February 26, 2006

Jay and Mom in "Holland".

Here, Jay is learning to make pasta in "Italy".

A pose with our Super-bowl party maniquin.




On Monday, I went for a walk with a couple of friends around Mochu lake. That was an experience! We saw fishermen with big nets, and lots of jumping, smelly, fish. We saw lots and lots of Tai zhi going on, we even saw a huge choir singing at the top of their lungs. They meet there quite often, apparently, and just sing together for fun. They all looked so happy. There were people practicing their instruments, and people exercising. And there was a sign that said," NO SPEELING". ??? The unfortunate thing, is that I forgot my camera! But the good news, is that I'm going to Mochu lake tomorrow morning, and I will NOT forget it this time. So, I guess there is some reason to come back and check out the blog next week now...

Rachel and Nicole started their sports this week. Nicole is playing volleyball with the middle-school, and Rachel is on the high-school soccer team, due to a shortage of interested girls. They are both having a good time. I was able to go and see Caitlin and Jay at school during their "open day". It was fun to see the things they are working on. Eli was busy at home washing dishes with milk, working on his alphabet, and scaring his mother for about 25 minutes when he snuck out to the "neighborhood junkyard" (as he told me). Apparently, it's the place the workers take all of the trash until the garbage truck comes. I found out that morning that it is a popular spot with the kids. He won't be scaring Mommy like that again! Mike was informed this week by a fellow male Chinese employee, that the female Chinese employees have decided that Mike is the best-looking man in the office. I could have told them that!

This Saturday was International Day at the school. Every country represented by children at the school, did a room. There were 19 countries represented. This year the theme was "something your country is known for". There are six families from the U.S. We did a Superbowl theme. We didn't have much in the way of Superbowl decor, but we pulled in couches, and had popcorn, Oreos, Pringles, and pop. We couldn't find any football footage, so we showed part of a football movie over and over. Not the best room of the day, but considering none of us had ever been to International Day before, we didn't do too bad. The kids had a great time getting a passport book stamped, and seeing and tasting things from different countries.

Today, Mike and I were supposed to speak in Church. Well, Caitlin's ear has a stubborn infection that is resistant to the antibiotics, so we have to take her in every day to have her ear treated. Of course, the time that the doctor was in his office on a Sunday was 11:00, right when church starts. I think this is the last time I'll prepare early! Because, on Friday, when we found out about the Sunday doctor visit, I happened to have more done on my talk than Mike. I was the lucky one who got to stay home and give my talk, and Mike took her to the doctor. Bishop McMullen gave a fine talk in Michael's place (from the Saturday Morning Conference Session), and it was very thoughtful of Mike to pair me with someone I know, since he couldn't speak with me:-)

Not in Thailand Anymore

It has taken a while for my brain to realize I am no longer on vacation. The kids started school, and Mike started work, the day after we got home. We were right back into life. We were at the doctors' office three times this week. Rachel, Caitlin, and Michael all three had ear infections. Mike's were the worst. Both ears, in front and behind his eardrum. OUCH! They think there was some bacteria in the pool, and getting on the plane right after, cinched it. Don't worry, they still thought it was worth it:-) We were also there for more shots. I don't think I knew there were so many different kinds of vaccinations.


Caitlin and Rachel are both getting ready for the school talent show. They are both doing dances with different groups of friends. They have been practicing hard. Jay is getting ready for the lower-elementary school production. Nicole started drum lessons. Eli is plain bored. Who wouldn't be after all of the entertaining that went on in Thailand? Who can compete with trapeze, swimming, and ice-cream three times a day? He is getting pretty creative in entertaining himself around the house, though. When not sneaking into everything to scavenge treats, gum, etc. from any room in the house, he was found making a giant sling-shot with one of those elastic bouncy-ball things you hook to your wrist. He stretched it tight between the stairs and the door, and flung pens across the room. He was also found repairing the broken elephant that I brought from Thailand with his chewing gum. While on time-out for sneaking into the Valentine treats I had hid for the kids, he said (right after a big lecture on not getting into things anymore), " Mom, I'm just going to turn around and face the wall." He proceeded to sneak into the pack of gum he had been hiding. Little Sweetie...

Mike took me to dinner for Valentine's Day, and bought me beautiful roses. I'm not sure if I will get in trouble for sharing this, but he also agreed to 3 ballroom dancing classes. A couple we know from work asked if we would go to some private lessons with them, and I guess Mike felt really bad for his friend, and said OK. I don't care about the reasons...I think it's about the best Valentine ever. Mike hates to dance. So, we spent 30 minutes learning three salsa moves...Over and over and over again. I left thinking it was the shortest class I'd been to (and that we didn't learn much. The men left thinking it was 15 minutes more than they could take (and I don't think Mike remembers the moves)! I thought Mike did quite well. When asked how it went...He said he survived. I guess it was too much to ask that it was fun.

Today, we had two people from the manager's office at our complex come to the door right before church. They speak NO ENGLISH. They spoke so fast, it was hard for me to make it out! But they told us that the fireworks we did on New Year's Eve broke the window of our Chinese neighboor down the street(now, we didn't do many, can't figure out how it made it through the tree and into their window, not to mention that there were fireworks coming from everywhere) and that we needed to go apologize. So Mike and I went over, and apologized, which really meant tell them we would pay for the window, and everyone left happy (I think). It was a bit weird. This all happened at the same time people were arriving 40 minutes (?) early for church. Now, I figure I need to be ready a good 30 minutes before church starts, just to be safe. So you can see how I needed a good 10 more minutes to have the house ready! I guess they are all going to have to love us for who we are:-)

Sunday afternoon is always nice, to rest and recuperate for the coming week. We watched our weekly family Macgyver episode ( a special tradition since Mike bought the season at the DVD store), learned important survival skills from him, and had plenty of Light-saber fights with our plastic Star Wars toys (of course, very restful, Sunday-like fights). Now it's time to read the boys a story, and put them to bed. That is when we can take a deep breath, and start another week...

Thailand pics

The beach

We visited this Budhist Temple

After the big show

Eli, getting his groove on

Amazing Rachel flying on the trapeze!

Fun in Thailand

Nicole hitching a ride with an ox.

Here is where we went snorkeling with Caitlin

I didn't turn this photo, cause it changes the dimensions. Our Elephant ride.

Here is a picture of Mike holding Eli on his shoulders

Fun with Monkeys

Some Beautiful Sunsets

Our trip to Thailand

We got back yesterday from a week-long trip to Phuket Thailand. We stayed at the Club Med resort. We thought it must be pretty close to heaven! We left on Friday morning,and went to Shanghai and then left early Saturday morning, arriving at our destination Saturday about 8:00pm. Because the next day was Sunday, we wanted to try to keep the Sabbath day as holy as possible. We weren't sure how the kids would take it, seeing everything there was to do, but we actually had a really nice, restful day. We went on several walks, and played some exciting rounds of Uno. It was a good day to make plans for the rest of the week. There were so many options, we had to plan carefully, so we wouldn't miss one of the fun activities that Club Med had to offer.

Michael, Rachel, Nicole, and me, decided to get our open-water scuba licenses. I don't like to admit this, but I've always had a fear of oceans. I'm ok to play in the shallow waves, but maybe I watched Jaws or National Geographic Specials one too many times. I am so glad that I didn't let my fears stop me! The four dives we went on were some of the most beautiful scenes I have ever seen in my life! One of the days we went to the Phi Phi Islands on a boat, and did our dives there. The coral, and tropical fish were breath-taking. It looked as if everything had been set-up just for us to see, like in a movie. Rachel and Nicole loved it! They worked hard, and we were very proud of them. And Mike, well, he's wanted to do this forever, so you could say it was a dream come true for him! Thanks to a very patient Italian scuba instructor named Lucio, we all did it!

Caitlin, Jay and Eli were excited to join the kid's club. They were able to do things like trapeze, Bungie bouncing, archery, games, swimming at the beach and pool, and many other things. With them in the kid's club, Mike and I were able to do the scuba-diving. We spent four days in all. Three of the days were a couple of hours in the morning, and another couple of hours in the afternoon, and the last day was an all day trip to the island. Between our scuba classes, we were able to lay on the beach, lounge around the pool, and even try out the trapeze and bungie bounce as well. Rachel did so well with the trapeze that she learned two catches! (where she flew in the air and was caught by someone on another trapeze)

There were shows put on by Club Med every night. Two of those nights, the kids performed. They got to wear costumes and had face paint and everything. We were all shocked to see Eli really getting into it! He has never been the performing child. He's always the one hiding behind his mom, in those moments. Shocking, coming from a family of "let's make up a show and perform it" children. But don't worry, I think he's getting ready to take center stage.

Other great things that went on, were playing with monkeys, riding elephants, Thai massages, coconut milk drinks on the beach, the huge fantasia show with over 200 dancers and 30 elephants, a snorkeling trip with Caitlin, the girls getting their hair beaded, hours and hours in the pool (my children couldn't get enough! Jay can swim quite well now, and Eli is an expert doggie paddler!), and of course we got in a bit of shopping as well. The girls made good friends with another family from a different city in China, and that made everything even more fun!

There was a different theme each night, for the dinner and show. The food was incredible (though we weren't sure if it really was incredible, or if we have lowered our expectations on food), we're going with incredible, and all we could eat. I think that Eli pretty much survived the week on ice-cream cones.

Well, I think that you might say, we felt we were in paradise. It was a wonderful vacation! We are all back at school and work today. I think we could all use a rest now after our vacation, but it's time to get back to life. And work of all of that food we ate! So we'll treasure our memory of our vacation in paradise, and get back to real life.

A few more pictures of our Guang Guang (stroll)

Mike took a picture of some of the people taking pics of the kids. We counted at least eight.

The "pose" for the photo shoot.

Confucious Temple

Trying new things

Jiang, fixing us our Lunar New Year dinner.

Us, enjoying our Lunar New Year dinner.

Tons of great lanturns at Confucius Temple.

Our Korean dinner.



Tomorrow we head off to Thailand. We are so excited! I wanted to write about this week before we leave, because I will have too much to write about Thailand, I'm sure. The children have been out of school this week, and Mike hasn't had to work long hours, because of the Chinese New Year. The children played with the few friends that are still in town. Nicole had a great time talking to Erin, her best friend from Michigan, this last week, and I got to call and wish my Mom a happy birthday! I won't mention her age. A special day was when Jiang, our driver, brought us some Chinese New Year specialties that he had made himself. I know I mentioned before, that much of the celebrating is done by cooking as a family. Jiang made special dumplings and spring rolls, and came over to our house to cook them for us! They were so delicious! The spring rolls are only eaten during the New Year celebration, not at any other time of the year. The children just gobbled them all up!

On Tuesday evening, we went as a family to a Korean restaurant. The children had never tried Korean food, and since Mike went on his mission to Korea, we thought it would be a good experience. They loved it! I am really surprised at how expanded our children's ability to try and even like different foods has become. They especially liked the Korean barbecue. They are even starting to be able to peel the shrimp here in China, like pros. This entails removing the head, legs, tail and all. It can be very disconcerting to have your meal staring at you! Later that evening, we went to the Confucius Temple to see the special New Years Lanterns and Vendors. It was really fun. We bought a Chinese yoyo that wasn't too hard for me to do when the man started it for me. When we brought it home, we found it is near impossible. But Mike isn't giving up! Maybe he'll be able to get it and teach the rest of us.

On Wednesday, we planned to go to Hunan Lu to see the Dragons, and Drums, etc. Jiang had found the time and date in the news paper for us. Well, when we got there, he was told that it wasn't going to happen. We never found out why. But, it didn't really surprise us (lots of things are like that here). We still had a good time walking around, and the children all got those special artistic caramel suckers. We had a whole group of people taking photos of the children. Some followed us down the whole road. I think my girls thought they were on a runway!

The fireworks haven't disappeared yet. They go off every night. Last night, there was an influx of fireworks at 12:00 again, and then we were treated to another gigantic round at 5:30 this morning. Apparently, there is a special part of the celebration going on. We hear that the last day of the vacation, which is Saturday, is the biggest yet for the fireworks. We won't be here to "enjoy" all of the smoke and noise. We were wondering if they just use that day to get rid of all of their left-overs. Who knows?????

Chinese New Year

For weeks now the anticipation of the entire population of China has been building up. Special decorations have been for sale. Firework stands have gone up. Each family has hung out their rows of various animal parts to be cured for the big celebration.

The Lunar New Year marks the start of Spring Festival. In ancient times, a lion-like animal, is said to have come down out of the mountains on the last day of the year. He was very hungry, and would eat anything in sight, even humans. Eventually, the people figured out that they could scare him away by making loud sounds and with fire. The Chinese people spend New Year's Eve lighting fireworks, and the lion doesn't come.

And wow, do they do fireworks! I probably don't have to mention that my pyro husband had a great time with this whole firework thing. He went with the boys to pick out some fireworks from our little neighborhood store. He came back with quite the assortment! He had a ten foot long string of firecrackers. Also, for about 15.00 US, be bought this big square thing about a foot each way. We had no idea what it was, but Mike lit it, and ran the 80 yards it suggested. It was right up there with the Fourth of July Lagoon Firework finale! Wow! That was a pleasant surprise. I included a couple of artistic photos by Nicole. Also one of Eli watching them from the window. He prefers to watch them from the INSIDE. At midnight, it sounded like a battlefield. Mike and I went out on our balcony and watched fireworks all around us. It was like the Stadium of Fire times ten! It went on for over a half an hour, with everyone lighting all of the fireworks they had been saving for the big occasion. Well, at 6:00 am this morning, it started all over again, and the booms went on all morning.

The tradition is for everyone to travel home to their family. They spend New Year's Eve preparing food, and New Year's Day eating. On Friday alone, over 38 million people traveled by train (not including bus, airplane, etc). Please note that Saturday was the big travel day.

Yesterday, our driver was off. Michael and I were out running some errands, so we took a taxi. We had taken a taxi from the Sheraton Hotel. About an hour after we were dropped off, I realized that I had left my camera in the taxi. We knew it was gone for good. Well, we had to go back to the Sheraton, because Mike left some stuff at work. We decided to just see if the hotel could call the taxi company for us. To our surprise, the taxi driver had turned our camera into the police, and had called the Sheraton and left a message. This is unheard of! We were so relieved! The concierge at the Sheraton came with us to the police station to translate. There were about 5 or 6 policemen there. I went in to get it. They took around 20 photos of me, of the policeman handing the camera to me, etc. I wrote a thank you note to Mr. Shen, the taxi driver, that he will probably never know the content of (as I can't write in Chinese). It was quite the occasion. It was our own New Year Miracle! I've included a photo, taken with our camera, of a couple of the policemen with me. They insisted I give the thumbs-up sign!

January 22, 2006

We have been our busy selves this last little while. The kids jumped back into school, and are busy as ever. The big news of the week is that there is now a Dairy Queen in Nanjing! With blizzards and everything! Ok, not everything. It only has hotdogs and fries. But it has blizzards. We are happy!

We started having church in our home this last week. All went as smooth as possible(hey, at least this time we didn't run out of tp!). It was a bit hard for Eli to figure out that we have to behave as we are in a church building even in our home. He kept trying to run upstairs and grab toys.

Earlier this week, I went to Walmart. There was a man there, who said "Hello". I said hello, and he stood there while I was checking something out. I said good-bye. He said good-bye. He left his cart. He stopped mine, checked out EVERYTHING in it. The said in Chinese that it was all very good. He put his bag in my cart, and started pushing it. I tried to tell him that I didn't need his help. I was starting to get a little nervous (not that I couldn't have taken the guy out! I just didn't want to make a scene!) Anyway, I finally got the point across and he left looking a bit hurt. I just didn't want him coming with me to do my grocery shopping, having him check out everything and trying to tell me good stuff to buy! Jiang (my driver) and Mike both thought it was extremely funny. I don't think they would have thought it so funny if they would have seen his teeth!!!

I was able to go on a "ladies" outing to Suzhou this Monday. I dropped Eli to school, and asked Benjamin and Caroline Yu to watch him for me. They picked him up, and took him home for the afternoon. It was a fun trip. We went for the pearls. We drove straight to the pearl shops, spent a couple of hours there, and then were taken to lunch by the owner of the pearl shop. It was a good meal. I'm thinking she did ok, if she felt she could take 8 ladies to lunch afterward...What do you think? I tried a couple of new things...Gingko nuts, and batter-fried corn. They were both very good. It was a fun day!

We had a chance to see our good friends, the Larsens, this week. We were able to watch their children while they went to Hong Kong for a couple of days. It was so wonderful to see them. Our children loved playing with Emma, James, and Eliza. We will miss them very much. It was great to watch the children all play together so creatively.

Nicole baked an Austrian cake today. Her Austrian friend Issabella's mother, taught her how to make it. It was delicious.

Eli went to a birthday party last Saturday. At the party, it was hilarious to watch the children play the telephone game. First, they were four years old. On top of that, there were two Chinese children, two American children, and a German child. As you can imagine, the message did not make it anywhere close to it's original form.

Last Sunday, while watching the Casper movie as a family, the power went out in our neighborhood. It was pitch black, so we all went to bed at about 6:30pm. When Emma wanted to watch Casper this week, Jay said,"No, Casper makes the electricity go out!"

The first week of a new year...

I thought I'd mention a couple of things that happened this week...

I went running in the rain. Everyone actually stopped whatever they were doing. Construction, walking, sweeping, etc. to see the crazy white lady who runs for no reason, in the rain. I also realized that I have been spoiled in my life thus far, not ever having seen a rat before moving here (except a white pet rat that a friend had and I thought disgusting). I ran by a pile of garbage with several rats rummaging through, and really no big deal for me. I've come a long way.

We finally discovered why our driver has a piece of wire dragging from the back of the car. We've been driving around for at least a week with a horrible sound coming from the back end. When we realized what it was, our driver told us why, but we couldn't understand. Today we learned that he put it there as a ground, because we were always getting shocked when we opened the car door. That was very considerate of him, and now, I'm sure everyone in Nanjing knows that crazy family with the five children is coming, miles before they see our huge Transit approach!

Mike came home late one night after a work meeting. It was 11:30. So he came to bed, but was hungry, and came downstairs for some food. He saw lights outside, and walked to the window to see one of the security guards checking out our bikes, or so Mike thought. Suddenly, he looked around, and jumped on a bike, and rode off. Mike thought this was very interesting, and sat in the dark for a while to see when he would come back. After half-an-hour Mike gave up and went to bed. The bike was back in its spot the next morning. We were wondering if he needs us to buy him a new bike.

On Saturday, I celebrated my 34th birthday. The family did a good job helping me to enjoy it. I slept in, and we all went to lunch. I ordered my own cake last week at the German Bakery. I told Mike to pick it up yesterday. I figured it would make everyone happy. We had our fun little family party, where I received cute home-made jewelry, and a beautiful jade necklace from Mike. Mike took me for a massage, Italian Food, and Hagen Das Ice-cream. I can barely walk today after eating so much!

So...We are all well on our way in this 2006. I heard Nicole say her goal was to be able use chopsticks at every meal. Rachel hopes to learn all of the words to the Sons of Provo song "Miss Me, But Don't Kiss Me", and I'm pretty sure that Jay's goal is to see how many times he can get his Mother to let him watch Star Wars. Eli wants to see how many times he can find his sisters' secret hiding spots. Caitlin has a lofty goal of sucking on her hard-tack candy without chewing it. My goal is to help Mike come up with a goal:-) We Wadley's really reach for the stars... But hey, at least there isn't a high probability of failure!

2005 was a great year for us...

Wow, this was an incredible year for our family! We are so grateful for the many blessings we have received. Especially the amazing experiences we have had here in China thus far. It has been one of the most challenging, and most rewarding years of our life. Thinking back on the events, there were times that we didn't think that we'd make it. I had a feeling that if we could survive the preparations for the move, that we could survive anything. My intuition proved right. Anything would seem like cake compared with that! And this from a woman who has moved...I'm counting now...Nine times since I've been married. We are so proud of our amazing children who have had wonderful attitudes, and been incredibly resilient. Yes, 2005 will always be a year that stands out in our memories!

Our children spent New Year's Eve, as Mike and I did growing up...At home. We figured that since we both spent the New Year's Eves we can remember babysitting and having an "at-home party", that our children could do that too! They had snacks and DVDs and had their own count-down. Michael and I went out with some good friends. We enjoyed a meal at a Japanese steak house. Next to us was a group of Canadians, who felt the need to dress-up for the new year. There were two guys dressed as girls, who got more entertaining as the night went on, and they had more to drink. They even begged a photo with a policeman who was standing outside. I was relieved to see that they could not talk him into a drink. We were, however, glad that we were going to the Mullen's home for dessert, because there was still two hours left of drinking before the new year rang in, and they were getting awfully "happy".

Mike was off today, because of the New Year. We had a great day. First we went to a restaraunt, where we were the only people there! That is definitely the best situation for our family to be in. We went to the Nanjing Folk Museum after lunch. We all had a really nice time. Mike and I were able to buy a wonderful painting from an artist there at the museum. There were a lot of neat things to look at. We are sad that Mike has to go back to work tomorrow, but we had a very nice weekend.

The children still have a week left before they have to go back to school. They are enjoying their time relaxing. We hope that you all had a wonderful Holiday, and that your 2006 is the best year for you yet!

2 Christmas Photos

I found exactly two different shots of our Christmas party. They are the only ones we took, I guess. But they are good, because one shows me sitting next to our Chinese tutor, May. She is a sweetheart who is incredibly patient, and a great teacher. I don't know how they worked it out, here in China, but her parents have four children. She is the oldest. She is going home for a visit this month.
It was fun to have her to our Christmas dinner and party. Everyone included her and she loved the white elephant game. She wants to teach it to her family when she goes home. The other photo is of Yvonne Yu. I just love Yvonne. She just got this great hat for her white elephant gift and is modeling it. The next thing she pulled out of the bag were my cheerleading trunks! Though she did not model those, I'm glad they aren't in the photo:-)

Christmas 2005

Christmas was a whirlwind! We got back from our trip to Hong Kong on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. I went straight to the grocery store, while Michael started an attack on the luggage and laundry. I had made soup and froze it before our trip, so I just threw our dinner together.

Next was our annual Christmas pageant. I must say that every year gets a bit more crazy. Please remind Michael that next year it is his turn to narrate, and MY turn to film! Continuing on...The children all picked out their own costumes this year. I'm not sure if I can describe it adequately, but I'll try. Nicole was Mary. She decided to wear Mike's huge white t-shirt with a ball inside, because she was, after all, pregnant. She rode into Bethlehem on a stick horse, and continued to feed and pet it throughout the entire birth. What a woman! Let me say here that Caitlin's Cabbage Patch kid that suddenly appeared played his part to perfection. Eli was Joseph. He started out in the huge, black, grim-reaper Halloween costume, but somehow managed a costume change mid-pageant and ended up in the white Starwars wrap-around robe. Jay was our shepherd. He wore his brown Star-Wars cloak, and I must say looked his part the best, if it weren't for the life-size stuffed lion that he brought to the birth. Rachel, our Christmas Angel. Or maybe I should say Christmas fairy. She had on a white shirt and skirt, but wore green fairy wings, long green feather earrings, and some Red and Green leg warmers. I will say that the metal-cross-stitch frame she barretted in her hair was a nice touch. Last came in Caitlin, our wiseman, with a bright fleece scarf wrapped around her head. Let's just say...Vibrant? Well, it was quite the sight to behold. If only we hadn't tried to sing Joy to the World. That just pushed the senses past their thresh-hold! It's time to face the facts...WE ARE TERRIBLE SINGERS!

We barely made it through the pageant...But we had a wonderful time reading the love gift letters that we had exchanged with my family. The kids wrote Santa a note and left the oreos (after dealing with the disappointment of no time to make any cookies), and climbed into bed. Santa stayed busy for several more hours. Just before bed, I noticed my royal blue junior high Cheerleading trunks, and wondered how they got here, instead of stored. There are many things that baffle us. And you may be baffled as well, at this point, but you'll understand my reason for mentioning this at a later point.

We actually had to wake our children up! We have never had to do this before! But we had our entire church group coming over at 12:30 for church, and then Christmas Dinner. We also were so excited to talk to both of our families. So we woke the children up at 6:00am. We had a wonderful time, especially opening thoughtful gifts sent by our family in Utah. We felt so loved. We then were able to visit with our family. It was a high-light of the day. After we were finished opening the gifts, we had to say..."Merry Christmas kids! Now make it look like this never happened." We rushed to put all of our gifts on our beds, and clean up to get ready for church. I will say that by this point I was wondering what we had done, inviting everyone here. I wasn't feeling that "Christmas Spirit" at this point, I am ashamed to admit.

Just as I stepped out of the shower, people began to arrive:-). I was very quick to get ready. We had a wonderful Church service. It was just the right thing to help us focus on our Savior. Afterward, we had a wonderful dinner. Some Chinese friends, came after our service to join our dinner. Everyone brought things and we had a delicious ham. Wow was that a treat! We found one ham at Metro, and boy was it delicious! After dinner we had a white-elephant exchange. It was so much fun. There were about 40 of us, and every age enjoyed it. Nicole had helped me load a few bags since things were so crazy. Sister Yu got up, and opened her gift. First she pulled out a silly hat that Nicole had put in, and next thing I know, she is holding up my blue cheerleading trunks! I was in shock! I think she was too! Nicole had seen them sitting there and just put them in. Well, needless to say, it got quite the laugh, and Sister Yu, rewrapped them and stuck them back under the tree. Luckily, later in the game, Rachel recovered them for me. You know, since I'm sure I will be wearing them soon...

When everyone left, we couldn't stop smiling, and couldn't have imagined how our Christmas Day could have been any better, except of course being with our far-away family!

And now I have to apologize. We got a new digital video camera, which we are very excited about,and forgot to use the regular one. I know I can pull pics off of it, but am not that handy yet, so I guess you'll have to just use your imagination this time, and I promise not to do that again!

Hong Kong Photos

The view from our window at the YMCA. This is the ferry, we caught a block from our hotel, and just a picture we took of a side-street.

Hong Kong Photos

Here we are with the Millers in front of the Budhist temple. A couple of photos at Victoria Peak. Here are all of the children in front of the temple, and a picture of the temple.

Hong Kong Photos

The photos are a little random here. The top one is for Dad. A very steep cemetery. Next is the busy Disneyland main street. There is a pic of the view from our Disney Hollywood Hotel room, and the kids with Goofy and Pluto.

Hong Kong Photos

Here we all are at the entrance to Disneyland. Next, is proof of our craziness to go swimming, and finally, our attempt at at least looking famous. There is always a photo opportunity at the Disneyland Resort!