friends and sunshine

I thought it might be fun to end the month of June with one last post and include a favorite photo from earlier this month....

The girls and I had a great day here and I got a jump-start on packing for Thailand (we leave Thursday afternoon).

Matt spent his day off riding his mountain bike with some good buddies. He got home an hour or so ago - tired, VERY dirty, and with a big grin on his face. The girls were already asleep for the night, and we sat at the kitchen table, looked at his photos and caught up on the news from the day. (The big news from him was that he had a GREAT day. The big news from me was that the fix-it man came to look at the leak in our kitchen and declared that he would have to bust into part of the tile wall to repair it. Oh joy. Did I mention that we leave on Thursday for a three-week trip? This gives new meaning to the phrase "perfect timing".)

Here's a photo of Matt with his buddies, also sporting their sunglasses as they started their ride.

Photos of friends in sunglasses, it just doesn't get much better than that, does it?

Well, Matt is cleaned up from the ride and I'm going to hang out with my husband! Yay for an adult conversation at the end of a day with little kiddos!

cheese

Yep, it's cheese. Two 5 kilo blocks of cheese (over 20 pounds!) I realized after I took the photo that I should have put something in the photo to help with scale - but you get the idea. Thanks to all who put in a vote - I don't think I've ever gotten so many comments! You must have been lured by the promise of a new set of chopsticks. If you guessed "cheese" then you can pick up your chopsticks the next time you come visit us :)

Of course, behind every 5 kilo block of cheese lies a good story. Well, at least if you try to buy it in China. [Where, now that I think of it, behind almost every purchase there is at least some kind of story - no bland, uninteresting, hum-drum shopping trips available here.]

Some friends and I have started buying cheese in bulk. The Chinese aren't big cheese eaters, which means cheese is imported, pricey, and not available at the corner market. Buy in bulk, shred shred shred, and voila, you've got a freezer full of shredded cheese ready for you at a moments notice.

This is only the second time we've done it, and I decided to go to the bulk market myself and check it out. I wanted to buy cheddar and mozzarella, and the conversation went a bit like this:

Me: Do you sell cheese?
Shop owner and her 7 assistants: Yea, we sell two kinds.
Me: Perfect, what two kinds do you sell?
Owner and assistants: One kind costs 270 RMB per block, and the other costs 310 RMB.
Me: Great, but what KIND of cheese is it?
Owner and assistants: There are two brands, one is 270, one is 310. The 310 is better quality.
Me: But what is the FLAVOR of the cheese?
Owner: Oh, well all cheese is the same flavor. The only difference is the brand.

Hmmm, only ONE flavor of cheese in the world? Needless to say, the shop owner is clearly not a cheese eater herself. I persisted in the conversation, just to make sure I understood her correctly. Yep, little miss shop owner is convinced that there is only one flavor of cheese available, and, lucky for me, in her varied inventory, she carries two brands.

In the end I bought both blocks. Turns out they are both mozzarella. No cheddar. Oh well. I haven't give up hope yet, the cheddar has to be somewhere out there.

My friend Erin Ashley said, "can you imagine telling a French person that there is only one flavor of cheese?" But, of course, every culture has its food fetish. For some, it might be cheese. For the Chinese, it's probably rice. Can you imagine telling a Chinese person there is only one flavor of white rice? Here's a photo of one of the rice vendors at the local market near my apartment:



What do you think America's food fetish is? My vote might be CEREAL!!! I mean, seriously, how many kinds of Cheerios does the world really need??

questions and answers

Question #1: What is this??


Answer: This is what happens when Julianna asks for a "drum"... she and Lydia had a little band practice this afternoon.


Question #2: What is this??


Answer: You tell me! Seriously, post a comment (it's really easy and you don't have to have a login & password) and tell me what you think it is! I'll post the answer in a few days. Hey, maybe I'll even offer a prize to anyone who gets it right - how about a spiffy new set of chopsticks??

the photos 'say' it all....

apartment living

There are basic, undeniable truths about apartment-living.

For one, it's not possible to live an isolated life and ignore your neighbors - you just can't do it. Like it or not, your neighbors are going to know some of your 'business'. Sometimes, I miss the freedom to be a little bit unknown and anonymous. But, all in all, I think it's a good thing... this "being forced to be social" aspect.

Another undeniable is that other people's business will interfere with your own. Their noise, their stuff, whatever. One of my current pet peeves is all the bikes parked in the entrance to our stairwell. I mean, seriously, can't these people understand that I need to park my stroller? Why don't they just move their bikes out of my way??!!?? What a helpful, daily reminder that I am not the center of the universe!

Here's another one: No outdoor living space. No garage, no backyard, no front yard, no front porch, no patio, no nothing that links your house to the outdoors. Well, except the windows. I really hate this part. Oh how I wish I had a backyard my girls could play in. Or a front porch we could sit on after dinner. Or a garage where I could park my stroller and not worry about all the neighbors' bikes clogging up my parking space!

If I had a backyard, I would hang a swing for my girls. But I don't. But what I do have is an incredibly resourceful, engineering-minded, willing-to-entertain-my-crazy-ideas husband. And this is the result:




Now, before you (grandparents) panic, let me tell you two important things about this little set-up. First, Matt himself hung from ONE of the hooks, so we trust that TWO hooks will certainly be adequate to hold the girls in the swing. And second, YES, we realize it's a tad bit too high. Matt is going to try to find a link of chain that we can use to lower the swing to a more normal height.

It's rigged up so that the hooks in the ceiling are (obviously) permanent, but I can attach and remove the swing in about 5 seconds (thanks to the good ole kitchen chair, which boosts me up high enough to reach!).

The moral of the story: A backyard would be nice. But this has got to be a pretty good compromise.

my new look

Matt agreed to give me an hour or so to play with the blog this afternoon (Sunday) - Julianna just woke up and I can hear the three of them laughing and giggling. The girls think he is SO funny! I'm in the office with the door locked! - our little Julianna just loves to find me when I'm hiding in my own house, and it's not that I spend a lot of time hiding from my little girl but you other mommas know how precious a few moments to yourself can be! I figure I have about fifteen minutes before the girls start wondering where I am and looking for me in earnest -

I've been itching to change around my look, so this was the perfect opportunity. If you don't like it, please don't tell me :) I am a slow decision maker, and I'm still not sure I really like it, but I usually won't have the time to play around with it, so this is what we're stuck with for now!

Thinking about my blog's "new look" reminded me of this photo -



Julianna likes to brush her little sister's hair and give Lydia a "new look". The funniest part is that Julianna thinks water is an integral part of the hair styling experience (she comes by this honestly, as I usually have to get a little water on the brush to tame down her crazy morning bed head). So, when Julianna brushes Lydia's few wisps of hair, she likes to use a little water. With nothing much up there to soak up the water, the water just runs right off Lydia's head. She looks a bit like she's been caught in a rainstorm :)

In case you doubt that Julianna is capable of producing some serious bed head, check out this early morning photo -
I've tried to put a bow or clip in her hair, but it's still too thin to hold anything. I think her first hair cut will be after her 3rd birthday, at the very earliest!

fajitas for dinner

A nice, fairly restful Saturday here and nothing too special to report. We hosted some students for dinner, which was a lot of fun :) Both the girls love it when we have company - I think they are bored when it's just the four of us!

no doubt you are all on pins and needles....

waiting to hear what happened to my tephritidae and the home made fruit fly trap.

Here's the bad news: I didn't catch a single fruit fly.

Here's some more news: The little black bugs are - apparently - not fruit flies. [Matt pointed out that they were too big to be fruit flies, and they were really in all rooms of the house, not just the kitchen.]

Here's the good news: They are gone! I cannot explain why, but this morning my fruit fly trap was empty. And there isn't a single little black flying bug-thing in the apartment.

But, I have a sneaking suspicion that the little bug things will return. Time for plan B.

tephritidae

You'll undoubtedly be glad to know that tephritidae is basically a fancy way of saying "fruit fly". [Lest you jump to any conclusions about my background in biology, I must confess that I read the word "tephritidae" for the first time on wikipedia about 5 minutes ago. ]

Here's the deal: we have these little flies in our house. About half way between the size of a fruit fly and a mosquito. They have big black wings, fly very slowly, and tend to hang out in the kitchen. I read on wikipedia that there is such thing as a "larger fruit fly" and I conclude that my little guests must belong to this group. We've been consuming incredible amounts of yummy fruit (especially the peaches and mangoes and lychee and watermelon and... ) and I think that probably explains the flies.

Bad news for the little black flies is that I also read about a "make your own fruit fly trap" and I intend to put it to work in just a few minutes! I think we've probably got ten or fifteen in the apartment right now, and I'm hoping to catch them all with my home made trap, so stay tuned and I'll let you know how successful I am :)

PS - I do not feel the slightest bit hard-hearted about killing these little bugs. Wikipedia informs me that their life span is about a week anyways, so it's not like they have a lot to loose :)

after all, it's just a refrigerator

4 years ago this month, Matt and I moved to this city. We had just finished a great year in the States, and we were eager to get settled into our new home. Only problem was, we didn't have a home.

One night in early June (for some reason, I think it was the 7th, but I'm not sure), we landed at the airport, hauled our 4 pieces of luggage to a friend's house and crashed for the evening (our friends were out of town for the summer, and had loaned us their apartment as a temporary residence). The next morning, we walked outside into the sunlight, got our bearings and headed out to hunt for a place to call 'home'.

Matt, as some of you know, is an amazingly content kind of guy. It didn't take long to realize that his idea of a "suitable" apartment was pretty much anything with four walls and a front door that locked- if I hadn't been with him, he probably would have signed the lease on the first thing he saw. [I also consider myself to be fairly low-maintenance and easy to please, but I do have standards that are a tad bit higher than Matt's!]

So, off the two of us went.... I think it took us about three days to find the perfect little apartment. We lived there for three years and I still smile when I remember it :) I loved it - perfect size, terrific location, everything. But, terrific as it was, it was empty when we signed the lease. And remember, we had arrived with four pieces of luggage - that wasn't going to furnish an empty apartment!

But it was clear that God had prepared everything ahead of our arrival. Some friends of friends put us in touch with a guy who was leaving to head back to the States. He sold us tons of his stuff - furniture, appliances, .... I even bought his pots and pans, silverware, mixing bowls, the works.

We went to a discount furniture mart and picked up a cheap sectional sofa that we later discovered could seat an infinite number of Chinese students - it seemed like there was always room for one more on that sofa... (until the night we heard one of the wooden support beams crack, but that's a whole 'nother story).

We still have a lot of the things that we purchased those first few weeks we were here - but last week we said goodbye to one of my favorites, our little green refrigerator. How many times a day did I open that thing? How many meals have I cooked while pulling ingredients out of it? How many times did it hold a piece of homemade key lime pie to sustain me through my late night pregnancy snack-attacks?

But it was just getting too small for our growing family. Once Lydia joined the ranks of those of us who eat solid foods, there just never seemed to be enough space in that little fridge. I arranged and re-arranged. I knew just where certain pieces of tupperware would fit. I squeezed and stuffed and crammed.... But the fridge would not hold it all.

So we bought a spiffy new (used) refrigerator from our friend Brian who is moving back to America. And said good-bye to our little green fridge.

And here's the new fridge...I originally thought that we might get a photo with all three of us looking at the camera, but it's harder than it sounds! And this one really captures the moment anyways :)


I know it's just a refrigerator. But I was a little sad to see it go. It was a sweet reminder of the way God provides everything we need. And a little connection to our first apartment here. I was a bit nostalgic as the movers carried it out the door.

But I am loving all the space our new fridge provides. It seems like the door shelves alone can hold the entire contents of our old refrigerator! And I no longer spend five minutes at the end of each meal re-squeezing and re-stuffing all the items back into the fridge :)

what 50 cents can buy

When Julianna was about 15 months old I bought her a little blue plastic stool at a store across the street from our old apartment for 50 cents. Little did I know that the blue stool would become one of her most prized possessions! At first, she just loved to sit on it. She'd sit for a few moments, stand up, move the stool, sit again. Repeat.

Now, the stool is her access to things normally out of reach. One phrase I can pretty much guarantee I'll hear at least ten times a day is "where is my stool?" as she wanders around the house looking for it!

In fact, yesterday morning before the girls were up I saw the stool and thought, "I should write a blog post about that stool ". Later I went in to get the girls and sat down on Julianna's bed to feed Lydia - as soon as I finished Julianna looked up at us and said, "I wanna burp her, I wanna burp her." And then.... "Where is my stool?" [She needs her stool to climb up onto her own bed :)]

"Well, that just confirms my theory that she asks for that stool a hundred times a day", I thought. And I decided then and there that I would try to photograph every time she used the stool that day. So, while she rushed off to look for her stool, I rushed off to get the camera.

Here she is climbing up on her bed to help burp Lydia.

And later that morning as we were headed out for a walk... she was 'helping' me get Lydia's sun hat.


After we got in from our walk, it was time to wash hands!


And then she picked up her stool and headed over to the pantry .....


where she picked out a snack.


And that's when I realized that trying to photograph her every time she used the stool in one day was a full-time job! So I quit for the day. But it was fun while it lasted :)

All that fun, for 50 cents!

categories

Julianna is working on the whole idea of categories and it is so fun to watch her little mind at work. You can almost see it churning away as it tries to 'organize' and 'categorize' her rapidly expanding bits of information.

She loves to talk about "things with wings" like birds, and airplanes, and butterflies. Sometimes she likes to include herself in this particular category - with statements like "when I have wings I can fly" - and today she assured me that her daddy was most definitely not a member of the "things that have wings" category.

For the most part, she gets her facts straight (although sometimes I think she deliberately tries to trip me up - like when she suggests that lollipops are a type of breakfast food). But, other times, she gets stuff all mixed up. A few days ago she was telling me about statues... and it went a bit like this:

J: Statues do not have eyes and they are not alive. ["things that have eyes" are another favorite conversation piece] But I am alive. And so is Lydia.
Me: What about mommy? Am I alive?
J: No, mommy is not alive. She is big.

huh? How does that work out? Alive is not the opposite of big. But, as the conversation progressed, I saw her rationale. Just a few short moments later, she had turned the conversation and was chattering away about babies. In her book, alive = just born = little.

She's also learning hard 'category' lessons. Like, "folks that you must learn to obey" does not include herself. Bummer.

Matt's camping trip

Matt and the guys had a great time on the camping trip.... Julianna didn't get to go this time, since it was "guys only" :(

It didn't rain... which is a big miracle at this time of year! I'm posting a few photos so you can see how pretty the area is - we live in a beautiful part of the country (at about 6000 ft elevation) and mountains surround our city on three sides.

Well, apparently that was a dumb idea - the internet won't upload any photos now. Aghhh! Those of you who live in areas where your internet access is faster than a 56k modem haven't really experienced the "good life" :)

birthday party photos

Here are a few photos from our birthday-party-filled weekend. Matt left on a camping trip and took the camera, so I only have photos from one birthday party :(

Ten kiddos in all, oldest was 7 years, youngest was not quite 7 weeks. It was busy! That's Julianna on the floor playing with toys.


Lydia was right in the thick of the action (that's her in the overalls and Emma Grace 'on the move' in the bottom of the photo).


The birthday girl! Emma Grace, we are so thankful we have you as a neighbor!!

zong zi

So, yesterday was the Dragon Boat Festival... it's a holiday here in China and most people get a day off of work. I talked to the girls about giving me the day off too - but it was a no go... they were hungry and wanted breakfast and were not about to let me take the day off :)

Anyways, in all the years I've been here for the Dragon Boat festival, I've never actually seen a Dragon Boat. But, I have eaten a lot of zong zi. Zong zi are little pyramid shaped globs of glutinous rice wrapped in corn plant leaves. Julianna (no surprise) likes them. She had some for breakfast.

Matt went camping with a bunch of guys from the university (students also got a "day off") and he took the camera with him, so I didn't get a photo of Julianna chomping on the zongzi. The photo above is from the People's Daily website.

the days are long, but the years are short

Two of our little buddies, Emma Grace and Kayleigh, share the same birthday - June 10th - Kayleigh turns 2, and Emma Grace will be 1. For Julianna, this is just about as much good news as any little girl can handle at one time! She has been talking birthdays and birthday parties all week long.

We've gotten the presents wrapped and Julianna is anxious to get started eating cupcakes - this afternoon is Emma Grace's party, and tomorrow afternoon is Kayleigh's. I'll take the camera and get a few photos this afternoon.

Little kids grow up so very quickly, don't they? A mom that I respect very much once said, "the days are long, but the years are short". So true, isn't it? We've had some long days around the house this week - it is a very busy time of year for Matt, and I've been doing the "solo mommy" thing way too much. [thankfully, things should slow down dramatically in the next week or so!] Anyways, on those long days, it's helpful to keep the "years are short" perspective! So, I am thankful that these two birthdays are this particular week, because it's been a good, consistent reminder to treasure the moments... birthdays are just around the corner and the years are going by fast.

every cloud has a silver lining....

Well, I think we can make this official: it seems the rainy season has arrived :( That's the bad news. Can I tell you how many many times over the past few summers I have been ready to head outside with Julianna to blow off some energy only to realize that it's raining - again! This is Lydia's first rainy season, but my third as a momma. And, the rain can be a bit of a downer sometimes.

But, every cloud has a silver lining (don't you think that's the perfect little idiom for this situation??) And, the lining is this: the rain doesn't last all day long, and when it's over, this is what we see:


Matt took this photo out the window of our apartment a few nights ago. The setting sun, wispy white clouds and gorgeous blue skies.

More silver lining: the rain means we have lots of great fruits and veggies grown locally. Peaches just hit the markets this past week and they are so juicy!

So, it's not all bad news. This afternoon Julianna, Matt and I did get out for a little while. But she didn't get to bring her little ride-on car (too dirty and mud-puddle-y ... that car has to come back inside our apartment when she is done playing with it, so I vetoed the car for this trip). She said that "maybe tomorrow it won't rain and we can bring the car outside and ride on it in the sunshine". Maybe. But I don't have my hopes up.

life at the window

The big empty lot behind our apartment complex is apparently a future construction site. OH joy. I am sure I will love living next to a construction site :) But, while my love is mainly of the sarcastic variety, my girls feel quite differently. What could be better than living next door to a bunch of trucks?

A tall brick wall blocks our view of the site when we are outside, but from our fourth floor windows, they can look right in on all the action. Julianna spends a significant chunk of her day perched on this wooden trunk looking out the window.

Lydia just wants to be up there because her big sister is up there. She's not stable enough to stand up there by herself yet (that's my arm you see on the far right side of the photo, ready to catch her when she topples).



Even when the trucks aren't active (like today) Julianna loves to watch people coming and going in the complex.

home again

Well, we had a great time away, but I am glad to be home. At least, I think I am glad to be home... I was definitely eager to get back and see the girls but sitting at the dinner table tonight I was having second thoughts... maybe we should have stayed away longer?!?!? Dinner is a loud affair around here. Lydia loves to make noise, lots of noise, and seems to think sitting in her high chair is a cue to let the noise-making carnival begin. She is a loud kid.

We left Sunday morning and arrived in time to check into our hotel before going to our friends' wedding later that afternoon....on the way to the airport Sunday morning I realized that this was the first time I had flown without kids since Julianna's birth. Julianna was ten days old on her first flight, and we've flown tens of thousands of miles since that day - domestic flights here in China, multiple trips to Thailand, home to the States twice, a whirlwind round-the-world trip through Egypt, Syria and Turkey with a one-night layover in Frankfurt, etc. I was a bit unprepared for the luxury of flying without kiddos! Wowsers, it's a totally different experience. Matt (who flies a lot without me or the kids) was laughing at me - I kept commenting on how easy it was to not have one kid on my hip and another at my knee and 33 lbs of carry-on baggage and.... well, you get the picture.

So, all in all, we had a great time. Matt had prepared 31 different questions for me to answer over the few days we were gone. Every now and then he'd pull out a little bag and have me choose another question. They covered every imaginable topic - things like, "what are your three favorite dishes to cook?" and "if you could live anywhere in the world where would you choose?"

One of the questions was, "when do you think Lydia will walk?" We chose dates and made a bet - looser cooks dinner for the winner. I chose Sept 15 (her 13 month birthday). Matt went with September 8th. So, if she walks before mid-September, Matt wins, after mid-September and I'm the winner. One reason I hope I win is because I'm curious to see what Matt will cook for dinner.... I asked him if he was planning on French toast. I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was something like, "I know how to cook other things, I just haven't done it in a while". I did not point out that I cook dinner for him basically every night anyways, so if I loose, I'm not out very much!

Well, that's all for now. Here's a photo from the wedding -