Hong Kong, A.S.I.A. Conference

Ander and I up at The Peak

I recently had the opportunity to fly to Hong Kong with several women from my church to meet up with other English speaking women living in Asia for the Associated Sisters In Asia Conference. Besides our van being involved in a minor traffic accident on the way to the airport we all made it safely to Hong Kong. Riddle me this: who would be at fault when someone is driving illegally on the shoulder and someone else puts their signal on to move into said illegal shoulder and they have a minor bump???

Anyway, we did make it to Hong Kong, leaving a handful of capable husbands to wrangle 20+ children on their own.
As space is limited in Hong Kong you can't build out so you have to build up. I love the church building there. This is the 12 story meeting house where everyone meets for church on Sundays. It is made to accommodate many different wards.

We met here for several days to listen to awesome, uplifting and inspiring speakers. It was so awesome that it was geared toward women having similar overseas experiences as I have had. Everyone there understood what it means to have moved to and live overseas in Asian. It was just what I needed.
Course not everything was spiritually geared- got a chuckle out of ^ these two and their signs for instance. We actually did a lot of sight seeing in our limited time thanks to Nicole's mad navigational skills. My hands were usually full of Ander or something related to him so I didn't get that many great pictures. But Nicole did so feel free to click here to see what we did.

A highlight of the trip was taking this unedited photo. Man, I was feeling the burn from that squat, holding Ander, all on my tip toes. Any ideas how this was accomplished? Besides my Kung Fu Panda-like "pure awesomeness" of course. Lucky for you there is no charge.

This one ^ is for Lori. The picture is the product of a really late night in a HK night market and perhaps inhaling too much second hand smoke.

Because of Ander and other reasons I considered not going to the conf. this year. Above is one of the reasons I did. This is me with my long time friend Allison. If you'd have told me way back in middle school we'd both end up with our families in Asia at the same time clearly, I would've had to call you a liar.

Allison lives in China and I was SO glad to finally see her. We caught up while we diligently distractedly worked on the service projects. You know those friends who you may not see for long periods of time but when you do it's like no time has passed at all? That's the kind of friend Allison is for me.
I am so grateful for a husband who encouraged me to go to HK with these girls. It was so fun to explore, sight see and eat yummy food with good girl friends who, btw, were always willing to lend a hand with Ander or one of many things I was striving hard not to lose (ie: blankets, toys, burp pads, jackets, bjorn, stroller, back pack ETC!) as we got on and off buses, metro trains and taxis all over the greater Hong Kong area.

First impression of HK? I like it.