Happy Easter!

Easter Weekend was great! ISB had a wonderful Easter egg hunt which both boys really enjoyed. They had sections roped off for individual age groups-each kid got to find 14 eggs and stuffed inside of those eggs was American Candy (yum yum!), gift certificates to McDonalds, or tickets to exchange for a prize. Botht the boys got 5 prize tickets so they got to go to the table and pick out toys they wanted. Most toys were donated mcdonalds and burger king toys-which was perfect! kieran got 5 guys of some sort, and kellan got 5 truck-like things. We stayed around there and the kids got to dye eggs, climb ropes, and just burn off some energy. It was a beautiful day (besides the air) so we took advantage of it. The next day we celebrated Easter at our house after Riley and I returned from a MILES FOR SMILES walk/run race we were doing downtown.

The week at school was called SMILE WEEK where the middle school where i work raises money for kids with cleft pallets to have surgeries. These kids are abandoned and left to die. A local foster home-takes care of them and spoon feeds them back to health. Each grade in the middle school took on the goal of raising enough money to pay for one surgery for a child-and then a fourth surgery would be done if the community/staff gave enough money. Well our goal was 4 surgeries paid for-but we fell just $300 short of paying for 8 kids to have surgeries! It was incredible! all week the kids bought paper "smiles" for one another for 10rmb ($1.50) and they put positive messages on them to give to other kids. It was amazing. The babies we were raising money for came in for a visit so we could actually see where our money was going....it was truely unbelievable! There is so much work like this that goes on in our school -we are lucky to be a part of it.

anyway-back to the walk/run. Riley and i signed up for a run where 3/4 of the money went towards the children's surgeries. It was a run open to anyone-but one of the teachers at the school had some connections to the organizer so we used it as a fundraiser for the surgeries. The grade 8 students had a competition and my homeroom won for having the most participants! I have a great homeroom....you can see a few of them inthe pictures attached. All-in-all it was a great EAster weekend althought it would have been great to have been back home celebrating with our families.

Zoo Adventure

We ventured out last weekend to the Beijing Zoo and Aquarium. What an experience! (Not necessarily a good one). To sum it up-it was one of the largest cities in the world and it was a weekend where the Chinese Citizens were on holiday........all together not a good combo for being in public places in Beijing. But anyway-we made the best of it.

We started in the aquarium...very enjoyable. The dolphin and seal show were the boys favorite part. We got there early and tried to strategize where to sit so that we could exit easily with the boys and the stroller. Well-nothing is as it seems in China so sitting in the top row next to three sets of exit doors doesnt' mean that you will be the first to exit out those doors-it simply means they will not let you out the doors for whatever reason-so we ended up having to carry the stroller back down the three flights of steps and through the crowd of people to exit. Very few parts of the zoo were handicap/stroller accessible-which was a pain, but we managed.

After finishing up the aquarium, we found a nice big grassy area where a few people were blowing bubbles with their kids. Kellan loved this so we decided to park it here for our picnic-which was very nice:) By this point we had been at the zoo for a few hours and the boys were starting to get tired. We decided we HAD to see the pandas before we left since we were there. That was our biggest mistake----we had to walk to the opposite end of the zoo and then fight thousands and thousands of people to see 2 pandas up against a glass barrier. We had the stroller which didn't work at all, so riley threw kieran on his shoulders to get a peak and then after they got a glance, kellan and i were going to try to sneak a peak. Well somehow kieran managed to get a picture-and riley caught a glimpse i think....but when he came back to where kellan andi were standing with the stroller-riley said he wasn't going to let me go up there b/c it was too dangerous! It is not that people are intentionally rude (i don't think)....that is just the way it is here with so many people. if you want to get anywhere-you have to be rude and PUSH! So i took the husbandly/fatherly advice and decided not to venture to the window to see the pandas....we said we would come back another time. Hopefully we will get to the place in China where we can see Pandas in their natural environment before we leave.

The ride home was another adventure-we got out close to our house fine-but then riley missed the turn-off from the airport expressway-so we took the next exit we could. We ended up driving through a village for about 2 miles-that must have taken 30 minutes and riley almost got into a couple fender benders. Driving was like the zoo----if you want to get anywhere you have to be forceful. Well-when cars are going both ways down a one-way street and people and bikes are EVERYWHERE---driving is not the easiest thing to do! Well after a couple close-calls-we made it to the end of the road which LUCKILY ran into a road we thought looked vaguely familiar. That road took us home where we all crashed for a few hour nap:)

Last Days with Kathy

Saturday morning Riley and Kathy set out to the Dirt Market. I stayed back with the boys b/c i was tired. The dirt market is one of riley's favorite places-he always comes back with some unusual treasures:) They spent all morning there bargaining for treasures for them both...I think Kathy finished her gift shopping which was nice. She found some nice authentic gifts for friends and family.

That night we went to HoHai lake and ate at the famous Hutong Pizza place. This little hutong is famous for its square pizza-and it sure was good! We wanted to walk around the lake a little bit and do some shopping, but it was too cold for the boys so we decided to go back to the streeet where we did our hutong cooking class and check out the local stores. Very cute boutique-like shops. Some very unique chinese gifts can be found if you are willing to look. We stayed for a bit and then headedhome. Kathy and I treated ourselves to our second massage of the week-earlier in the week we went to the neighboring compound to get one but this time we went to a little nicer place. We both enjoyed our massages although neither of us had the guts to speak up to our massage therapist and tell him/her "TOO HARD!" So we both walked away a little sore-but thought we would feel better in the morning.

Sunday we were scheduled to go to the Summer Palace, but it was TOOOOOOOOOO cold and kathy said she was ok just lounging around. We went to Wal Mart so Kathy could get some Chinese candy for her 3rd grade kids back in Minnesota. We had a relaxing evening at home and watched a movie b/c Kathy's flight left early in the morning. It was so great having her here-WE LOVE VISITORS:)

Eating scorpions

Yes the caption is correct-kathy and riley (and some other friends) all took the plunge and nibbled on deep-fried scorpion. You can't see it in the picture-but the little ones are still moving before they are cooked! i don't know how you could eat one after seeing that-but they did. There were even a few of kieran's friends who took little bites!

So this night market is a street where you can basically get lots of wierd stuff on a stick. The sugar-dipped fruit was pretty good-we liked the pineapple the best...but there was lots of other stuff as well. Kathy compared some of the stuff you can get to that at the minnesota state fair---i think a lot less appetizing though. I didn't try anything --used my pregnancy as an excuse-although i would not have tried anything even if i weren't pregnant!

After leaving the marke (it was COLD!) we decided to walk to tianamen square/forbidden city to see it all lit up at night. Very pretty-but too cold to really enjoy (in my opinion). After our limbs got numb, we tried to hail a taxi-which was no easy task. We finally flagged one down after 1/2 hour of trying. We headed home for the evening and crashed.

Hutong cooking

Kathy and I ventured Friday morning to a hutong in the downtown area. We got dropped off by a cab and waited for the lady who lead the class to meet us so we could go to the market with her. What an experience! i have to admit i got a little queezy seeing all the meet lying/hanging around the market......i am not big on raw meat, but it was neat to see and learn about all the other items. We bought all our ingredients to make Chinese Dumplings-called joutza (i am not even close on the spelling in know).

We then walked back to the hutong where our teacher lives...met up with 3 other people who were in Beijing visiting. Then our cooking experience began. We learned how to make joutza from scratch....i made chicken/corn/carrot ones and kathy made beef/celery/onion ones. Both were incredible! i hadn't reallly found any dumplings i liked up to that point.-these were VERY good!After teaching us how to make joutza-our teacher whipped up some chinese stir-fry noodles in a wok. amazing what you can in less than 10 minutes! She makes it look so easy-again the food was verygood. We were there from about 8:30-2 and then headed home-both ready for a nap!

In the pictures you can see a little bit of the hutong where we made our food-it was neat to see the inside of a hutong-there are not many left in the city at this point.....most are destroyed and then highrise apartments are built and the people are moved into there. I would like to take a hutong tour sometime, but this experience was a great start!

More Fun with Kathy!

Wednesday Kathy toured the Shunyi area a little bit and discovered that we live in a pretty Western world...then she met up with us at ISB. I treated her to some gourmet cafeteria food-which i don't think she was too fond of:( Then we headed to Riley's room so his students could ask her 20 questions before they headed off to specialist classes for the remainder of the day. We waited around for a while for the Delano crew, but were SUPER excited when we saw their bus pull into our gates about 2:30. My principal, Dale Cox, greeted them with lanyards and some recruiting stuff for the teachers. We watched part of the ISB recruiting DVD, took a quick tour of the school, then headed off to show them our house in our compound. They were all surprised by the size of our house (as were we) and some of the girls couldn't believe how big Kellan has gotten (i coached and/or taught 4 of the 6 students who made the trip to China from Delano).

After showing them a quick glimpse of our world, we headed into the city to do so me shopping at the famous Yashow market. The kids were craving STARBUCKS so we grabbed that and SUBWAY on the way to shop!

When we were at the market we all split up to do some bargaining! I was super impressed at how good the girls i was with were at bargaining! they got some incredible deals! I even hopped in on one deal b/c they ended up getting these bottle openers for cheaper than i would have tried to go:) After over 2 hours of bargaining...it was time for them to head back to their hotel and for me to head back home. Riley and Kathy had spent the evening at Kingy's bar with teachers. It was the day before our spring break so most teachers were out!

Thursday we headed to the TEMPLE OF HEAVEN which was a new adventure for Riley and me. It turned out to be one of my favorite sites to visit thus far in China! You see everything while you walk around the park...tons of older Chinese folk dancing, stretching, yo-yo-ing, playing all kinds of racquet sports, singing (or yelling-depending on your tastes). It was truely amazing! We loved walking around. In the pictures you can see Riley and Kathy trying to yo-yo--with sticks (i think that is what they call it?). Another picture you can see men painting on the sidewalks with water and brushes----beautiful artwork! Yet another picture of the older small Chinese woman --if you loook carefully-we thought her feet must have been bound from a long time ago. She was dressed in a very unique manner and she definitely walked funny. She got many stares as she wondered around the Temple of Heaven.

After spending a few hours at the park, we headed to the pearl market where kathy got herself a beautiful necklace and i bought a few things for the folks back home. We didn't spend too much time there before we were starving and headed off the a famous noodle shop close by. The food there was GREAT! Riley and i had quickly eaten there the night we went to the ballet-but this time we were able to enjoy it more. Good food......,then we headed home to NAP for a few hours-which was much needed! That evening we just hung out and tried to gain some energy for the next day's adventures! More to come!

Tuesday-Lama Temple, Olympic Venues, and Chinese Acrobat Show

Tuesday Kathy and I had a full afternoon and evening full of events..... first we taxi-ed to the Lama Temple, which honestly I should have done some reading about. I wasn't that impressed simply because I didn't k now the significance of everything I was looking at. People were praying and burning incense everywhere so it was interesting to watch. Then we headed to the Olympic Venues to get an afternoon glimpse of where all the events took place in August. WE did not go into any of the venues, but just seeing their majesty up close was very impressive. We decided to eat at TGI Fridays----a little American Food to satisfy the old pregnant woman. Then we headed off to see the infamous Chinese Acrobats. It was a great show-very entertaining. We were planning on taking Kieran to see it with us---and he would have LOVED it, but he got in a little bit of trouble at school and part of his consequence was that he couldn't go to see the show with us. It was amazing the strength and flexibility of the performers! After an entertaining performance, we took on the chore of trying to catch a taxi in a business district when everyone was getting off of work....quite interesting! But eventually we caught a cab and headed home:) The other pictures included here are a picture of a 7-star hotel next to the Olympic Venues and a picture of Riley on that morning when Kathy rode through the village with him on the way to school.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KELLAN

For a few weeks kellan has been practicing singing Happy Birthday...but even after all that practice, he wasn't quite sure what to think when the lights were turned out and there were a whole room full of people singing Happy Birthday to him! We had our usual Sunday night crew over along with a few of Kellan's everyday buddies...it was great. He got some very nice gifts...his favorite of which is a book called "No David No" which somehow he interprets and calls "No Damon No"....quite comical---i wonder what Damon will think of that!?! We will have to bring the book home this summer so Kellan can show damon.

Trip to the Wall with Kathy

While kathy was here we kept several days' schedules interchangable b/c we wanted to make sure Kathy got a nice clear day for the Wall. So Saturday, although it was kellan's 2nd birthday, we woke up to clear skies so we decided to hire a driver and head to Mutianyu. What a beautiful day! A little chilly, but perfect for walking the wall. So b/c of the pregnant lady, we decided to take the cable car up, walk around the wall and climb to towers, and then take the luge down. It was great! Kathy and Riley enjoyed a beer on the wall which seems to be a tradition on the wall-even though both kathy and riley thought the beer tasted like it was skunked! So here are a few pictures from that day. That afternoon we came home and celebrated Kellan's birthday by having lots of friends over for cupcakes. Stay tuned for pictures....