We saw the funniest thing the other day as we were driving the kids to a primary activity. We were driving down the road and saw a couple having a huge fight. The lady was totally punching this guy in the kidney over and over and then she tried to strangle him. This isn't normally a funny thing but when you consider they were on a SCOOTER driving down the road at the time............. its pretty hilarious.
The lady, who probably weighed 100lbs, was sitting behind the guy driving and she was really trying to do some damage to him. She just kept punching and punching and then when she tried to strangle him, I thought, "now there's a smart thing to do. why not make the person driving the scooter pass out? That way both of you die together." I thought she'd be a good candidate for the Darwin award. (award for the dumbest death) I think Chris and I laughed the entire rest of the way to the activity.
Speaking of funny things: Children say the darndest things sometimes. Last night Sara was sitting on my lap and as we were playing around she opened her mouth and came in like she was going to bite me right on my cheek. I quickly protested saying, "Sara, you don't want mommy to bite YOU do you?" (the obvious answer being....NO!) However, Sara's face brightened and she enthusiastically replied, "Bite me mommy, bite me!" I almost wet my pants I laughed so hard.
Gabe said something pretty funny at piano lessons this week. At the end of one of his songs, he had to play a dissonant cord. The music sounded "off," but on purpose. He told his teacher that the music sounded like, "a crime scene." His teacher got such a kick out of that. He comes up with stuff like that all the time at piano. He's pretty entertaining.
Last night at dinner the kids were asking about dating and marriage and during the discussion Gabe made a funny comment. When we were discussing the kind of person you want to marry he piped up and said, "Yeah, you don't want to marry yourself cause that would be boring." We all just kind of looked at each other for a sec and then it dawned on me that he meant you don't want to marry someone exactly like yourself. He's a pretty deep thinker he is, especially when it comes to love. When a visiting author at the school gave a presentation to the first graders, she asked if any of them had ever been in love. Gabe, was the only one who shot his hand in the air to confidently declare he had been in love during kindergarten last year. After school several teachers who had been there approached me to tell me about how funny it was.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Australia and New Zealand
This trip was fantastic! It would be impossible to write everything about it in the blog so I went ahead and wrote our trip memories in a word doc. If you didn't get it and would like it let me know. Just a warning, it's painfully long.
I'll give a readers digest version of the trip here on the blog. We went on this trip during Chinese New Year because Chris and the kids had a week off school and work. We decided to spend one week in Sydney and one week in New Zealand traveling around the north island in a motor home.
Australia was just awesome! We stayed on Manly beach on the Northern side of Sydney Harbor. Our apartment was right on the beach and we enjoyed every minute of it. We got to go into the city several times using a ferry which we all loved. We saw the opera house, the Sydney aquarium, took a cruise around the harbor in a tall ship, and went to Torongo Zoo. At the zoo we got to pet a kangaroo and a baby wallaby and then got to see a koala bear up close. We bought tons of T-shirts and boomerangs and even got a didgery doo. Gabe and Emily both learned how to boogie board there at Manly beach. Everyone was very friendly and we loved hearing the Aussie accent. Although, there in Australia ,WE are the ones with the AMERICAN accent.
New Zealand was quite an adventure. Chris did an awesome job driving the manual shift motor home on the left hand side of the street through extremely hilly and curvy roads. We spent one night north of Auckland in a place called Bay of Islands. There we went on a cruise through the bay and got to see and observe a pod of dolphins. The ocean was a bit rough so we couldn't get in and swim with them as was the plan if the water was calm. Nevertheless, the dolphins were spectacular as was the scenery in the bay. Next we went to Roturua in the central part of the north island. Here we got to see a Mori culture show where Chris got to be the "Chief" of our visiting tribe consisting of our family and a giant Chinese tour group. We also got to see some thermal grounds including a geyser and a boiling mud pool. Next we went to a place called Coromandel Peninsula where they filmed the second Narnia movie. The beach is called Cathedral Cove and it was absolutely the most beautiful place I have ever been. There was no one else there so we had our own private little paradise for a couple of hours. The next day we went to a beach called Hot Water Beach to spend our last day. Under the sand is a natural hot water spring and if you dig down a few inches the hot water comes up through the sand. We had our own little hot tub right there on the beach. The whole experience was amazing.
These are just the highlights of the trip. Obviously there are a lot of details I left out but all in all it was an experience of a lifetime and we feel so blessed and lucky to have been able to go. We would go back in a heart beat!
This trip was fantastic! It would be impossible to write everything about it in the blog so I went ahead and wrote our trip memories in a word doc. If you didn't get it and would like it let me know. Just a warning, it's painfully long.
I'll give a readers digest version of the trip here on the blog. We went on this trip during Chinese New Year because Chris and the kids had a week off school and work. We decided to spend one week in Sydney and one week in New Zealand traveling around the north island in a motor home.
Australia was just awesome! We stayed on Manly beach on the Northern side of Sydney Harbor. Our apartment was right on the beach and we enjoyed every minute of it. We got to go into the city several times using a ferry which we all loved. We saw the opera house, the Sydney aquarium, took a cruise around the harbor in a tall ship, and went to Torongo Zoo. At the zoo we got to pet a kangaroo and a baby wallaby and then got to see a koala bear up close. We bought tons of T-shirts and boomerangs and even got a didgery doo. Gabe and Emily both learned how to boogie board there at Manly beach. Everyone was very friendly and we loved hearing the Aussie accent. Although, there in Australia ,WE are the ones with the AMERICAN accent.
New Zealand was quite an adventure. Chris did an awesome job driving the manual shift motor home on the left hand side of the street through extremely hilly and curvy roads. We spent one night north of Auckland in a place called Bay of Islands. There we went on a cruise through the bay and got to see and observe a pod of dolphins. The ocean was a bit rough so we couldn't get in and swim with them as was the plan if the water was calm. Nevertheless, the dolphins were spectacular as was the scenery in the bay. Next we went to Roturua in the central part of the north island. Here we got to see a Mori culture show where Chris got to be the "Chief" of our visiting tribe consisting of our family and a giant Chinese tour group. We also got to see some thermal grounds including a geyser and a boiling mud pool. Next we went to a place called Coromandel Peninsula where they filmed the second Narnia movie. The beach is called Cathedral Cove and it was absolutely the most beautiful place I have ever been. There was no one else there so we had our own private little paradise for a couple of hours. The next day we went to a beach called Hot Water Beach to spend our last day. Under the sand is a natural hot water spring and if you dig down a few inches the hot water comes up through the sand. We had our own little hot tub right there on the beach. The whole experience was amazing.
These are just the highlights of the trip. Obviously there are a lot of details I left out but all in all it was an experience of a lifetime and we feel so blessed and lucky to have been able to go. We would go back in a heart beat!
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Time seems to have been put on fast forward. I can't believe it's the end of March. In the past 3 months Chris had a birthday, Gabe celebrated a belated birthday with a "mad scientist" party, China celebrated Chinese New Year, we went on a trip to Australia and New Zealand, Sara got potty trained, we celebrated our 1 year in China March 17th and Emily had her ninth birthday.
It's been a packed 3 months.
We didn't actually spend Chinese New Year in China but all the festivities leading up to it were fun. All the commotion in the weeks prior are a lot like the weeks prior to Christmas in the US. All the stores were bursting at the seams with people getting all their last minute food and celebration items. There was a general feeling of excitement in the air where ever you went. The official celebration color of China is red so everything was decked out in red decorations. One tradition among the more religious people is to put three strips of wide red paper over their doorways. People also put the Character "Fu" on their doors meaning blessings.
If you actually need to go anywhere and buy stuff it is a really frustrating time of year because of all the crowds but if not, it's a really fun and exciting time of year. It is now the year of the Tiger so there are tiger symbols everywhere. Because Shanghai is a very migrant place with people coming here from the rural areas to work, it gets really empty while everyone goes home for the actual Chinese New year holiday. The week before Chinese New Year the freeways out of the city were jam packed. Being with family is a very important tradition. The actual night of Chinese New Year families gather for a big meal of the traditional dumplings called Jiao Zi and then set off an insane amount of fireworks. Then they do the same thing 5 days later as part of another celebration within the existing celebration. It gets a bit wild with lots of booze and millions of people setting off very large fireworks at the same time. Some friends of ours that were were here and live in a big high rise said there were fireworks exploding all night right next to their window 32 floors up. Oooooooo lots of fun!
Another and probably the most important tradition according to children, is the Hong Bao. Instead of presents the children get a red envelope full of money. Over all, this is the most meaningful and exciting time of year for the Chinese people and it was fun to see at least the weeks leading up to it.
Emily and Gabe got to join in all the festivities at school by doing some performances. All the Chinese language classes got to do their own dance at a big assembly in the auditorium. It was a blast to see all the kids doing Chinese dancing or in some cases kung fu. There were performances done by professional dancers too. Emily and Gabe got to make all sorts of New Year crafts and do New Year parties in their classrooms. Gabe's class got to make home made Jiao Zi and eat them in his class room. It was a messy, but great time.
A week before Chinese New Year we did a friends birthday party for Gabe. We figured a bunch of science experiments would keep 11 boys occupied for a couple of hours. We had them all wear ID badges and gave them Lab coats (men's white dress shirts I bought for $3) The cake we made into a volcano with smoke from dry ice coming out. Gabe had been sad about his best friend moving in December and so this party helped lift his spirits a great deal. It was a wild, messy, party but I think we managed to pull it off, despite the house being a disaster afterword.
It's been a packed 3 months.
We didn't actually spend Chinese New Year in China but all the festivities leading up to it were fun. All the commotion in the weeks prior are a lot like the weeks prior to Christmas in the US. All the stores were bursting at the seams with people getting all their last minute food and celebration items. There was a general feeling of excitement in the air where ever you went. The official celebration color of China is red so everything was decked out in red decorations. One tradition among the more religious people is to put three strips of wide red paper over their doorways. People also put the Character "Fu" on their doors meaning blessings.
If you actually need to go anywhere and buy stuff it is a really frustrating time of year because of all the crowds but if not, it's a really fun and exciting time of year. It is now the year of the Tiger so there are tiger symbols everywhere. Because Shanghai is a very migrant place with people coming here from the rural areas to work, it gets really empty while everyone goes home for the actual Chinese New year holiday. The week before Chinese New Year the freeways out of the city were jam packed. Being with family is a very important tradition. The actual night of Chinese New Year families gather for a big meal of the traditional dumplings called Jiao Zi and then set off an insane amount of fireworks. Then they do the same thing 5 days later as part of another celebration within the existing celebration. It gets a bit wild with lots of booze and millions of people setting off very large fireworks at the same time. Some friends of ours that were were here and live in a big high rise said there were fireworks exploding all night right next to their window 32 floors up. Oooooooo lots of fun!
Another and probably the most important tradition according to children, is the Hong Bao. Instead of presents the children get a red envelope full of money. Over all, this is the most meaningful and exciting time of year for the Chinese people and it was fun to see at least the weeks leading up to it.
Emily and Gabe got to join in all the festivities at school by doing some performances. All the Chinese language classes got to do their own dance at a big assembly in the auditorium. It was a blast to see all the kids doing Chinese dancing or in some cases kung fu. There were performances done by professional dancers too. Emily and Gabe got to make all sorts of New Year crafts and do New Year parties in their classrooms. Gabe's class got to make home made Jiao Zi and eat them in his class room. It was a messy, but great time.
A week before Chinese New Year we did a friends birthday party for Gabe. We figured a bunch of science experiments would keep 11 boys occupied for a couple of hours. We had them all wear ID badges and gave them Lab coats (men's white dress shirts I bought for $3) The cake we made into a volcano with smoke from dry ice coming out. Gabe had been sad about his best friend moving in December and so this party helped lift his spirits a great deal. It was a wild, messy, party but I think we managed to pull it off, despite the house being a disaster afterword.
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