Starting off with a little homeschool...Hudson was learning about clouds and weather in science. He had a really fun experiment where he made a cloud out of shaving cream and then got to watch it "rain" when the cloud could not hold anymore water. He really liked the hands on/visual.
The little girls had to choose a bird to do a report on in science. They each drew their bird for the presentation. The top bird is Katherine's, the bottom one is Lauren's.
Benjamin has enjoyed having his own little "workout station" in his room. This was his gift from us this year. He loves doing pull-ups, and this mama was telling him that the bunk bed was no longer an option for that. He was pretty creative in still doing them, but that bunk bed could not handle much more ;)
SiXuan wanted to show me her instrument and gave me a really cool demonstration. It sounded great!
This is a picture of Lauren wearing her "Aunt Emily shirt" (not because it was from Emily but because it has flip flops and if you know Emily, you know that she loves flip flops)
The girls were invited to go swimming at one of the local universities. They had the entire indoor pool to themselves! They are so ready for summer!!
Rocky has made himself at home in the boys' room.
The time has come! It's our trip to Hunan to visit Ayi!! It's been 7 months since she left us and went back to her hometown. It's what Lauren asked for for her birthday (the trip) but we couldn't get tickets any sooner because of holiday travels.
These two were super excited. Lauren so much so that she got car sick on the way to the train station and left everything just outside...no details....but yes, she still looks a bit pale in this picture.
Getting settled into our seats.
This girl even packed her silkworms for the ride. After she checked on them, I told her to put them back up since no pets were allowed on the train ;)
We arrived!! Ayi was waiting to meet us. She saw us come out of the station and started running across the street to us...you can see which other kid took off running as well.
Hugs
Hugs
and more hugs.
And typical Ayi style...feed us food, food, and more food. We hadn't even made it to the bus stop and this was her second time to feed us...haha!
I guess she knew we needed energy to climb 7 flights of stairs to get to her apartment.
It started raining...like Noah's Ark kind of rain...so we spent the evening playing UNO and talking.
MMMMMM, MMMMMM, GOOD!
The kids decided to play hide and seek in the house...not real sure how she got up there :)
Time for bed....Ayi will always tuck Lauren in. Not sure if she is saying help or hi or bye with the hand in the air :)
It's time for breakfast...
Yep. Wanton soup of breakfast. I just could finish it! It was so good, but so much food!!
This girl, however, got the wantons PLUS noodles and ate every bite. She's probably going to be 8 feet tall one day. This girl can eat.
still raining
but that doesn't stop us
she was under the umbrella with me :)
on another bus headed to Ayi's big sister's house
Ayi's sister couldn't believe how much Hudson had grown!!
This is what was being cooked for lunch...
It is planting season.
Cute little puppy watching the people do their laundry.
Met a nice lady and her grandson (who wasn't quite sure what to think about us)
Lunch break. This lady has been working the fields all morning with her son on her back.
I'm so glad that this girl was finally healthy enough to get out of the house. She was down for about 3 weeks...she wasn't at full energy level yet, but still able to have lots of fun.
loud speakers in the countryside....
making lunch
still getting some school done
it's a great place to read a book
lunch after it was "cooked" It actually wasn't too bad on the inside, but this green dough about did us in. I managed to eat 4.
This girl was great! She decided to play with Jonathan and kept trying to scare him. Too cute!
crossing this little bridge...I made Jonathan go before me because I wasn't sure it was strong enough to hold me up...it did, but it still is a little scary.
My girls LOVE the fields! They want to go back during harvest season ;)
Jonathan and his little friend
She's a hard one to get a selfie with....she's quick!
Ayi asked us if we wanted to go pick some food to eat. The girls got very excited. You literally had to walk through the forest to find them growing wild.
I forgot what they are called, but if I remember then I will come back and edit this.
They remind me of really long asparagus :)
Yep, they are back in there!
Here is our basket full.
Ayi's brother-in-law road a little electric bike to bring back everything. These things are pretty heavy! He said we picked really small ones!
Katherine carrying the basket part way until Shushu came back to get them.
Just because I love this picture. She had the biggest smile!
Group picture before we left. Shushu buttoned his coat all the way up to look nice for the picture...peace :)
waiting by the side of the road for the bus to come by
On the road again
Katherine loved getting to use her camera.
And even on the bus, we got looks of amazement as we drove by :)
I think we were all a bit tired.
So sweet :)
This park is new and right next to her house. She wanted to bring us here to show it to us. It was basically a maze a bridges that zigzagged across the water.
We went to her relative/neighbor's house a few buildings over. They had "pet ducklings" in the stairwell that they were feeding. The look on the girls faces when they realized that they would be dinner one day...you can only imagine ;)
She prepared a feast! :)
Ayi at her "restaurant" fixing breakfast for us. She was so excited to show us her business. I put restaurant in quotes because it's not how you would typically think about a restaurant. It was a door that she unlocked. pulled the cooking think out, and cooked for people on the streets.
It was good.
That's Ayi and Regan behind the buckets.
The store next to her let us use their table to eat.
This is Ayi's place near her work.
Ayi took this picture (actually a one second video on accident) and she wants to print it to have outside her work of us enjoying her food :)
This little guy was scared of us, but he was still cute.
Everywhere we went on this trip drew quite the crowd. We don't get that as much where we currently live, and Hudson had forgotten what it was like. He said it was scary and he didn't like it. They are just so curious. The kids did fine with it ;)
I'm very curious why these drinks are more than twice the price of a Coke?!
Selfies in the park...
Ayi wanted to sit in the park for a bit. I would normally like that, but I picture parks as quiet and peaceful. All of the different people blaring their loud music as they sang out of tune...my head was pounding! I kept trying to choose a different spot to sit, but they had so many people singing on their systems that it was impossible. BUT...I did get this picture of Lauren and her Ayi.
I saw this flower as we were walking to eat dinner....it was SO FAR AWAY and all up hill! It took several hours for us to get there.
We got to the restaurant and they had tons of beautiful peacocks. We found out later that they were on the menu :(
This was the restaurant. They had many strange choices to eat...peacocks, silkworms, rats, frogs, turtles, snakes, and more...I said, "Do they have any vegetables?" They did. It was actually a good restaurant...just not sure about the meat choices.
Katherine found a friend outside...well, the shell of one ;)
Ayi ordered fish and duck as the meat choices. I can handle that.
Another breakfast.
a walk in the park
Ayi showing the kids how to pick all the leaves off the trees.
Ayi and the kids
Hudson asked for this picture by the water. He said it was so pretty.
more plants
Our last meal
Happy birthday, Ayi!
The kids were very excited that we were there for her birthday! Regan and Jonathan went and found the cake and brought it back up.
All the kids and Ayi's great nephew.
At the train station about to head back. Lauren wanted a picture by the display made of flowers. It was sprinkling a little bit, but a big storm was coming.
They wouldn't let Ayi come inside the station, so we waited for a little bit outside and helped to prepare those vegetables we had picked.
Final goodbyes.
It was a good visit.
A few days after we got back, Regan wanted to check on the movie. She was beyond excited to find out that it was going to be playing, that we could buy tickets in advance, and that it came out TWO days BEFORE the States. I don't think she could smile any bigger :)
Lauren spent some of her birthday money at the theater to buy this super soft elephant.
It started storming after lunch and we had no umbrellas. We managed to get one taxi, but the rest of us tried to wait for it to lighten up a bit. So, we went to hand out at the bookstore....no English books, but they still enjoyed it!
