Pictures say a thousand words....

So as I sit here sweating like a penguin in Africa, I thought I would do one last blog before we returned home. For those of you who don't know, we are coming back for a visit in July...

Enjoy...

Jordan doesn't really like her picture taken, so her's are a little limited..

I'm so pampered...

I told her I had the same outfit when I was younger...

she told me she wanted to go change...

"I won't eat it!!!!"

"Come on..."

"Are you serious? I'm way to old!!"

"AHHHHHHHH!"

"Okay, I guess it wasn't that bad."

Wish us luck

"I can't look - it's too scarey!"

We love our daddy!

"Look Ma, I caught us some dinner!!"

(It's shrimp - I know... reminds me of big swimming grasshoppers too!)

"It's Freaking Me Out Man!!"

Oh no, it's fine... 8 year olds, fire, no problem...

"OMG!!"

"Do I dare look?"

"Oh yeah, look at me!! I'm good lookin'!"

The model student.

(That's his school uniform)

"Ha ha - you thought you were gonna get a picture of her...

She hired me as her personal papparatzie guard!!"

(true story!)

See everyone soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We Missed the Boat!!

So this past weekend was a holiday - "Duan Wu". Duan means 'beginning' and wu means 'horse' month. The holiday begins on the fifth month of the Chinese (moon) calendar and usually is in June. There isn't a definite reason as to why there is a holiday, but it goes something like this - There once was a poet named Chiu Yuan (and no he wasn't from Nantucket - dirty joke minded people). He was the number one advisor of the kingdom of Chu . But people were jealous of his position and said lots of bad things behind his back. The king wouldn't take his advice and in the end was killed by the enemy of a neighboring kingdom. The new king continued to enjoy the luxury of life and didn't like Chiu Yuan either. Later, Chiu Yuan was exiled. He wrote many patriotic poems after that and traveled. Long story short - he commits suicide by drowning himself in the river basically because he feels no one cares about life. The fishermen on the river threw Zong-zi (rice cakes) into the river so the fish wouldn't eat him. They later claim they saw a dragon skimming through the water and it held the poets coat in it's mouth.

So on this day it is considered good luck to eat Zong-zi. We were given many - lots and lots - of these by people - sadly the only one who will eat it is John. We ended up throwing like 15 of them away. I wonder if that would be considered bad luck? It is also considered good luck (why else do anything - right?) to try to stand an egg up straight. They actually hold competitions to see who can stand the most eggs upright. I tried to find the picture that was in the newspaper, but sadly I couldn't. It has something to do with the summer solstice - we will definitely take the kids next year (if we are still here) and do it. There's only a small window in which you can do it like a 2 -3 hour period around noon.

So after a couple days of actually trying to make it to the boat festival blah blah blah - we ended up going the last day and of course we missed any of the actual races. But we still had a pretty good time. Like I said before, we will plan it out next time. People come from all over the world to race and apparently it's very competitive.

The kids got to go on the bouncy bouncy things and they thought that was pretty fun.

Apparently John was jealous because he was doing "bouncy bouncy" on the ground while the kids did it on the bouncy thing (k - I clearly don't know what it's called). It made Jordan laugh so hard she was almost in tears.

Then we got to climb into a real Dragon Boat - complete with water and goo in the bottom of it -oh fun!!! See how excited Casey is - yeah, ya feel it rolling off her in waves huh?!

I'm melting!!!!!!!

How long are they going to make me stay here????

At least we got to see the boats in the water.....

Anyone for bar-b-qued squid???? I think the guy in the picture has ate a couple too many!! - oh wait that's right you can only see his stomach!!

My husband was thrilled that I took a picture of them in such a picturesque place.

Look Lisa - the future of port-o-potties!!!

Loves and Misses!!!!!!!!!!!!!! XOXOXOXOXOX

Mothers Day

For Mother's Day - The kids' school/after school school did a little thing for us moms.

We made.... something...everyone got to make their own and then they cooked it for us.

The kids also each got to arrange a basket of flowers for me. It was very sweet.

A small demonstration... of their Chinese ability - not their cooking...

Here's Ashton enjoying the fruits of their labor....

and of course I ate some too... like I wasn't going to, they made it for me...

I won't lie though, I was scared.... damn scared!!

This is Ashton's classmate Apple (yes, that's her name)...

After the party - we (the parents) exchanged phone numbers so they could go to the park together. The next day my son asked his father how you ask someone out on a date!!! When I asked him why he told me "in case he needed to in the future"!!!

She would put a 'leaf' in and take it out 2 or 3 times until it was just right...

I think he was just happy about being able to cut things up...

Need to get it just right....

Here are the finished products - they did a fabulous job!!!!


We filled up our pool this past weekend - it took forever!! Not only that, but it was damn cold. So I did what my mom and grandma use to do for us when we were little... I warmed up water and carried it from the kitchen and poured it into the pool. Then they would scramble and shove and push each other just to try to sit in that small spot of hot water.
Of course I laughed!

At least they're working together!
It doesn't matter how cold it is, a pool is always fun!
I can't tell you how many times I asked if they wanted to get out
and they told me (teeth chattering) -- no it's fine!

Look Ma, I got me a pool boy!!