April Showers . . . bring new rain gear and lots of puddles!

I've been so excited for the rain to come simply because I found the cutest new rain boots for Ra at zhan lan guan (john lawn gwan, like swan, but with a g:) I was seriously torn as to weather to buy the plain pink and green ones or the cute pink ones with white polka dots . . . and I couldn't believe that I had such a choice! Usually the choice is something more along these lines . . . "do I buy the pink ones with the strange japanese anime cartoon shooting guns on it or the blue ones with a goofy frog and horrid English on it?" but this time, oh THIS time it was an amazingly wonderfully hard choice to make for real! At 35 yuan (about $5 US) I should have just bought both, one a size up for next year so I can avoid the cartoons and bad English for another year. . . hmmm, not a bad idea, there may be a quick trip back to the store scheduled soon!

Anyway, she had tons of fun when she got off the school bus and there had been a whole day of rain for puddle-making in our courtyard . . . so we took the long way home and hit all the good puddles. When we got home and took off her boots, about 2 quarts of water poured out of each one! EEK! But it was fun!



What a fun day!

Field trip to Ocean World

So we had our first field trip. Rachel was SOOO excited for the entire week before the trip. Finally, like two days before, I realized she thought they were going to the OCEAN . . . ah, a little different, sweet girl, but still pretty cool... she wasn't too disappointed, at least when she found out she would be able to see lots and lots of sea animals we'd never see at the ocean. It made up for the loss of beaches and sandcastles I guess :)



Ra posing with the giant penguin outside the entrance. Really great, except she was quite disappointed when we saw the actual penguins inside . . . she thought they were baby penguins.

Not a great shot, but she was being enchanted by the walrus doing "nose stands" for all the folks.


I remember seeing my first seahorse and being amazed at how small they are! Loved it!

She love, love, loved the tunnel! how exciting to see sharks, stingrays and seals swim overhead! We had an absolutely fabulous day. I love this part of being a mommy. . . she still wants me to come with her on field trips and hang out with me the whole time. Soon this will not be so and I will need to cling to these memories to get me through . . . She is such a blessing . . . such a joy.

Christmas . . . in April?

Yeah, well, yesterday morning it was cold enough to still be December here (OK, maybe not that cold, but it was stinking COLD for it to be April!) and that was kind of fitting as we just got a long-awaited, highly anticipated Christmas present...



We are excited to be able to 1) use fewer taxis, 2) stop on the way to a destination when we see something of interest, and 3) have a way for Jerry to process things! He really misses driving as it was his "down time" to process things that got stuck swimming around in his head...now if you've visited us here (mom), you may think "down time??? while in that traffic?" But in reality this is just a glorified bicycle with a battery attached. We ride in the bike lane most of the time, but we get there way faster than our biking friends, which is nice considering the air in the bike lane is often caked with exhaust and occasionally sand from the northern desert.

And I love the guiltlessness of requesting trips to the market while cooking something because I have forgotten an ingredient!

Merry Christmas!

eye check-up

Ra has been complaining lately of headaches (read: hedecks) so we decided to get her eyes checked to see if there were any problems. None were found, thank goodness...as cute as she would be in glasses, we weren't quite ready to deal with that at 4 years old. Although she could have been blind for all this "push your forehead against the bar and look at the little red house" test knew....she couldn't even push the bar forward, and when I asked if she was looking at the little red house? "there isn't any, mommy, just desert!" But when she read the eye chart from 5 meters away, she did great, even calling out the shapes in Chinese...so we're pretty sure they're right...no eye problems causing the hedecks. sigh.

a week of parcels!

I'm not usually one for rain, but they do say "when it rains, it pours" and this past week we found this to be quite true . . . three parcels arrived safe and sound after several failed attempts. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Hinten, Grandma Alice and Grandpa Gene and "my girls" . . . we had a GREAT week enjoying all the wonderful treats you sent our way!


Daddy showing Ra what googly eyes are for . . .

yummy yummy Fruity "Petals" . . .



Feety pajamas just in time for the heat to be turned off for the year! Yay! I can be warm all night long!