+02:00

We all had a great time in Vietnam and I thought I'd write a quick post while my parents were still on the plane back to the US so they couldn't yell at me. They had no idea what they were in for when the came, but as usual they were up for anything and had a great time. The boys are missing them like crazy and couldn't ask for better Grandparents that would do/try anything as long as their Grandkids are involved.

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More touring around with Grandma and Papa

2010-09-30T09:06:00.011+02:00

Monday while the big boys were in school we drove out to the Great Wall.

Tuesday the boys, Mom and Dad, and I flew to Xian for a quick overnight trip to see the Terracotta Warriors and fast tour around Xian. Pretty amazing and still shocked I did it without Kenny who was traveling in another part of China.Thursday we took in the Forbidden City and some shopping at one of the markets here before picking up the boys from their last day of school before the October holiday.

Dominic and his Peeps

2010-09-27T14:27:00.011+02:00

A "peaceful" day out showing Mom and Dad around Beijing with our little rock star:

Come here little boy:
I WILL hold you:
Let me...no, let ME help you:
I don't need no stinkin' help:
Get back here:

His "Britney" move:

We were at Temple of Heaven when all of this took place. Here's a family picture where you can play "Where's Waldo" with Jack if you enlarge it:

Ick on a stick

2010-09-27T12:02:00.008+02:00

I sooo wanted to name this in honor of what we found out the long meat on a stick at the Beijing "snack street" was, but refrained. As promised we took my Mom and Dad there and found out some the long meat on a stick in this picture is donkey penis (dick on a stick....OK I didn't refrain).

I had myself all psyched up to try scorpion (you only live once) and then right before I picked out my treat Kenny said, "I've heard the oil they fry it in is really nasty." Why the nasty oil would deter me from eating scorpion is beyond me. Maybe I was looking for an easy out, but really all I could think about was the dirty oil. I also couldn't get over the fact that there wasn't one Chinese person eating this stuff, so maybe they know something we don't. Again I walked away without trying something.
Here are some more pictures of what could have been my afternoon snack:

Angelina and brood go out in the rain

2010-09-23T00:44:00.000+02:00

This has happened to us twice now, so now I have to jot it down in my "strange/funny things about living in China" file. I've been caught in the rain while shopping two times. Once with just Dominic and more recently it was all three boys and me. My driver always runs around trying to keep us covered with an umbrella which makes me feel weird enough....we're not walking the red carpet and we lived in Seattle for 7 years. We don't melt. Twice now, we've had our driver trying to keep us dry AND some random guy at the strip mall we shop at has pulled up a big patio umbrella and followed us. Not just a big umbrella, not a huge golf umbrella, a patio umbrella like the one they set up outside Starbucks at the tables. We must be quite the sight and the whole time I'm chuckling at the absurdity of the whole thing, plus how seriously everyone takes keeping us dry. Especially our driver who can't decide which of the scattering ants he should cover...."Do I keep the number 1 son dry?" "Oops, number 2 is getting wet." "Oh, Baby Mama and Baby are going around the other side of the car." "How do I keep them dry AND load the groceries?" "Oh my gosh, Baby Mama is heading for the trash can, but Baby is still in the cart. What do I do? WHAT DO I DO?"

As is usually the case here, the actions that inspire my posts come from the best intentions that keep our lives interesting.

Here's a picture of how we found Jack sleeping on our nightly rounds last night. The kid just can't seem to manage to stay in bed. When he sleeps with us on Saturday night sleepover we call him "The Tornado". Notice the pillows on both ends of the bed. Maybe we need to add one to the floor and come to think about it, after one incident in Germany maybe the bathroom floor too.

Our dog is "special"

2010-09-22T10:33:00.003+02:00

And she just gets specialer and specialer with each konk on the head. Although listening to my crazy woman laughter in this video, it could be arguable who the most specialer one is.

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Grandma Marin would be ashamed of me

2010-09-21T06:47:00.006+02:00

But, what the hell do I do with this?

I grew up going out to my Grandparent's farm on slaughter day and getting the bejeezus scared out of me when chickens with their heads half cut off chased my sister and I around. I know where chicken meat comes from. I'm now accustomed to plucked, cleaned, beheaded, defooted, plump (don't lecture me on where this plumpness comes from) chickies that can feed my family. I've been craving roasted chicken, but have been leery about the poultry counter. Today I decided to give it a go. I thought I picked out a headless critter, but when I opened it and held it up, let's just say it took me 15 minutes to calm poor Dominic who was sitting on the counter "helping" me.

Another funny thing about tonight's meal prep is that I'm used to cooking one chicken for our whole family. Look at that scrawny thing....I should have bought four! Someone at Kenny's workplace told him that the Chinese people don't like the white meat, but prefer dark. They said that the chicken breast would be some of the cheaper meat at the poultry counter. My Ayi confirmed this saying the white meat dries out too much in Chinese cooking. I don't know if they do something to discourage the breast from bulking up, or this is just the type of bird I happened to buy, but there seems to be NADA for breast meat. Look at all the loose skin and teepee shaped chest.

I'm nothing if not adventurous, so I'm going to cook 'er up and have Dominos on speed dial. I'll let you know how it goes.

Time's Up

2010-09-19T10:59:00.011+02:00

I wrote about our crazy utility purchasing process here. Well, today was an epic failure of Kerry "Jack Bauer" Stumpff. And it couldn't have come at a worse time. At the end of a lengthy, bad stretch of being a work widow (including the weekend), I had finally made it to the last of Nugget's nap times before Kenny got home. During a long day or a long week I LIVE for this little slice of quiet time where I can shut my door and read (with my eyes closed). I got Nugget down, got the boys settled with a video, went upstairs and thought, "hmmm, things are a little TOO quiet." No air purifier hum, no AC fan, no Star Wars video, no white noise machine. Insert expletive here.....and I'm sure it isn't as bad as what I thought. I waited until Kenny got home to stay with the boys and then took off to buy me some power, but come on, there has to be a better way.

It's been one heck of a long week with illness, single parenthood, tear inducing pollution, rain, broken water dispenser (which dispensed about 5 gallons of water on my floor last night at bedtime) and a blackout, but now all is right with the world again. Kenny's home, we have electricity and there's always tomorrow for a little reading (with my eyes closed).

Boy and a bungee

2010-09-17T11:23:00.002+02:00

I thought Nugget was crying outside, but turns out he and his best buddy were amusing themselves snapping the bungee cords under the trampoline. Of course I was too late with the camera to capture most of it, but there are some pretty big belly laughs around the 35 second mark.

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Perfect for washing down the fried scorpions

2010-09-15T12:50:00.002+02:00

As if on cue

2010-09-14T09:04:00.003+02:00

1:45: Kenny leaves for US until Sunday

1:48: School calls, "Jack has 101 degree fever, can you come and get him?"

And so begins a week's worth of single parenting, with at least one, but most likely three sick kids. I was down and out with a high fever and stomach bug all weekend, which is totally unlike me. I hope the boys get over it quicker than I could shake it, actually, am still shaking it.

Someone send me a case of this please:

One for the list

2010-09-08T03:30:00.008+02:00

I'm trying to embrace this no car thing, but I think it's over. We got my bike all geared up thinking this fall I'd start exploring around our area. We got the baby seat, baby helmet, lock and basket. Today I didn't have our driver coming until around 12:45 to take Jack to the dentist, so I thought I'd try to make my daily grocery store run on my bike.

I got Dominic all loaded up and off we went. It was relatively cool and felt like fall. I was feeling pretty good, breathing in the smog, sharing the bike path with cars, motorcycles and donkeys, but I thought, "hey, I live in China, I'm riding my bicycle in China, that's what they do in China, and I'm doing it, how cool is that?"

We made it to the store, got the few things I needed, got Dominic settled in his seat with a croissant and headed home. After about one minute of riding I felt like the back of the bike was really wobbling, but I had tied the grocery bag to the back of Nugget's seat, so I thought it was swinging around and throwing me off balance. I stopped, secured my load and took off again. Still, we were really swaying and given that I'm not that great on my bike anyway, I got off again, gave the bike the once over (from about my waist up), moved a couple of the straps from Dominic's seat and took off again. You may remember from this post, I'm not the sharpest crayon in the box when it comes to things mechanical, but after dismounting again it dawned on me I had a flat tire. I had no cell phone, no tire pump and was at about the farthest point from home I could be on this outing. So after 1½ hours of pushing Dominic we rounded the corner into my driveway.....and I tipped the bike. Turns out bike helmets and baby seats protect kids pretty well. Dominic was asleep when I deposited him on the concrete and he just kind of woke up and gave me a look like, "What the hell am I doing sleeping strapped in this seat laying in our driveway?"

So adding to my "name it, and claim it at age 40" list of things I'm not going to pretend to like:

1) the beach

2) summer heat

3) not having a car

4) riding a bike

Another food post

2010-09-06T03:00:00.002+02:00

I think this will be a recurring theme while we're living in Asia. If you've been following our adventures you'll remember that I posted about food-shock here and here. This weekend we accidently stumbled upon a street food market that I'd heard about, but we hadn't purposely looked for yet. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera since we were really looking for baseball gloves for the boys and I didn't think that was photo worthy. I'm slowly learning that most EVERY outing is photo worthy in China. Anyway, here is the one and only picture we got with Kenny's Blackberry, but I'm sure we'll go back (SOON..... as when you are here Dad, and you aren't allowed back in the van until you eat something of the boys choosing). The scorpions were still alive and wiggling. I don't think the sea horses and starfish made it. There were also spiders-on-a-stick and big-@ss-bugs-on-a-stick. You picked out what you wanted and then they'd deep-fry it. Kenny was again regretting ever saying he could eat anything if it was deep-fried. I think when Kenny saw the deep fried locusts again he burped up something nasty. I didn't see anyone eating the crunchy stuff, but a lot of people eating some long meat on a stick. I'm afraid to know what it was.
It's funny because for the Western people the food was the attraction, for the Chinese people our three boys were the attraction....again. Poor Dominic isn't going to know how to act when he doesn't draw a crowd. I notice that when someone isn't paying attention to him, he'll get right up close and stare at them like, "hey, Western kid here....Western, BOY here....CUTE, Western, BABY BOY here WITH blue eyes."

Pretty decent Lego organizer

2010-09-06T02:49:00.004+02:00

Thought I'd share a storage box I discovered for Legos. It consolidated all the Legos I had in the three bins beside it down to the multicolored box on the right and there's room for more. It's four trays with different sized holes in the bottom so you load it up with your Legos and shake so that the smaller pieces keep falling down and are sorted by size. The problem comes with the human factor (aka three boys) when they either don't use it or build things that they don't want broken down. It's pretty fast for me to use though and I could see it being good for storage someday when they don't play with Legos anymore, but want to save them for their kids.
Here's a link to the website: Box4Blox

I think I'm going to have to order this book

2010-09-03T07:37:00.007+02:00

I read about it in USA Today and agree, or disagree it looks like a pretty funny read. Here are a few from his list:

- Peter Travis for inventing the Speedo

- Anheuser-Busch for the first corporate-branded stadium

- George Vernon Hudson for daylight savings time

- Stella Liebeck for promoting ridiculous lawsuits (that's for you Alan)

- Ticketmaster for making a $20 ticket cost $32.50

- Tweekers for putting Sudafed behind the counters

- Dr. Robert Atkins for a stupid diet

In keeping with the theme of yesterday's post I'd add Justice James Wilson who (according to a quick Google search and could be total BS) coined the phrase "politically correct."

Today's politically incorrect rant making fun of political correctness run amok

2010-09-02T03:46:00.000+02:00

This requires the use of acronyms (which you know I hate), but OMG get a life people!

This is an excerpt from an online discussion/debate about buying "authentic Mexican burritos" on a message board for expats here in Beijing...

"I personally, don't like when people tend to use the term "REAL" for something it is not. Tex-Mex food is also good and tasty food. but it is not Mexican! I do appreciate, that we can find restaurants from all over the world in Beijing, but, please, be politically correct: do not use REAL MEXICAN if it's Tex-Mex."

And if any of my Mexican friends try to defend this I'll "defriend" you :-)

Nugget and I don't care where it originated, we just know we like Mexican, Tex-Mex, Latin American, southern North American, spicy-ass food.

The nightly hunt

2010-09-01T12:45:00.002+02:00

Kenny takes these mosquito zappers back to the office in Connecticut as gifts at his monthly meetings. They're a huge hit as you can imagine. Good thing none of us has a pacemaker.

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Exotic work travels

2010-08-30T10:11:00.006+02:00

On one of Kenny's last trips he was honored with a "special" meal....locusts, eel and turtle. Even my Ayi was grossed out by his dinner.He also shared the flight home with the Chinese basketball team.On a separate trip he traveled back roads for a full day to open a school his company has sponsored. He said this was the first time the children had ever seen westerners and they were very curious and grateful.

Today's "Just Jack" installment

2010-08-26T04:14:00.005+02:00

While I'm racing around getting dressed this morning....

Jack - "Mom why do you wear boob covers (aka bra). Your boobs look just like mine."

Me - "Well sweet child o'mine, that's because you and your brothers sucked what meager allotment I was given in the chest department right off of me."

Thank you Starz

2010-08-25T08:26:00.004+02:00

And HBO and Showtime because like one blog I read said, "Hollywood is on life support." Yes, it's a movie post, if you aren't interested skip to the picture. I like good movies, or in this case, good TV. Anyway after fast forwarding my way through "Sex in the City 2" (seriously on my Top 10 list of horrible movies) and quitting half way through all the Twilight movies (I liked the books, but wasn't age inappropriately gaga over them), I have now turned to TV for quality entertainment. And look, I'm not a snob. Remember not so long ago my favorite quotes were coming from "Zombieland."

Anyway, for all of you that have read Ken Follett's "The Pillars of the Earth" you need to check out the miniseries on Starz. It follows the book and is extremely well done. I'm bummed because I'm caught up and now have to wait for the next episode.

From HBO Kenny and I are watching "The Pacific" and although it so far hasn't lived up to "Band of Brothers" it's still great. It's also timely given that I discovered BOB when we first moved to Europe which sparked my passion to learn about and visit every WWII site we were remotely near. Now with the miniseries about the war in the Pacific I'm learning about a different battlefront which we happen to now be living near. On a funny side note, this reminded me of when we went to the Battle of the Bulge commemoration near Bastogne and met one of the men who was briefly portrayed in BOB and he told us the series was a load of "B.S." He was as feisty and cocky at around age 90 as he probably was back in the 1940's.

The best TV series I'm currently watching is from Showtime and it's "Nurse Jackie." I heard Edie Falco was up for an Emmy, so hopefully it will or has been renewed.

Anyway, had to get that off of my chest. Especially the "Sex in the City 2" part.....quit screwing with a good thing. Samantha + menopause ≠ funny. In my next life I'm coming back as a chef/travel agent/movie,tv, book reviewer. Side note...I just finished reading "Look Me in the Eye" - great book.

Nugget's current favorite art medium....his face and the countertop.

First day of school

2010-08-20T10:08:00.004+02:00

Also known as "Mental Fist Pump for Mommy Day."

Our friend Jean brought back Star Wars T-shirts from the US for the boys and both were very excited to wear them. Luc did great and marched right in, but in normal Jack fashion he had to be dragged in kicking and screaming. After school he told me that no one would talk to him (I think all the kids were pretty shell shocked and shy), but if they would just "talk to me I know they would like me." I"m not sure how to explain to a 5-year-old that thrashing around in the teacher's arms probably doesn't make the best first impression. We'll see how Monday goes.

The campus is coming back to life

2010-08-15T01:07:00.011+02:00

Adding to the growing list of things that are "different" (to put a positive spin on it) about living here...everyone seems to abandon ship and go somewhere for the summer and I mean the WHOLE summer, not 1-3 weeks. It's such a strange atmosphere and I felt like we were on a college campus for the summer because we'd decided to go to summer school. A lot of these people don't see their spouse for weeks at a time. The boys and I are bummed when we're separated from Kenny for a week and that's always work related. I guess we're lucky, but home is where we're all together.

Anyway, school starts this week for most kids here and our compound is waking up. I'm seeing more and more kids and non-Chinese people. The boys have their first full day on Friday after an open house Thursday afternoon.

I don't have any new pictures, but here are some pictures of Luc from our trip trying on traditional Mongolian hats:

Over the excuses

2010-08-13T04:21:00.008+02:00

I am so over the excuse people give me when we are talking about the abysmal drivers here...."but, we/they haven't been doing it long." I have to say...I'm no longer buying it. The obviously smart people here have developed nuclear weapons, they've sent humans and satellites into space, they have the capability of bringing the US to their knees with all the interest we're sending them with our debts, and you're telling me they can't learn to drive while following some type of rules? l love the people here...and I think they love not following any rules when they drive. They've been able (for the most part) to follow the one-child-rule and that hasn't been in place long either. A teenager in other parts of the world hasn't been driving long either when they get their license, but they seem like Dale Earnhardt, Jr. comparatively. I was going to use my 16-year-old self as an example, but my in-laws may beg to differ....sorry about the planter Dean and Vay. Just my rant for the day, which manifested because of the four car accidents in two days that I've seen while taking the boys to soccer camp this WEEK.

Nugget's method of using chopsticks.

Just Jack

2010-08-09T14:17:00.006+02:00

You know those rough flights when turbulence causes you to feel like your stomach is in your throat and then in your toes? We had one of those for part of the trip back from Mongolia. Jack was by the window and we hear him going, "whoa, whoa." Then to no one in particular and very seriously he says, "I feel like I'm breathing out of my butt." Pure Jack.

Un-flippin-believable

2010-08-08T10:25:00.003+02:00

Mongolia that is. We just got back from a long weekend in our neighbor to the north and both Kenny and I said it easily moved up the ladder to one of our favorite places we've visited. Ulaan Bataar, the capital, is quick 2 hour flight from Beijing (although "quick" is a relative term when you are trying to contain a newly walking 1-year-old on a plane). We learned so much and I can't believe how ignorant I was about Mongolia.

Some facts I learned and that I don't want to forget:

- The Mongol empire was founded by Genghis Khan in 1206
- 16th and 17th century, Mongolia came under the influence of Tibetan Buddhism
- End of the 17th century, it fell under China and the Qing Dynasty which lasted until 1911
- And what really surprised me and made me feel stupid for not knowing, Mongolia was behind the iron curtain, under Soviet "influence" until 1990. This was unbelievably apparent in the writing and language which look and sound Russian, but the people look Asian.
- I didn't think it possible, but the Mongolians are worse drivers than the Chinese. Compound that with the fact that they like to drive fast and their best roads are worse than the US's worst roads. Kenny and I both think we may need some dental work after this trip. It's also such a vast open country that half the time we were just driving on some cattle trails hoping and praying that the driver knew where he was going.

We were so lucky in that Kenny combined the trip with a bit of business (you don't hear me say THAT often) and the man (John) Kenny met with is an American who has lived in Mongolia for 13 years. He's one of the only American business owners there, thus he knows the Mongolian president well, is called on to entertain American senators/dignitaries when they visit and is meeting with Hillary Clinton in the upcoming weeks. He is also an incredibly nice man and helped us with all of our planning, provided us with a driver and hosted us at his ger camp (the round felt tents and Mongols traditional housing) for two nights.

The first night we stayed in a luxury ger camp. The reason I felt I had to put the word luxury in there is that besides being round, they really didn't resemble a traditional ger at all (as John kept reminding us) and I'm fine with that. It was amazing. It was cool though because the main room had the beds, jacuzzi, sitting area, bar, bathroom and then attached was a smaller ger that was supposed to resemble a traditional ger. Nugget can now say he's slept in a real ger since that was his room for the night. They also had a great restaurant where we had a five course dinner. Did I mention it was amazing? You'll get sick of all the pictures I've posted of this camp, but I couldn't stop snapping photos. The wide open spaces it looked out on were incredible. I also became acutely aware of all the light and sound pollution we are inundated with here in China. I've never seen so many stars.

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Just another day in paradise

2010-08-04T03:17:00.004+02:00

Took the boys to get their first of three rabies shots today....yes, rabies shots. I guess since there are so many street and stray dogs around these parts that haven't been vaccinated, rabies is a real problem. I did my research (as I always do when it comes to medical matters) and decided it would be worth getting the preventative vaccine. The boys are old enough to know not to get close to an animal they don't know, so I was wavering on whether we needed it. Then when we were in Tibet a very scruffy, aggressive looking dog charged at us and I decided to take the proactive, better safe than sorry route. The boys aren't too happy about this decision and the nurses had to chase Jack around and catch him for his turn with the needle.

Here's our Ayi giving Indy a bath. No, I didn't ask her to do this. Yes, that is humidity in the air.

I hate the heat

2010-07-31T03:53:00.007+02:00

And I hate heat and humidity even more. We've had record temps along with 83% humidity. Our windows are all fogged over. If I step outside my glasses completely fog up. It's miserable.

The boys have been spending most weekends in our pool trying to cool off.I put some water in a container thinking Dominic would like to splash around in it....with his hands. Instead he decided it's more fun to BE in it.
And try to drink it.

Comes with the territory

2010-07-27T12:32:00.006+02:00

First major fall and lump while walking. Poor little man. He tripped and hit a table edge/corner. It's amazing how fast bumps on the head swell. Thank goodness he's my third, or more importantly that he came after Jack, so I didn't freak out too much. It was much better by bedtime, but look at that lump.
.
Nothing a chocolate cookie wouldn't cure.

The new grocery getter

2010-07-26T11:30:00.000+02:00

Our new mini-I've-given-up-all-hope-of-looking-cool-van (actually that door probably slammed a few birthdays back) was delivered this week. It's fully loaded and there are some cool features, but I still don't get the appeal. This is one "never" I'm confident I won't be eating in the future. Anyway, you'd think our driver was just assigned to ferry us around in a Maserati. He's like a 16-year-old with a new car. Every day when I open the front door he's out there dusting, polishing, wiping down a Buick minivan. What's even funnier is that he can't figure out any of the features. He points to things like the DVD player/screens or back seat controls and says, "no work." After a day of him punching buttons (thus eyes not on the road) I mimed to him "book" and he handed me the manual. Unfortunately it was all in Chinese. I figured I'd go through it though because there are usually pictures and using said pictures I was able to figure out the DVD, navigation, back seat air-con, CD, etc. Mr. Sun thought I was a genius and I was like, "dude (I thought the word "dude" because it goes along with my too young and hip for a minivan persona), you have the manual, pictures AND can read Chinese. Help me out here." I'm thinking I may have to disable the back up camera. He just gets a little too giddy when it comes on and can't figure out where he should be watching. He really is a great driver in a sea of horrible drivers, but the newness is very exciting to him.

To go with the new car we've adopted new nicknames. These are the names that our driver calls us. Kenny is now "Sir" and I am "Baby Mama" and conversations around our house sound something like this....

"Sir get your ass in here and put the toilet lid down!"

"The correct position of the lid is up in a house with four boys Baby Mama."

Big week for the Nugsters

2010-07-23T03:53:00.006+02:00

First he learned to walk, then he figured out how to go down the stairs (he's been going up for quite some time), then after a few cranky days I checked in his mouth and saw one of his molars was half way through. Here are a couple more things he's learned this week:

Started using a spoon. Messy, but very proud boy.

After our trip to Tibet without one single restaurant having a highchair I decided to research light, portable meal time containment options and here's what I came up with. I'm trying to get him used to it at home before we take off again. It's very secure and he seems to like sitting at the counter with the big boys. Yes, he is sharpening pencils and after that I had some knives that were getting dull.Now that he's walking and going up and down stairs, I can never find the kid. Yesterday I called and called, and when neither he nor Indy made a peep I figured out they were outside just hanging under the trampoline. I leave the back door open for Indy and Dominic loves exploring out there with her. She is unbelievably patient with him. She lets him use her as a walker when he's not steady and one afternoon I watched her let him repeatedly throw sand from the sandbox on her back.

Great documentary featuring two of my favorite groups of people

2010-07-21T03:49:00.009+02:00

That would be the military and the youth-challenged - that's a p.c. way of saying older folk because you know I'm all about being p.c. In fact, I've been thinking of doing a weekly blog post about ridiculous p.c. words/phrases I've heard lately.

Loved, loved, loved this documentary, but I watched it on the treadmill and was tearing up so much I fell off. It was touching, honest, heartwarming, inspiring, sad, and patriotic all rolled up in a thought provoking film. Don't call me sappy though....I find that term very offensive. I prefer heartlessly challenged.

We FINALLY have a toddler

2010-07-20T05:24:00.003+02:00

We knew eventually he'd let go. I had a hard time getting it on video, but here are a couple of short clips.

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Bad timing

2010-07-08T09:26:00.010+02:00

I know with the world cup going on, this will rub some of you in the wrong way (sorry Nikki), but here is reason 51 why I hate soccer:

I mean come on, now this sport has my boys wearing hose. Can they at least attempt to label this part of their uniform something tougher? Maybe not considering the rest of the uniform is called a "kit." Give me a helmut, mouth guard, and some pads, a la hockey and "real" man's football.

Jack doesn't care though. He said, "I look awesome in these stockings." Should I be worried?

Wonder what Indy's prison trainer would think of what she gets away with now?

2010-07-08T05:45:00.007+02:00

Ya think any of this was acceptable in the big house?

Happy Fourth of July!

2010-07-04T09:25:00.005+02:00

Never been prouder to be an American. Happy 234th birthday U.S. Rockin' A. To all of our friends and family that have in the past, or are currently serving this great nation....thank you for our freedom!

What a strange kawinkydink

2010-07-02T11:36:00.003+02:00

After we got back from Tibet I decided to check into movies that had been made about the history of Tibet. I've watched "Seven Years in Tibet" (OK, but I thought Brad Pitt was terrible) and "Kundun" (more interesting, but kind of long). Both movies are banned here in China and "Kundun" got Martin Scorsese and Harrison Ford lifetime bans on entering the unforgiving PRC. The best part of both movies was the scenery which looked exactly like what we saw when we were there even though neither were filmed in Tibet.

This afternoon I put on a Scooby-Doo movie for the boys called "Chill Out Scooby-Doo" and where was it set? Tibet! I was busy fixing dinner, not really paying attention when I heard something about the Dalai Lama. A few seconds later Jack said, "They're drinking yak butter tea." How apropos and kawinkydinky!

Whew - last slide show

2010-06-29T07:25:00.003+02:00

The afternoon of our last day we went to the Summer Palace or Norbulingka. This was a much more personal residence and the current Dalai Lama's radios and beds were still in the palace. After our guide dropped us off at our hotel, we decided to walk through the old town, specifically the Muslim section. There is a small Tibetan Muslim population (approx. 3,000 out of a population of roughly 500,000 people) and one mosque.

Two more things I thought of that I didn't want to forget about trip were:

1) I just couldn't get over how blue the skies were and how clean the air was (except for all the incense). I dreaded coming back to Beijing's polluted air.

2) What the title of our trip should be....after the Tibetans looked our boys over thoroughly more than one of them would point to Kenny and say to our guide, "He makes them all the same." Oh, if they only knew Jack.

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Morning of last full day

2010-06-29T02:12:00.003+02:00

The morning of our last full day in Tibet we drove about 18 miles outside of Lhasa to Drak Yerpa Monastery. Are you getting the feeling all we did was tour monasteries? You'd be right, but they were all very different and interesting in their own ways. Drak Yerpa is a bunch of meditation caves with a monastery built around them. It was destroyed during the cultural revolution and I found this tidbit in a Google search, "Although it could not have been a military threat to the Chinese, Drak Yerpa was terribly damaged during the Cultural Revolution. Its monasteries were destroyed, its caves were defaced, and its trees and shrubs uprooted. Today, hermits are gradually returning to the caves and its shrines are being restored."

The drive was also very interesting with all the prayer flags draped over the mountains and drying yak dung along the side of the road. This was the stop where Kenny and I were at the highest altitude we've ever been, just over 16,000 feet (4885 meters). I don't think I would have really even noticed it if I hadn't been Dominic's sherpa.

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Sera Monastery

2010-06-28T11:41:00.004+02:00

The afternoon of day 2 we went to Sera Monastery which houses about 800 monks and is famous for their afternoon debates. The monks face each other down, stomping, smacking their hands and shouting in each other faces. Our tour book said, "Think Tibetan Socrates meets Jerry Springer." It also said debating is a method of learning the texts the monks are studying. They have to prove they understand their learnings and aren't just memorizing and regurgitating them. It was quite interesting and I've attached a short movie at the end of the pictures so you get a better idea.

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Chanting monks at Drepung Monastery

2010-06-28T02:35:00.003+02:00

Right as we were about to leave Drepung Monastery in the morning, one of the monks told our guide that they were about to start a chanting/prayer service if we wanted to stay. It was pretty amazing and hypnotic. All the noises you hear are the chants, no instruments and the smoke is all incense. The Tibetans love their incense. It's everywhere from inside the temples and monasteries to burning in huge burners on the street. Our guide loved it, but it was a bit overwhelming for us and made my eyes burn after a while. The video is about 45 seconds long, but you can get the idea after 25-30 seconds.

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Tibet - Day 2 morning

2010-06-27T11:58:00.004+02:00

We spent morning number 2 at Drepung Monastery right outside the town of Lhasa. According to my guide book, for centuries Drepung was the largest monastery in all of Tibet. At one time it housed over 10,000 monks. Today there are around 700 monks living there. Not all of the monasteries allowed photography, but this one did so I posted some photos of the amazing colors. We also lucked out as it was some Buddhist holy day and we were able to observe the monks chanting. I'll upload a short video of that in another post. It was pretty amazing.

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Packing the roof

2010-06-26T11:55:00.003+02:00

These men and women were tamping down down some dirt on a roof and our guide said they sang to make the time pass quickly. I had this song in my head for the rest of the day. You can see the woman with the watering can as she spotted Dominic on my back. I thought the Chinese people in Beijing loved kids....it's nothing compared to Tibetans. You can also see all the woman in the front row staring at him. Then their eyes would get bigger and bigger as they realized we had three boys. Kenny constantly got the thumbs up for having three boys. Our guide said he'd never had any other customers like us. We stopped traffic everywhere we went and we literally stopped the concert right after this video was shot. Our guide also got a bit nervous with us because we'd have a crowd of Tibetans surrounding us and he said that made the Chinese police nervous. At first I thought he was blowing smoke, but sure enough I started noticing the police coming over to investigate the crowds that followed us around.

Tibet - Day 1

2010-06-26T03:15:00.004+02:00

We spent our first day seeing the Potala Palace in the morning. This is where the Dalai Lama would reside if he were allowed back into Tibet. It was quite a hike and we definitely felt the altitude when climbing the steps. The town of Lhasa sits at 12000 feet (3650 meters) and a lot of people suffer from altitude sickness when traveling to Lhasa. We had no problems except feeling out of breath especially when climbing stairs and steps.

The afternoon was spent at Jokhang Temple which is a 1300-year-old structure and the spiritual center of Tibet. At any time day or night you see pilgrims prostrating themselves outside and on the circular kora or path around the temple.

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Diving in the deep (or high) end

2010-06-17T12:53:00.013+02:00

The boys finished school on the 18th so we thought we might as well start exploring Asia. Xian's terracotta warriors, nope. Chengdu's pandas, nah. Shanghai, uh-uh. Those would all be way too easy. We loaded up three kids, 4 suitcases, stroller, car seat, backpack and headed to the political lightening rod, seemingly fading Hollywood pet, altitude sickness inducing, Buddhist spiritual wonderland of TIBET. It was all worth it though...what an amazing trip. It's going to take some time to weed through the 600+ pictures, so in this post I've just listed some things I want to remember about the trip. Probably TMI for most people, but since this is my only form of journaling it's mostly for me. I'll eventually get to more pictures, promise.

~ I came away with a much better understanding of Tibetan history, but probably am more confused about the current political climate. I definitely learned it's not as simple as the slogan "Free Tibet," but most things aren't.

~ I wasn't prepared for the heavy Chinese military/police presence. It's more overt than Israel and our guide constantly had to remind us to keep political questions/comments for the car because there are "ears everywhere." We were also told not to photograph the police, but Jack didn't get that memo so I think we have a few pictures from when Jack was in charge of the camera.

~ I was shocked that Tibetans aren't allowed to have passports and can't travel without some major hoops being jumped through.

~ Unlike the rest of China, Tibetans are allowed to have two kids if they live in the city, three if they live in the country.

~ We visited many temples/monasteries which house thousands of monks. This started me thinking about the Catholic church's recent scandals and why Buddhism hasn't had the same issue. I could care less what the Catholic church lets their priests do, but in the future when someone tries to blame the problems on celibacy with a statement like, "it's just not natural" all I will be able to think is, "well, why don't the Buddhists have an issue with it?" It's thousands of men, living a celibate life, with plenty of contact with lay people and I've never heard of a problem. Not a judgement in any way, just another thing that made me go, "hmmm."

~ Tibetan buddhists have one of the more interesting takes on vegetarianism. According to our guide, most Tibetans would prefer to be vegetarians, but given the altitude and landscape of Tibet this wasn't always possible. This is the reason yak became a staple. We had yak meat, yak butter, yak stir-fry, yak jerky, yak butter tea (a better name would be YUCK butter tea). Now that Tibet is more connected to other areas via train and better roads, they can get fruits/vegetables so our guide said many people are going back to being vegetarians. The interesting part of this is that the reason they depended mostly on yak is that they see killing and eating fish and fowl a waste. With a yak if you take the animal's life, it feeds many. Eating fish and fowl are seen as "taking a life for a handful of meat."

~ We were at the highest altitude we've ever been when at Drak Yerpa Monastery - 16023 feet (4885 meters)

~ Burials - we got a very quick explanation on what Tibetans do with the body after someone dies. So brief, and strange sounding that I had to do some Google research to make sure we'd heard our guide correctly. The highest level lamas are sort of mummified and buried in a "stupa" or type of crypt (understood). Monks are cremated (understood). Lay or "normal" people as our guide called them are hacked to pieces and fed to the vultures (what!). To make matters worse Kenny thought our guide said "given to butchers" not vultures, so he thought that meant they were then eaten by people - thus, my Google search. It gets worse....children and babies are tossed in the river so our guide said, "don't eat Tibetan fish." Um, OK pass the yak.

Watch out Tibet...here we come

Visit to The Summer Palace

2010-06-14T11:08:00.000+02:00

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Your running out of excuses for visiting Papa Roger

2010-06-13T12:42:00.008+02:00

Even your Grandsons can handle chopsticks and LOVE Chinese food.

Gotta get a hobby

2010-06-11T03:28:00.003+02:00

I know I've been spending too much time flipping back and forth between Facebook and Perez Hilton when I clicked on the latter and thought, "Oh my gosh, which one of my "friends" had their picture taken with Bono?"

From Perez Hilton this morning NOT my Facebook page:

I never thought I'd say this, BUT

2010-06-10T09:37:00.004+02:00

I kind of miss Germany's "quiet hours" law. Here in China I go to sleep to fireworks. I wake up to fireworks. Dominic's naps are interrupted by fireworks. Now that one really pisses me off. Even more so than being jolted awake at 6 AM on a Sunday morning.

When I asked my Ayi about it she just said, "Chinese people like fireworks." There's no rhyme or reason to them, especially the ones during the daytime that you can't see. I know for Chinese New Year they set them off to keep away evil spirits, but some days I literally hear them off and on all day.

The soundtrack for our time in Germany will be set to church bells. Fireworks will be what reminds me of our time in China. It's not like our household isn't noisy enough.

Tick, tick, tick

2010-06-07T10:03:00.005+02:00

I feel like Jack Bauer watching the time counting down only I'm being a bit dramatic since it's not a bomb and only my electric meter. Someone didn't let me know it was low and my Ayi informed me it's now below 200. This is apparently bad since it's flashing red and I've watched it go from 199 to 190 in less than an hour. I'm also sweating my butt off because I've turned off the AC to try and conserve power for the Internet. I have my priorities. I ran to the office, handed them a wad of cash and I think (you never know with the whole translation thing) they are going to somehow recharge the card and bring it to my house. This is risky though since they've previously told me they only go to the bank to recharge the cards on Wednesday and Saturday and at this rate we won't survive that long (again, being a little dramatic).

To be continued.....tick, tick, tick

Things that make you go hmmm...

2010-06-07T05:32:00.003+02:00

I just got back from a pediatrician's appointment with Dominic where he got some of his vaccinations. This, plus a discussion I had been having with my friend Larissa (congrats to her and her husband on their new baby boy born last week!) about childhood vaccines started the wheels turning for me. For the record, my kids are fully vaccinated and I do believe in childhood vaccinations, BUT what is up with the urgency and overload in the US? I've now lived in two countries where the maximum they will give a kid at a visit is two shots. It makes for more visits, but I think it relieves some of the anxiety on the parent's part about the controversies swirling around the whole immunization process. Another difference I see is that there isn't such a panic about getting specific shots done at set ages. Luc ended up being way behind in Germany because I didn't know I had to be the one to bring up the subject. Still, when I figured out he was behind there was no, "oh, my Gosh, he needs 7 shots TODAY!" We just had to make a few visits for two shots at each visit.

US medicine still kicks ass in my opinion, but with so many parents afraid of vaccines these days it seems the pediatric community would be better off taking an approach other than, "We know best, now hold your baby down while I poke them 5 times." I think we'd have way more vaccinated kids if they let the parents set a (reasonable) pace. This expat experience has definitely made me a lot more involved and proactive in health care for our family.

And that's all we have to say on the subject, except Dominic would like to add that he opts for zero shots per visit. Don't you feel sorry for our waitstaff after we leave?

Brad and Angelina

2010-06-06T11:49:00.007+02:00

These are the code names Kenny and I use for each other out in public here. I seriously think Dominic draws a bigger crowd than Angelina might here. It's not the money or our looks (obviously), but it's the kids. We are literally stalked when we are out in public by Asian people wanting to take pictures of and with our kids. We went to The Forbidden City today and it took twice as long because crowds would gather around us so people could jump in and take pictures with Dominic (the big boys are kind of freaked out by it). Here's one crowd that developed after what we imagined was someone yelling , "WESTERN BABY FOR PICTURE OVER HERE!" The girl in the white dress literally followed us for about 20 minutes taking pictures with her camera phone and then another 10 minutes after whipping out her fancy camera. Kenny's worried Dominic may have had his first French kiss.

Dominic was kind of over it by this point, but this was after about 40 photos, so you gotta cut a kid some slack. I love the look on this woman's face...."and here's a picture of me with some random little white baby."Photo of the big boys sans paparazzi:This is at the beginning of our tour before our famous brood had been outed:Can you even imagine what real celebrities go through with their kids? The good news is that people here are SO nice and genuinely love kids so other than slowing us down, it's pretty heart warming.

This is going to get annoying

2010-06-05T02:21:00.009+02:00

The boys have started speaking to each other in Chinese, giggling and then asking if I know what they're saying. Usually it's butt, pee and poop talk and I thought, "What the heck are those Chinese teachers teaching them?" Then I remembered that probably half their classmates are Chinese, so what do you teach foreign kids in your native language? Butt, pee and poop talk, of course. As they get older I'm sure it will turn into swear words, so I'd better stop complaining.

Here are the boys after swim lessons this week and right before their school's art show:

Jack's art project:

Luc's picture:

Honesty

2010-06-02T12:03:00.004+02:00

"Mom....Dominic stinks, he's poopy. Oh wait, maybe it's just what you're cooking for dinner."

~ Luc ~