January 2018

 Look at this smile! He just spent his birthday AND Christmas money buying a phone watch!  Before you panic (all of you who were called in the middle of the night when he was younger and took daddy's phone), he can only call people that I have entered into his contact list from an app on my phone. Also, no one can call him unless they are an approved contact PLUS it has GPS so I always know where he is ;) So, I think this one is a win win (so far anyways) :)

 Benjamin has been saying for a while how he really wants to take guitar lessons.  He was even willing to take from a local teacher (which told me how much he really wanted this because he doesn't like speaking the local language).  As we were looking, we found a store that just opened up. The guy was really nice, and his flyer said "International students welcome. Lessons taught in English." Plus on top of that, he was having a grand opening sale and the lessons were much cheaper than normal.  He's only had one official lesson, but can already play well.

 These two puppies love to practice "sit"  or should I say they love to try and earn a treat.

 Well, this is the most ridiculous thing ever.  How are you supposed to shop when every aisle looks like this? This is not a store poorly restocking. No. The shelves behind these boxes are completely full and they even started putting signs up on some of the boxes so that you knew the price. I could barely get through the aisle let alone running into another person in the same aisle or trying to find what I was looking for.

 I did finally catch a glimpse of what I was looking for.  I was out of the country and knew that this store sometimes carried imported chips for a good price, so I thought it would be fun to talk some Cheetos back to the kids (and for myself..haha). No Cheetos that I could see, but I managed to move all these boxes and find a bag of Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream. = Happy surprised kiddos at lunch the next day.

 I guess with crowds like this leading up to CNY, that store will probably sell out of all of their items?

Speaking of CNY...Jonathan had a work party at one of the factories.  They had a raffle and gave away lots of prizes and he won a rice cooker!!!! We are SO EXCITED about this!!  I know many of my readers will not understand, but when in Asia, you NEED a rice cooker.  We have had a small simple one for 7 years.  For the past year and a half Ayi has been tell us that we need a new one because the old one would work then not work and you had to fiddle with it.  Also, the old one only held 5 cups of rice and it was overflowing. Many nights it just wasn't quite enough rice and some people were still hungry. THIS one is all fancy and the rice tastes great (yes, it makes a difference) An added bonus is that we can now cook up to 8 cups of rice :) YEAH!

 Yeah, not very pretty, but it's just part of life these days.  This is as we were making a turn toward some better days.  Our levels have been around 235 "hazardous, close all windows, stay inside" as my phone said. Today is all the way down to 58, so much better :)

 Katherine's science...she's been studying about earthquakes.  Her project was to make two house out of marshmallows and toothpicks, one that she felt could withstand an earthquake and one that might not. She then set them in her Jell-O and lightly shook back and forth (small earthquake) then she shook it faster and a bit harder.  She was right. Her tall one fell quickly while her other one with better supports held up under both "earthquakes"

 It's time to get the puppies their first haircut! Poor Scout was running into things because her couldn't see.

 Oh, they don't even look like the same dogs!

Aren't we cute?

 Before

 After

 Scout likes to sit up on Regan's shoulder :)

 Ok. Now just check out this bowl of soup! Yes, this is supposed to be a large mixing bowl, but someone said that she was starved and fixed a double portion of soup! She was so excited...and no, she didn't finish it :)

 Lauren wants to take lessons to learn how to play this instrument.  Hmmm. I'm glad that they all love music and want to learn, but this thing is a bit big.  The lady let her try it and of coarse a crowd formed soon after :)

 The kids got a surprise Valentine's package!!

 This is a picture of what have been hearing constantly for the past 2 weeks.  They are building a bridge and the methodical banging day and night (meaning middle of the night) is getting old.  I'm hoping that it's been so much because they are trying to finish before the new year? I hope anyways :)

 Lauren got a free ping pong lesson :)

 Woohoo! Look who just passed his red belt test!!!

 Great job Benjamin!

 Regan also got an award for excellence in taekwondo! They chose a few kids from all the different centers and she was picked!

 Good job, Regan!

 Polly is my little English student.  She has been coming over every day during her winter break.  She really is good!

 So the weather went from 72 to 45 overnight! Brrrr! Our complex said that people from the south don't know how to handle the cold weather so they gave out hot drinks.  They posted this picture on their website...haha!

 Doing school by the fake fireplace :)

 Regan is going to taekwondo camp for the next 2 weeks.  The first day she came home for lunch, but these two girls were so bummed about it that Regan stayed today.  They went out for lunch.

 These two girls just love Regan! Cute picture!

 I'm so excited for her! They presented Regan with her black belt certificate today!! It finally came!

 I didn't get to see it until she got home :)

This is her official first degree black belt card that allows her to coach anywhere in the world!! So cool!

A New Year

 The kids are back into their full routine of school again after Christmas.  They all got some Christmas money (and some still have some saved from birthdays) and were eager to spend a little.  Where? They asked to go down the street to buy a hot dog on a stick. :)

 They enjoyed it!

 And this guy. Look at that smile!  All he could talk about was how he wanted to spend some of his money to "get his picture made" He wanted to get passport photos so he could make himself a badge. The others he put up on his bulletin board. :)

 Oh, he was just too excited.  The lady taking his picture said that they wouldn't work because you couldn't see his eyes because he was smiling too big. I told her it was fine. I don't think she believed me, but I decided it was best not to try and explain that the photos were just for fun.

 Check out this awesome black belt!  She got promoted to assistant coach for some of the classes!!  She LOVED it!  She got to work with these two and had a great time. Some of the kids have even started calling her Coach instead of Hudie.

 Shadow. Enough said. I knew it was too quiet!  I walked out of the school room to find this site. He froze in his tracks in hopes that I would not see him.  Sorry dog. The evidence is still in your mouth.

 Finally got our dryer fixed! YEAH!! It's been several weeks since our dryer quit working.  The place that fixed it in the past is no longer there, so I asked our neighbor to help call a repair guy. I should have asked my neighbor in the first place, but when I saw that the weather was going to be raining and in the 40's for the entire next week, I decided I better hurry!  I just couldn't handle that much laundry all over my house trying to dry for days.

 He came and fixed the dryer, but in the process he accidentally broke off the water pipe!  Water was gushing and spraying everywhere!! He yelled for me to cut off the water to the apartment (as he was trying to stop the water from coming...which wasn't working) but I had no idea where to do that.  I sent three kids running to find a neighbor who might be home and I went running outside to find a guard in our complex to get help.  Turns out that there is a closet looking thing on each floor in the hallway near the elevator where you can shut the water off for each individual apartment.  So, we had to do without water for the day while I found someone to fix this problem...which I had to pay for. Hmm. I'm glad we have water again and a dryer again! :)

 There's a show at the seashell building and lots of traffic to go with it...

And this girl is SUPER excited!! One of her dance friends gave her a ticket to go see Swan Lake!!!

 They made it to the seashell building in time.  I love the dresses and tennis shoes :)

 The mom of the other girl sent me three pictures for Lauren from the ballet.

 We have been waiting for this day to come!  It is finally out here!!  We bought our movie tickets for the brand new theater in town!

 Star Wars 8

 (in 3D hence the glasses on Lauren and Hudson)

 WE are moving up in the world! Look what just opened near us!

Katherine said it looked so good and she was pretending to eat the beef off the picture! We were already watching a movie and could splurge for Burger King as a meal, but we got some fries to snack on while we walked home.

 Once all the stores open up in this mall, it looks like it will be pretty nice.  Time will tell.

 Check out the size of the screen!  The kids were going nuts!  I'm sure this is a normal size screen in the States these days, but it's been awhile.

 The movie theatre was really comfortable and the sound was excellent!

 We had the entire place to ourselves until about 2 minutes before the start of the show.

 Ok. Lauren's face cracks me up. Maybe she should go into acting. haha!

 The view these days isn't so great.  I have a love hate relationship with winter in this country. I love the cooler weather, but I really hate the pollution.  This day wasn't one of the worst days, but you could feel it in the air...harder to breathe and your eyes burn.  Thankfully, the weather forecast was right and it rained for a week, so the air is really good right now.

 One day a year, they let the parents come to class to watch what the kids have learned.  It's the week right before they test.  So, Lauren is level 4 about to test into level 5 for ballet (I think there are only 8 levels)

 She loves it so much!

This is one of my favorites because of the smile on Lauren's face.

 Tippy Toe Shoes! Unfortunately, I only have a video of her pointe shoes exercises and dance.  It's quite impressive.

 We baby sat for our friends so they could go see Star Wars 8.  I was thinking that it would be a little extra work adding two more kids to the mix, but not at all.  Lauren was so glad that she was "old enough" to take care of the baby.  She held Phineahs for at leas on hour and then played with Naomi and read her books.

 Katherine was a huge help, too!  She played with Naomi (3yr) at the beginning and then she was on protection duty to make sure no one stepped on the baby ;)

 Anyone need a bike?  I think there are plenty! It's like this all over the city now.

 Jonathan was gone for a week and I got to do more errands than usual. One of those was buy meat. I really wanted some ground beef.  They didn't have any, so I asked if they would tomorrow. Nope. The next day? Nope. When? Because that's what I want.  He sent me to talk to the manager on duty and she said she would have it for me tomorrow and save it so that no one could buy my meat! YEAH! (This is really a big deal because beef is hard to come by here. It's mostly pork in the meat section.)

 This is the picture we sent to Jonathan so he knew that they were being fed ;)  They ate every bite.  The next day is when we fixed vegetable soup.  Lauren said, "Poor Daddy.  He's missing all the good food." Score for Mommy! :)  (The kids all think that only Daddy can cook good food)

 It was pretty windy so Katherine asked for a break to go fly a kite.

 Hudson started taekwondo with his sister!  He loves it. Regan loves taking him. And the coaches love Hudson, too!

 These are the kinds of pictures I love finding on Regan's iPad :)  Sisters. They are so much fun!

 Here is Regan's black belt!!! I know. It doesn't look like a black belt, but it's the real deal! Kukkiwon rules (in Korea) state that if the black belt is earned before the age of 15 that it looks like this.  The gold letters with her name and the Chinese characters on the other side of the belt and the one gold stripe showing that she is a first degree black belt.  When she turns 15, they will automatically send her the solid black one with the same gold lettering.

We had some girls come over.  Hudson made them all a card (and apparently gave them all money...which I didn't find out until later) They all thought it was so sweet. He even wrote the time down on the cards so that they knew exactly when he finished it.  He's a giver.  Sweet boy.