I wanted to start off with this picture of Lauren playing dress up. It's hard to believe that she can wear all the dress up clothes and come up with outfits on her own. I guess she is about that age :)
This is my first time to have a friend in this country have a baby! It was so exciting. She is actually my 2nd friend, but my other friend returned to her hometown to have the baby, so I just now got to see her child and she has already gotten so big. So, back to this picture. My friend's baby is 2 weeks old. Here there are MANY "don'ts" Some of those include: do not leave the house for 1 month, no fans or air conditioners (even in this crazy heat), the mother cannot touch cold water, many things that you cannot eat, etc. The list could go on and on and on. My friend said that she did not mind if I came by to visit. I was so excited. This is going to be the only picture I have of her with hair. When they turn 1 month old, they shave it all off! They will take her hair and have it made into a calligraphy brush. I told her that Lauren is 2 years old and still has not had a real haircut. She told me that when we do that she will take it to have a brush made for me. I said, "Really? I don't think curly hair would make a good calligraphy brush." :)
We also celebrated Mid Autumn Festival. It is the 2nd most important holiday of the year. It is a time of getting together with family and friends, talking, eating mooncakes, and watching the moon. It is the 1 day of the year that the moon is the most round. You can google it if you want more of the story or I can tell you in person sometime. So, one of our friends invited us over this weekend to make dinner. It was my first time to help make a local dinner.
This is my disclaimer for those who are a littel squeemish (per request) :)This was the part of the meal that was very different to cook. She pulled the shrimp out of the fridge and I thought they were already dead...but no. They wiggled just a bit. As the temperature of the kitchen rose as we were cooking the other things, those little guys were wiggling/jumping all over the place. She wanted me to show the kids, so she put it in a bowl and on my way there, it jumped out of the bowl and landed in between two pieces of furniture. I screamed and the kids screamed and we all laughed..especially Jonathan. She then took about half of them and cut their heads off with scissors and then cooked them. The other half, she boiled later. I don't think we will cook them in our house, but they were good. Her son wanted to know why the kids were so scared of them (even after they were cooked). She explained to him that kids in America buy them already cooked with no legs and no head. What a concept :) Makes me want some Red Lobster mmmm :)
A glimpse of a typical altar inside many homes here. They will set out fresh fruits, cookies, cake, flowers, candles, incense, etc, all to worship their ancestors in hopes that they will receive their protection and blessing.
So, what did we do the rest of our long weekend? We painted Regan and Katherine's room. It was a family event. Everyone helped (except Lauren who still thinks it's ok to draw on walls...we did not want to encourage that) Regan got to help the most because it was the room she has been asking for...
She got to have her giraffe room! We painted the room yellow and then 2 walls have the giraffe print painted on it. The room took a little longer than I anticipated, so it is ALMOST finished. The painting is all done, but Regan has some of her own artwork that she is going to put up in the yellow space/cutout (above). I think it will be the final touch.
Both girls are very happy with it. Katherine is my all pink girl who likes girly things and loves flowers, and Regan is all about giraffes. This was our attempt to do both. Anyways. It was fun and tiring all at the same time.
We also went out to eat at McDonald's and this little store was selling this giraffe growth chart. I was very excited about it. This is the wall where we have been keeping track of their height. We had just painted over it all (I wrote down the measurements and dates) So, now I can do it on here and do not have to worry about writing on the wall any more.
THIS! This was my son's dream come true. He has been wanting to do one of these since we saw them last year. It is called Kong Ming Deng or we call it a flying lantern. It reminded us of the movie Tangled (if you've seen it, you know what I am talking about) Anyways, by far the most dangerous thing we have done here :) but it was fun. So you take the paper lantern, light the wax, and when the flame is big enough and hot enough, the lantern flies away.
We did two during the day, so that our friends could teach us how. We also did two at night. It was pretty cool to see them light up the sky. I just knew ours was going to hit a tree or catch someone's laundry on fire. Thank goodness all flying lanterns did what they were supposed to and flew high in the sky above all the buildings and kept going until we could not see them anymore.
One excited little boy, AKA Benjamin, running to see where it was going next!
On the actual night of Mid Autumn Festival. All the kids go out at night with their paper lanterns (with a real candle, with a real flame inside) and walk around. People would stop and talk with their friends and people were in very good moods. I could not get any good night shots, but this is a picture of our kids on the bridge. They loved that you could see the reflection of the lanterns in the water.
And I could not pass up this picture! How excited children can get when they get to stay up past bed time! :) Loved this one!
A glimpse of a typical altar inside many homes here. They will set out fresh fruits, cookies, cake, flowers, candles, incense, etc, all to worship their ancestors in hopes that they will receive their protection and blessing.
So, what did we do the rest of our long weekend? We painted Regan and Katherine's room. It was a family event. Everyone helped (except Lauren who still thinks it's ok to draw on walls...we did not want to encourage that) Regan got to help the most because it was the room she has been asking for...
She got to have her giraffe room! We painted the room yellow and then 2 walls have the giraffe print painted on it. The room took a little longer than I anticipated, so it is ALMOST finished. The painting is all done, but Regan has some of her own artwork that she is going to put up in the yellow space/cutout (above). I think it will be the final touch.
Both girls are very happy with it. Katherine is my all pink girl who likes girly things and loves flowers, and Regan is all about giraffes. This was our attempt to do both. Anyways. It was fun and tiring all at the same time.
We also went out to eat at McDonald's and this little store was selling this giraffe growth chart. I was very excited about it. This is the wall where we have been keeping track of their height. We had just painted over it all (I wrote down the measurements and dates) So, now I can do it on here and do not have to worry about writing on the wall any more.
THIS! This was my son's dream come true. He has been wanting to do one of these since we saw them last year. It is called Kong Ming Deng or we call it a flying lantern. It reminded us of the movie Tangled (if you've seen it, you know what I am talking about) Anyways, by far the most dangerous thing we have done here :) but it was fun. So you take the paper lantern, light the wax, and when the flame is big enough and hot enough, the lantern flies away.
We did two during the day, so that our friends could teach us how. We also did two at night. It was pretty cool to see them light up the sky. I just knew ours was going to hit a tree or catch someone's laundry on fire. Thank goodness all flying lanterns did what they were supposed to and flew high in the sky above all the buildings and kept going until we could not see them anymore.
One excited little boy, AKA Benjamin, running to see where it was going next!
On the actual night of Mid Autumn Festival. All the kids go out at night with their paper lanterns (with a real candle, with a real flame inside) and walk around. People would stop and talk with their friends and people were in very good moods. I could not get any good night shots, but this is a picture of our kids on the bridge. They loved that you could see the reflection of the lanterns in the water.
And I could not pass up this picture! How excited children can get when they get to stay up past bed time! :) Loved this one!
