Mid Autumn Festival 2011

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!

Early Birthday

Katherine's birthday is not until September 24, but her school celebrates all the September birthdays on the first Friday of the month. So, if you want your child to participate in the big party, you can give them 5 kuai for a group photo and bring in a cake. I think this is the first time her school has had cupcakes, but they were special request from Miss Katherine. Typically, they just order a cake from the bread store and have it delivered to the school. But those cakes are very different from what we think of as birthday cakes. So, we baked them ourselves.

Here is Katherine putting her water bottle up. I didn't even get a bye. She loves her class so much. I'm so glad! I guess I will have to wait to see the group picture of her party whenever they get it to me.

She was so excited about her birthday egg! Every year on her birthday, her school gives her a hard boiled egg that is dyed red. I think it's one of her favorite parts about her birthday :) This year, she bit into her egg and it was a twin egg! A super special egg for a super special girl.

She was so excited to show me the gifts that she got from her teachers!

She got some kind of milk juice box (which she did not like at all), 3 pineapple flavored "cookies" (they are more like a fig newton), and a little bunny.

My cultural picture for the week... No matter where you go or where you work people here always get there rest time. I have been to stores during the rest time of day and all the employees are sleeping. I kindof feel bad waking the one's up at the cash register to pay for my things. This picture is from the grocery/vegetable store outside of our apartment.

Benjamin helped me give Doggy Bones a bath this week. I can't stand the smell of wet dog, but the dog looked pretty pitiful. Even my neighbor asked how often we give the dog a bath..hint hint :)

Regan holding a clean dog while it tries to lick her...

The kids had a pool birthday party to go to this weekend. Lauren wore the goggles all the way to the pool, but then never wore them at the pool. I guess she just wanted to feel like a big kid.

Lauren looks so serious wearing her little construction hat at the dinner table. This hat has officially made it through all the kids. I believe it was actually a gift for Benjamin when he was little, but Regan played with it just as much as he did.

We let the girls try sleeping together Friday night since it was not a school night. I was skeptical about them actually going to sleep, but they surprised me.

School Has Started

Katherine's first day back to school...

She was so excited to get back to class and to see her friends and teachers. This year she is zhong ban at the preschool which is basically the middle aged group. She is on the third floor and feel like a big kid. I was a little curious how she would actually do going back. I was pleasantly surprised that the only thing different was the room. The teachers move up with their class as they get bigger, so she has the same teachers and many of the same friends.

Oh, yes. Bunny needed to have her picture made for the first day of school. Bunny even got to wear some new clothes to school :)

Jonathan made Ibu Ina's fried rise (from Indonesia). It was a big hit. The only thing ws that is made sooooo much food. This is only one of the dishes! So, it was easy to be able to share a meal with our neighbors.

I walked around the corner the other day to find Lauren aranging all the shoes...ours, Ayi's, the house shoes, guest shoes, etc. She was so proud of her artwork.

SO, this represents our cultural story for the week. We had plans to play with some friends at 10:00 on Saturday. She called at 9:50 saying that she was running late and that she would pick us up at 10:30. She also said she wanted to go swimming and then we could go eat McDonald's afterwards. So, we hurry to undress the kids, put swimsuits on, sunscreen, clothes back on, pack bags, find towels, and ready to go. So, at 10:45 she shows up with McD's, coffee/hot tea, and soft drinks, puts it all on our table and says she is going to go change. My kids were ready to walk out the door, but I'm trying to figure out if I'm supposed to eat this food or wait for her to come back...it was none of the above. She wanted us to come back and eat it after we went swimming. You can image how yummy those fries were after sitting for 3 hours :) We had fun as usual!

Jonathan decided to take a picture of all the girls. We don't typically dress up here for any reason, but we all had put on skirts/or dresses. So, Jonathan wanted a picture of his pretty girls. :)

And then we had to have a picture of the tough boys!

We had some friends over for dinner. I call them friends because they are, but we have only seen them a handful of times because they work so much. The very first night we lived here, we had gone out at night to buy some cleaning supplies, mop, etc. when we got a little turned around as to where our hotel was. I guess we looked lost...4 kids at night, LOTS of bags, and don't know the language. Anyways. This couple stopped and said they could help. They carried our bags and walked us all the way back to the hotel.It was good to see them again and this time they had their little girl, LuLu. What fun!

Today was Regan and Benjamin's first day of school. They have been a little jelous that Katherine got to start a week before them. They have counted down every day this week.

Lauren felt a little left out of the picture making, so she posed with Regan.

the chaos as we try to walk out the door in the morning... get shoes on! Who's water bottle is this? Do you have your backpack? Don't forget your helpmet? Lauren, Ayi is feeding you more breakfast...you better listen. Get your bike. No! Don't ride your bike in the house! Is everyone ready? What?! Who pushed the elevator button? We still have one missing shoe! Ok! Bye Lauren! Everybody in the elevator!

excited to be on the 3rd floor

riding to school

Home from school and working on homework. She loves school and she loves homework :) It was a good first day for all of them.

Swim Lessons

Last week and this week are the kids' last two weeks of summer holiday (Katherine actually starts back this week). If you ask the kids about their summer and what they liked, they will tell you all kinds of things...except Benjamin. He told us that he only has fun in the pool. There are other things he enjoys, but the pool is by far his favorite. So, we decided that for the last two weeks before school he can take swim lessons offered by the pool at our complex. He swims every day from 4:00-5:30 So, he has learned very quickly!

This picture is kindof funny...he is coming up for air, not drowning :) They teach the breast stroke here, so he looks like a little frog in the water. He can swim all the way across the HUGE pool. He is doing great! This coming week, he will be working on getting the form of his swimming in sinc with his breathing. Right now, his form is good, but he just goes and goes and goes under the water until he can't breathe anymore, comes up for air and doggy paddles for a second, and then is off again. They are trying to get him to breathe with every stroke.

This also cracked me up...one day it started to rain (no lightning) so the kids were not allowed to swim in the deep pool until it stopped and the coach stood in the middle of the shallow pool holding an umbrella! I kinda thought the point of a pool was to get wet :)

Regan and Benjamin ended up playing with a group of about 15 boys, 3 dads, and 1 big brother. It was some sort of Monkey in the Middle type game, but it was so much fun to see them REALLY playing with the local kids and not just playing near them. I think the dad's were getting a kick out of how many times Regan got the ball (Miss Competitive) because the girls typically don't play with the boys much...especially in the pool, they just sit in floats.

Katherine wanted a pair of goggles so that she could go under water. She loves the pool, but her hair turns so GREEN! It only takes her swimming once to have bright green hair. It fascinates my friends here that our hair can change colors :)

Lauren doesn't like swimming in the pool...just jumping in over and over and over again. She will give you quite the workout.

Regan has also learned to swim this summer. She is still afraid to get her face under the water. She can do about 4 different strokes to swim across the pool and never get her face wet :)

All the girls sporting their new sandals! Benjamin got some too, but did not want to be in the picture.

Katherine's Bunny got some much needed new clothes. She was so excited about them. The old clothes are now "pajamas" and the new clothes are for "school"

We also had Open House and Regan and Benjamin got to see their new classrooms and meet their new teachers. Benjamin is a frog this year (1st grade) and has the same teacher that Regan had last year. His class is in the new part of the school and I think he has the best room in the school! Great view!!
Oh yeah, and he has a new haircut. He has been asking to get it shaved for about a year now. He literally wanted to be bald. I had never let him do it, but the kids were getting their "back to school haircuts" and he asked again. I thought for a minute...it's not near his bday, not near Christmas...ok, it will have time to grow out if I don't like it. He was so excited that I let him get it so short. It is much easier and cooler in this heat!

...checking our his desk

Regan is excited to be a Panda this year (3rd grade). She was in first grade last year, but the school asked if Regan and one other little girl could study with the third graders. They felt like Regan was bored and needed more of a challenge. She will still be classified as a 2nd grader, but will be doing everything with the 3rd graders. I know, a bit confusing. I think it will be good for her.

There is a new girl there that will be sitting next to Regan. I was so excited to find out that they are almost exactly the same age...4 days apart! One of my concerns for letting her be in this class was that all the other kids would be older, but it's really not going to be that way. Third grade is also when they start having Science and American History classes. I think it will be a good year and I also think that she will be coming home with lots of "real" homework.

All the kids are very excited that school will be starting back soon! Hooray!

Our Last Summer Trip!

We were on another trip this past week. It was so refreshing! A group of Friends came to visit us. We met up with them and had a great time together! One night, they gave us a date night! Jonathan and I went to Bubba Gumps and ate shrimp. I got a kick out of the sign...if everything is fine at your table, you leave it on "run Forrest run." If you need something, you change the sign to "stop Forrest stop". It was a great evening.

This was the view from where we ate! Amazing! I tried to get a shot with Jonathan and me in front of the city, but none of them turned out. All I had was my little camera. My good camera broke when we were at the Great Wall a couple weeks ago. I thought this one turned out nice though! You should come see it for yourself! We'll take you there :)

To top it off, our Friends took Regan and Benjamin to Disneyland! What a great surprise. They had a great time and seemed so big going to Disney without me! :)

We went to a mall for dinner and they had a Cars 2 display promoting the movie. The kids loved all the props. We considered at one time taking them to see it...then we found out how much it costs to see it in English...$20 US dollars a person (no kids tickets) I think we can wait until it arrives in our country one day. No movie is worth that...especially times 6 :)

And Lauren won the race! :) So, we are now back and should be in more of a routine again. The kids are excited that school will be starting in less than 2 weeks!