Our Thoughtful Ayi

I really wanted to take a minute to talk about Wan, our housekeeper, this week. I have been very touched by her actions after I came home from surgery. She has always had such a jovial countenance, and is a hard worker. This week she has taken such good care of me. She has brought me water, and when my friend brought me lunch, Wan really took the "hostess" role and was very helpful. On Wednesday, she made me dumplings...so many dumplings for lunch. She also brought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Two lilies, which are expensive, and several carnations. I was so touched by this, as I know how much she has to work to get money for the flowers. This morning, she came upstairs and asked if I had eaten breakfast. I told her I hadn't, and she wanted to bring me something. I was going to ask for a banana, but forgot the word. So I said I would just come down and get something. I had told her earlier how Rachel, Nicole, and Caitlin had made so much food yesterday for Thanksgiving. She really wanted to bring me some food, and said," I can bring you something that Rachel made." I didn't want to offend her, so I agreed, having no idea what part of Thanksgiving dinner I would get for breakfast. She came back with the pumpkin pie leftovers and a paper plate and knife. She cut it up in squares (Pie isn't something she would know how to cut)and I asked for a very small piece, of course worrying about getting in trouble with the family for eating the pie! I'm glad there is still an extra pie! Well, I was just glad she didn't bring up stuffing, or mashed potatoes!

November 20, 2007

A lot of things have gone on this last couple of weeks. First, Rachel's birthday was on November 9th, a Friday. She was very busy that day, playing with friends and there was also a school Halloween Party that night. We all went to that, and then celebrated her birthday for lunch on Saturday. We had a tricky time finding a time the whole family could be there, because Mike had a lot of work things going on that week, and Rachel had important friend celebrations to attend to. Mike left Sunday morning to go to Thailand for business, so the birthday lunch was Saturday. She wanted lasagna and a home-made chocolate cake. She had a fun birthday. And, of course, I can't believe I have a 15 year old daughter!!!!

Also, on November 9th, I went to another cooking class. We learned to make Chinese dumplings. Ok, let me just say....HARD! I felt like butter fingers. Those dumpling makers have talent! After practicing a lot, I sort-of got the idea. The thing is, they make hundreds and they all look the same! Increadible. I don't think I'll really be making those at home in the near or far future. But it was a great experience learning how. I'm gaining a huge appreciation for their talent!

Here are some pictures of the Halloween party costumes,some from Rachel's birthday, and my dumpling cooking class.

Nicole and her friend Simone dressed like Barbies:



Here comes Wizard Caitlin:


Rachel's birthday lunch:


Here, you can see Jay in the corner, after his pretend guitar birthday song.


My first dumpling, and last dumpling. Notice I don't show you the demo-dumpling :-)


Working hard at dumpling-design.


Here is the special wedding meal waiting to be served at the fancy hotel that night...Want some????



Last Wednesday, Michael met me in Hong Kong to go to the Matilda Hospital for hip surgery. I was scheduled for a CT scan Wednesday afternoon, and the surgery on Thursday. I had a wonderful evening with Micheal, and then went to the hospital on Thursday. Great news, they didn't have to do everything they planned on doing. They just repaired a labrim tear, and then cleaned up some swelling and freying. The recovery is much less and I'm thrilled about that. I came back on Sunday afternoon, and I'm trying to do a couple of productive things while I'm not quite ready to get out and tackle the world, so here is the blog. Here are a couple of pictures...


Isn't it a cute hospital? It's right on Victoria peak. Very old, but nice.


How can you not have a speedy recovery with a view from your hospital room like this one?



I have a photo of the bandages, but I didn't want to shock anyone with too much leg. Nice of Mike to take those "after surgery" shots. (it's actually the next morning)


Ok, so Mike insists it isn't too much leg. Just be glad I'm not in a swimsuit :-) and I think you should know that the breakfast is for me AND Mike. I couldn't even eat it cause they beat up my throat so bad.

Rachel's trip to Jing De Zhen

Hey Everyone!
This is Rachel.. My mom told me to come on here and say a few things about my trip I went on last week with all of the kids in my grade.
I went to a little village in the middle of China, called Jing De Zhen. It is a pretty random location, and you would think that it had no historical relevance, due to the lack of people, but actually it is the Pottery/Porcelain capital of the world.
We stayed at a hotel, that warmly welcomed us with a large sign that read "Warmly welcomed international teen friendly sorts". They don't get a lot of foreigners there. We were in the hotel for about 4 nights, and we stayed in rooms of 2 Each room had its own computer and TV! We spent most of our days walking around the city though, looking at various museums and historically significant places.
Mostly all of the people who live there take part of the pottery industry.
I saw a lot of cool things, mostly pottery related, like people making the pottery, the kilns they are cooked in, the carving and painting of the pieces and even a first-hand look at the selling of the pottery =]
I had a great time looking at the different pieces, as art is one of my favorite things, but i did find out the hard way that pottery spinning is not my BEST talent. ;-)
The pottery there was very cheap, i bought three beautiful hand crafted vases for my mom for about $12.00, and i payed about double than the price i should have. so it was fun shopping =]

I had a lot of fun there, and am very glad i went!

Here are some pictures from my trip:



This is the "Millenium Wall". It was created by a bunch of foreign students.


This is a picture of a baby's Split-pants. Yes, they actually wear them (:

This is a sign that was at the buffet of our hotel. I thought it was pretty dang funny.


Thats me opening a locked door. haha.

And this is me, knocking on an ancient chinese door =].


This is a house in a small village I took a picture of. I really liked it.. it shows how alot of people really live.

Happy Halloween!

Last week was a busy week. I guess they all are. The girls all kept busy on their trips. Halloween was Wednesday night. It was fun. I found an ugly old pumpkin (which I thought worked extra well...being a little more scary) to carve. Mike came home and helped the boys carve their pumpkin. It was a rainy day. All of the kids met out in front of our house. With all of the older children gone on trip-week, there were less than 30 kids. The person who planned it decided that they would all go together. So our house was the first one. Then, we all went together to each house. One of the ladies had sent a note around a few days before, telling people there would be children coming to trick-or-treat, so most of the people participated. It was fun. They did get some interesting stuff. I think this was because of the available candy here, and because several Chinese homes participated. Jay and Eli received several "haw" candies. They are like crab-apples dipped in hard tack. MMMM.... Yummy! Jay was a pirate skeleton, and Eli was a skeleton. Nice and easy costumes I picked up when we were in Hong Kong.

Eli's birthday was fun. He took cupcakes to school. He came home with chocolate frosting all over him! The neighborhood usually has cake out in front of the houses on the kid's birthdays. We had a little neighborhood party right after school. Eli was very excited about his gifts. Some of his favorites were a Ratatouille game, a remote control car, and a little pretend fish tank. He was very tired by the end of the day!

On Saturday, all of the Elders' Quorum came over to play football, eat pizza, and watch the Priesthood session of General Conference. I hid out in my room with the kids, but it sounded like they had a great time. There were about 25 of them.

I have been very involved lately with the charity that I work with. We are putting together an Auction to raise money for heart surgeries. I have been extremely busy with it. If all goes well, we should make enough for 3 or 4 children to have heart surgery! That will definitely make all of this work worth it! Here is the hyper-link if anyone wants to see the sweet children who have had surgeries!


I want to try to get the girls to write about their trip weeks on the blog. I'll see. It's hard to get them when they aren't too busy!

Here are a few photos of Halloween, and Eli's birthday.

Oh- One last thing. I was invited to a Melbourne Cup luncheon yesterday. I'm told that nobody in Australia works on this day (it's a big horse race), they have parties and watch the race. We were to all dress up and wear hats, and we all watched the race on the Australian channel. My friends and I wore funny hats. I think they are trying to make me an Aussie! It was a fun afternoon. I'm loving getting to know so many different cultures.

Carving the pumpkin.


Rainy Trick-or-treat.


Jay and Eli and friends (Jay is in the pirate mask)


Candy...


Eli and his cake (it's better than it looks...that's coconut-pecan frosting)


Yeah! Presents!


Getting ready for the Melbourne Cup Luncheon.


Ginelle, Julie, Deb, and I. Don't we look lovely?


Here are the ladies watching the race...

October 30th 2007

I wrote the whole thing, and put pictures on, and then...it disappeared! That's a little frustrating. But...I'm going to try again.

Last weekend was supposed to be Eli's birthday party. He chose to invite a set of twins he plays with to go to McDonald's and to a park. But, they had to cancel last minute. It turned in to a Mommy-Daddy-Eli date. We went to McDonald's and then to the school to play. We had fun. The only bad part was when Mommy threw a baseball and Eli missed. It hit his eye. What a nice Mom!!!! He still has a purple and black eye. Happy Birthday Eli! I can't believe my baby is 6 years old!

Also this weekend, we went for a walk with the boys. I keep trying to sneak in walks because I am going crazy not exercising at all. I can walk and move OK, it just makes me hurt. But, I figure I won't be able to at all for a while after the surgery coming up on the 15Th, so much to Mike's displeasure, I do try to sneak some walking in. I don't know if I've mentioned the surgery on the blog. I will be going in for hip surgery to Hong Kong. I have something called FAI Femoral Ace tubular Impingement. Anyway, I'm really grateful they found the problem, and that it can be fixed! It will be an arthroscopic surgery, and I am really glad about that.

The girls are off on their trip-week. Each grade goes to a different location in China to learn about the culture for a week. Caitlin is in Nanjing (but staying away from home), Nicole is in Xi'an, and Rachel is in JingdeZhen. Hopefully I'll get some more info about that when they get back.

Here are some pictures from this weekend:


There was a posing rock (there always seem to be lots of "posing" opportunities around), so I had Mike pose. Handsome guy!


There are always lots of girls getting photographed at the different parks. Mostly wedding photos. This girl has a fancy purple gown on. It seemed chilly!


Mike and Eli at our Birthday play-date


Eli and the black eye he is happy to tell everyone that Mom gave him. It looks much worse than you can see here. It swelled up more and turned purple and black.


Wedding photos!


Testing the water...Other people are swimming. Should I?


No Mike No! Look at the sign! (and the people swimming behind it)


Jay and Eli trying to fall in...luckily they didn't succeed.

A party?

We were invited to a party today. My friend who invited us had asked us to something before, and we weren't able to go, so I really made an effort to get there this time. I thought it was her party. But, it turned out to be a grand opening of a "Horse Ranch" out in the rural area of Nanjing. I put "horse Ranch" in quotation marks, because it's certainly not what you would picture. We drove through little villages, and finally ended up there. It started at 12:00pm, and we were about 15 minutes late. There were a few foreigners we didn't know there, and we seemed to stand around in this big cement looking courtyard for what seemed like ages. There were some horses in cement stalls in back, and they put some toys in a fenced in part for some of the little kids. Across from the kids there was a fenced in part for 2 chickens, and another for a dog. Finally, after about an hour, Heike, who had invited us came. There seemed to be a lot of Chinese dishes being added to the pot-luck. At about 1:30, they brought out a few horses for the children to try riding. It was fun for the kids because they haven't ever really tried riding horses themselves. Mike is horribly allergic to horses, so he stayed away from them. The meal wasn't ever getting started, and we were ready to go quite soon after that, so we took the kids to McDonald's. Well...it was a China experience! I asked each of the kids to tell me in one sentence how their horse-riding experience was...

Rachel said," It was good."
Nicole said," It was embarrassing."
Caitlin said, "It was slow."
Jay said," It was very, very, fun!"
Eli, who didn't ride one, said," The little Chinese boy ate the chips off of my plate without asking!"

So, there you go.


Here is Mike in front of the new horse ranch. And, Grandma, right behind him. She was awesome!



Caitlin.



Jay.



Nicole.



Rachel.



Here is the little village the horse ranch was in.



This darling little girl was playing in the street. I showed her her photo on the camera, and she was really excited.

Photos and stuff

So much has happened since I last wrote. I think it's best to just share some pictures will discriptions for now...

This is before school on "crazy hair day". It's hard to see, but we shaved Eli's name into his hair. It was so blond, you couldn't see it well, so we used blue marker to make it stand out. Note Nicole's crazy hair is a side pony (that was not so crazy in my day)...
>


I went to a cooking class not too long ago, and learned to make "Mandarin fish" here is a photo of the deep fried special. Yes, it started out as whole fish, and it was pretty entertaining to watch us ladies try to do the fancy cuts, and deal with the gross parts. My fish wasn't the worst looking, but definitely not as nice as the chef's fish...you should note that they usually leave the head on , and that is the best part. I think they knew who they were dealing with...wimpy western ladies.


Here, we are on our way to Hong Kong!


We had a great time in Hong Kong. The kids really enjoyed Hong Kong Disneyland. Our first day there, we were asked to be the "first family of the day". We were let in 10 minutes early for photos like this one with the staff, and then we did a count-down to the opening time. We felt pretty special, and were the first ones in the park to start the rides. The kids were in heaven!


We just had to stop on our way to the rides and have a photo...notice nobody else on main street U.S.A.?


We enjoyed some beautiful walks just outside our hotel along the ocean.




The kids thought it would be fun to go to a beach. We found one called Big Wave Bay. It was quite an adventure getting there. We took the subway, and then found a bus, where we rode it to a certain rode and walked 20 minutes. We actually found it, and used the YMCA towels to lay on. I wonder if they didn't like that. We rented some body boards, and had lots of fun. The waves were actually really high, and there were some people surfing. I spent the afternoon like a mother worrying about whether or not I could see all of my kids! Here are Jay and Eli, the one time I didn't need to worry where they were.




We had a great time in Hong Kong. It was just the break we needed, and fun to spend time together. I notice, the older the children get, the more busy they are, and the trickier it is to find "family time". These are great chances to be relaxed and just have fun (and eat food we love, and speak English, and shop for our sizes, etc. etc.)

A couple of days after we got back from Hong Kong, my sister Lori came to visit! We had such an awesome time! She is such a good sport. She tried everything I gave her to eat (and believe me, growing up, she was a picky eater!), and tried the massages (and actually enjoyed them), and never complained even though I walked her all over Nanjing. I'm not sure she ever got used to the Chinese toilets, though. I am so glad she was able to come and see where I live. It's hard to say good-bye, but so wonderful when people you love come to stay. Here are a couple of photos of her trying out some of the Chinese life...

I took her to Mochu Lake, the same lake I put up photos from the last entry. She thought she would try to stick her leg up in a tree like so many of the older people do to stretch. Good try Lori! But when they do it, their legs are almost parallel to their bodies. Keep trying!


Here is a photo Lori took of me with "Satan Mickey" as we called him. She thought it was pretty crazy how they copy everything, but many times it just doesn't look quite right...


Here is Lori and Caitlin in front of the Lake of 10,000 men. This is a lake that the emperor decided to have put in over-night, and took 10,000 men to hand-dig.


This is "Buddha Lori". We went to QiXia mountain, where there is a monastery and beautiful carvings in the mountain. There was an empty spot, so I asked Lori to pose. I think she did a great job!


Life is back to normal now, if you can call life normal. A couple of side-notes: I found out just before going to Hong Kong that I need to have hip surgery. I will be flying to Hong Kong for November 15Th. It will be arthroscopic surgery, and that makes me really happy. There will be a special training course on that day, so I will have one of the best surgeons for this problem in the world in Hong Kong to work on my hip that day. Also, not long before going to Hong Kong, I entered a competition to run in the torch relay for the 2008 Olympics. China will choose 8 foreign residents to run. I certainly didn't get the top votes, but it was a lot of fun. I got just under 700 votes, and loved reading the comments people were able to leave. I don't think I'm out quite yet, maybe I'm going on to the next round. We'll see. Either way, it's been fun.