One of the things that we enjoy about this new culture is how active everyone’s lifestyle is (has to be). You naturally get your walking in each day, but most companies also have morning exercises that they do all together out in front of their business before they open. This is a new business, and I think they were taking their morning exercise to the next level to get some advertisement in 🙂
Phuket
After a week of meetings in June we decided to take a week of vaca with friends. It was so nice to rest and enjoy friends! The kids played great together, and just LOVED the beach! Colt caught a bazillion hermit crabs 🙂 Caden and Kylie could have played all day in the sand and waves that splashed up on the beach. And there was hardly anyone there. . . it was “rainy season.” It only rained about 20 minutes every day though, then the sun was right back out – hot hot hot the whole time too!
It was truly beautiful. . . really out in the middle of nowhere. It was a 45 minute drive from the airport through amazing Thai country. . . the food was wonderful! The place we stayed was perfect for our family and kids. The whole family loved it.
Colt said he wants to go back for his birthday 🙂 ha!
The day (s) Kylie turned 3!
Our sweet girly girl turned 3 last month! Thought I better get a little post in before Colt’s birthday (which is right around the corner). We were in Thailand for Kylie and David’s birthdays. . . so it wasn’t really “normal.” I made cupcakes before we left on the trip and she got some special treatment on her actual bday too. . .
Apparently in Kylie’s little mind she needed an actual cake and candles to officially “turn 3.” So when she woke up one random Saturday morning asking if it was her birthday yet (which we had already celebrated and talked about – but it just wasn’t what she pictured I guess 🙂 – we decided to take her out and let her pick out a cake, which we brought home and celebrated with just our little family.
She is pretty cute. Now she is already talking about her next birthday and turning 4. She sings all the time. She dances when she hears any music. She speaks Chinese almost as much as English now. . . She LOVES to take care of her babies (especially Caden – poor Caden – ha!). She super sweet and gives us kisses and lovins all the time. We are so thankful for this girl!
Caden’s FAVORITE song.
Seriously, if we are out and he starts to get fussy. . . I just start singing this song. He immediately starts smiling and clapping 🙂 Love him!
There is a new guy around here. . .
Oh the things we see. . .
In this culture, there are just so many options for purchasing chicken to eat. You can go to the market and get the pieces you want (which are already cut up), or you can pick out a dead chicken and take some of it (or all of it), or you can buy a live chicken and do it yourself. This is not the first time I have noticed someone’s dinner got loose. . . I think Colt would like to have a chicken as a new pet 🙂
Friends
When I told my local friend Tracy that David was gone for 10 days. . . she couldn’t believe it! She offered to have Colt come live with her (her son is Colt’s best friend)! Looking back. . . maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea? haha.
In this country where most people only have 1 child, the thought of having more than 1 – especially without help – seems impossible. I won’t deny it IS hard by myself, but not impossible 🙂
Tracy was so sweet though, Sunday she brought me lunch and took Colt to her house to play with her son. After Kylie and Caden’s nap, I went to pick him up, but she insisted we stay for dinner. This was 4:00pm. She went to the market while I stayed with the kids and returned about 5:00pm. Dinner was ready about 7:00pm and we didn’t get home until almost 9:00pm! Totally ok, but unexpected for sure 🙂 As you can see in the few pictures below their apartment is pretty fancy, and not very “Caden-friendly.” haha.
She fixed a good meal though! We had chicken wings, fish, 3 different types of veggies, and an egg dish. LOTS of food. Super thankful for this family.
Kylie LOVES to help in the kitchen. This girls loves food!
I took the liberty to remove everything breakable off the tables because Caden was exploring EVERYthing.
Colt and Lyric. They played outside for several hours and caught some fish, a tadpole, and frog – Colt’s newest pets 🙂
Qingcheng Shan
I’m really proud of David – he is a great daddy! Since moving here, he has taken Colt on quite a few special father/son trips. Of course, we often do fun things as a family. . . but you know, the father/son thing is pretty special. Can’t wait until Caden is big enough to tag along and benefit from it too! Then, Kylie and I can have some girl time – woot woot!
So, we have this BEAUTIFUL mountain about 40 minutes from our apartment. We wanted to take the whole family, but that could be a total disaster with Kylie and Caden being so little . . . so David and Colt went to check it out one weekend.
Of course, Colt LOVED it. Anything outdoors is “the best day ever” to him 🙂 He actually brought home a crab that he found in one of the streams. It only pinched him once. He didn’t mind a bit. He carried that crab everywhere. . . (until it died over a month later – which was a sad day).
Here are some pics they brought back to show us how pretty it was. We will go back. They have cars the littles could ride up the mountain if the walking seems too much. Looks like fun!
Dujiangyan
David and I recently had the opportunity to go see Dujiangyan irrigation system – which is a major tourist attraction and an engineering masterpiece!
We left the house at 8am, and after riding various forms of transportation we arrived around 10am. Our transportation that day consisted of taxis, public buses, a tourist bus, the underground subway, and the above ground high-speed railway. I think we covered it all. David’s comment was something like, “Wow, everything went really smoothly. Just buy the ticket and get on!” My thought was more like, “How exhausting!” I think I may have had a moment of missing owning a car 🙂 Even in this crazy traffic here. . .
So, it’s actually pretty impressive how all of this went down. . . the gigantic Min River would flood EVERY year and cause a lot of destruction and unrest. So, the engineer Li Bing proposed building an artificial levee which he built by wrapping stones in bamboo! We saw quite a few of them out on display. He also used a combination of fire and water to heat and cool the rock in the mtn until it could be broken up and removed to clear a passageway. He used the levee and new route to split the river so it would not flood. In the event of even higher waters, he also made an addition route to an overflow dry area. I know my explanation is probably more confusing that interesting, so you could just google it 🙂 It worked though, because there have been no floods since!
The only sad part is that the people have built a temple there to worship Li Bing (the engineer). . .
Toothless and Cute
Yesterday, as we were eating lunch, Colt said he thought he had a loose tooth. His first loose tooth! It was hanging on by a thread by the afternoon because he kept wiggling it. Out it came!
Of course, Kylie is just too cute rocking this furry panda hat she found while playing at a friend’s house too huh?
