Shifen Waterfall, PingXi

My biggest driving accomplishment happened when we went to PingXi and Shifen Waterfall. I borrowed a friends GPS but it wouldn't find our destination so I just winged it. I stopped once for directions but was totally patting myself on the back because I was on the right track. 

Once we got to PingXi (the place where the lantern festival is held) we got out and had a picnic before exploring the little town a bit. 

Lot's of sights and smells and "culture".

This sweet lady sold us these hats for about $1 U.S. each. That is a deal I can handle.

Grandma "Pixie" and Papa John with the three amigos.

I first heard about Shifen falls from Pinterest. I didn't put it together that it was so close to PingXi until I googled it. I was excited to go check it out but not holding my breath. 

                           

I was pleasantly surprised. It's rare in Asia that something exceeds my expectation.

But Shifen Falls definitely did. It was beautiful.

You can actually take a little train from PingXi up to Shifen waterfall which could be fun to do another time with different visitors (HINT, HINT- to anyone who wants to take it).

It was a stunning waterfall. I was so glad we went to see it. 

I was also glad we left Ander home with a sitter. It wasn't really an Ander friendly outing... though most aren't these days. He is a WILD man. But that is a story for another day. 

Grandpa Time

 My dad was certainly busy this trip. He spent literally hours, roughhousing with the kids out on the trampoline. They would beg him to go out and play with them and day after day, he obliged. It's a testament to his endurance and courage that he could handle 4 wild things at once. It is what the kids have talked about the most though so it was obviously their favorite activity.

 Nathan was gone most of when my dad was able to be here but we did all get to go and see Hunger Games together which was awesome (except that for some reason the ENTIRE audience broke out into laughter every time it cut to Gale watching the games from District 12. There were no words on the screen at the time as nothing was being said and other friends reported the same experience when they saw it. So strange. Anyway, I digress) but once Nathan left it was up to me to get us around which definitely stretched my abilities. We did eventually find the beautiful Calla lilly festival going on further up the mountain.

 Plenty of time loving on this little sweety pie.

And we also went to the zoo one hot day. We had a pretty good time, we got to see the Panda Bears which is always pretty neat. Aaand I even got us home without having to make an international call to have Nathan tell me where I was and where I needed to go, success!

Spring Break Visitors!

 When my parents heard that Nathan would be out of town for the week before spring break this year, they decided to come for a visit when they could both give me a hand and also get some quality time while the kids were home from school. It all came together rather last minute which is my favorite way. Before we knew it Grandma and Grandpa were on their way to us.

They arrived early Friday morning and decided they felt well enough, in spite of jet lag, to accompany Nathan on Aly's field trip to the strawberry patch. They literally left our house after arriving only a half an hour earlier.

 Aly was excited to have her dad and her grandparents go with to the strawberry patch. She enjoyed picking her strawberries and getting to eat strawberry ice cream.

I met them back at the school and Nathan and I took my parents to Din Tai Fung, the best soup dumplings in the world. So. Good. Not bad for a first day battling jet lag. We were so excited to have them!!!

Father Daughter Ball 2012

 This year, for the Father/Daughter Ball the theme was Alice in Wonderland. My options are limited and different than how I would go about getting a costume for Kennedy in the states. I find myself making do a lot, which is good for me, right?

Thankfully I have some of my old dance costumes with us so I sacrificed one and had a local sewing lady take off the sequins that had been on it and fit it to Kenna and she wore it over a Cinderella costume we had and it worked perfectly! (well, perfectly enough)

Nathan rented a tux and it was the first time he's worn one since we were married. He looked so handsome, I was a little envious I wasn't going out with him. He searched all over Taipei to locate a top hat since the invitation suggested he wear one, and Kennedy was really hoping he would find one.

 Kennedy, or rather, Ms. Alice, was wearing a hair bow, where her bow was made out of her hair. I ran out of time and ended up feeling like the practice run the night before had been a pinch better but she was thrilled how it turned out so I resisted the urge to keep primping and let her go.

 Not too shabby. It makes me wonder how easy it would be to do this if we didn't have 4 other kids running around and in the mix.

And of course the Mad Hatter has the fraction on his hat which upon Googling it's significance is supposedly the price of the hat, 10 shillings 6 pence. Interesting.

 They were off, headed for a night of fancy food, fun games and dancing. They were not disappointed. Kennedy looks forward to this night all year long. Truth be told, so does Nathan.

 This was Aly after they left. It's hard being a 5 year old -excuse me- 5 and a half  year old, when there is a magical Ball on the line. Maybe next year sweety peety. (I should mention Nathan took her out on a date the night before, lest anyone feel too sorry for her).

 

Kohen, however, was ready to party.

Not the King James Version

I know Eve was the mother of all living but I've never seen it interpreted so literally before. If that is in fact what one is to deduce. 

 Even after three years in Taiwan, there are some things that simply defy understanding... or explanation.

????????? Any ideas??? Anyone??????????

Scarlett at 7 months

 Guess what happens when you wait to do a 6 month post about your baby? It becomes a 7 month post. I feel like this perfectly illustrates how quickly this precious time is going. There are lots of different ways to measure speed. Speed of sound, speed of light; I think Speed an Infant Changes should be in there too. It seems to beat out any others.

 Scarlett is growing and thriving and a happy little girl. She has struggled to take a bottle and for the same reason, struggled to start solids but I think we finally can report success on the solids. The bottle? We are still working on it. I'd love to have longer than a 3 hour window during the day but I also try and remember it's really such a short time she needs me, I shouldn't be too quick to wish it away.

 She has just begun to sit up on her own and she also has figured out how to clap. My favorite thing she does is scrunch up her nose and breathe in and out real noisily. She does it on purpose and maybe even to be silly. I can make the same noise back to her and we will do it back and forth, she thinks this is extra funny... I do too.

A young mother in the ward recently asked me if Scarlett was "hitting all of her benchmarks". I know I probably cared about those with Kennedy, maybe even Kohen. But by now, and especially here where we don't have well baby check ups (and all of their stats would be in a foreign language called the metric system) I definitely don't think much about it. She's got rolls on her thighs so I know she is eating well. She fits in her clothes when she is supposed to. She does things around when I remember her siblings doing them. I feel grateful to have enough experience under my belt to know she is doing well with or without getting to go in to the Dr.
She is healthy and happy.
I am overwhelmed with gratitude for our Mei Mei.

*Gush is now over.
(well, that's a lie. I maybe never stop gushing over her in real life. I'll just stop doing it here :)

A.S.I.A. Conference 2012

 Truth be told, this year, I really felt like I just didn't have the energy to go. Scarlett is not the most amazing traveler and bringing her with would be a handful. I tried to back out a couple of times and -here is where Nathan gets major husband-props- he wouldn't let me. He continued to encourage me to go until I was headed to the airport with my friends.

 Of course, in hind sight, I am so grateful I went. Thursday before the conference started a bunch of us girls met and went to the famous Stanley Market.

 It had a beautiful view and you could smell the ocean in the air...

But truth be told, I am starting to feel kind of "meh" about night markets and markets in general. I'm feeling a little bit like, if you've seen one you've seen em all. However, I remain committed to continuing to check them all out just to make sure. :)

 Anyway, that night the conference started and we met up with many friends who have moved to other places in Asia but we were able to meet back up in HK. I love that about the conference.
This years service project was for a local Boy Scout's Eagle Project- crocheting leper bandages to donate to a leper colony in Nepal (a throw back for me to my YW's project back in the day, remember doing these Heather H?). It was a fun project to do while listening to speakers or visiting with friends in between classes. Thank you hand model Matina for this pic ;)

 I was teasing Lori that I was going to put this pic in the conference slideshow, to which Lori replied, "Oh yeah, well those cookies were the ones I brought to you with your lunch." Touche' my friend, touché'.

 Scarlett was a good girl all things considered. And the girls all took turns taking her during classes for me or holding her when she was fussy, or so I could eat. I was so grateful for their service and help.

 And getting to see my girls, Lori and Nicole, made the whole trip worth while. Last year Nicole moved to HK and Lori moved to Chengdu China. I was not a fan of either of those moves, FOR THE RECORD. I love them both and miss them terribly. It was so awesome to have some time with them.  

 It was an incredibly spiritually uplifting weekend. When you are a mom with little ones at church you don't always get much out of it week to week. So I feel like I really get to recharge at conference.

 Annnd I get to go out to eat and shop in HK with my friends... that is a winning combination.

At Mask, a yummy restaurant that serves Sichuan food. Never thought I would put "yummy" and "sichuan food" in the same sentence. Boy I have come a long way over the last few years...

PingXi Lantern Festival 2012

2 years ago we went to PingXi for the Lantern Festival and had an amazing time and made some great memories. We did not have the same experience this year.

We went with 3 other couples, one of which brought their 2 boys and we also had Ms. Scarlett with us. We left home around 4pm. 

We got to the zoo to jump on one of the buses shuttling people up to the Festival and the line of people waiting was further than we could see. We waited an hour to get on the shuttle. Then we rode 45min on the narrow, windy road to PingXi. 

We all unloaded off of the bus, it was dark out now, and we headed with hundreds of other people up towards the lantern lift offs. 

 Next thing you know as we were walking with crushes of people, the crowd just slowly grinds to a halt.

Now, before I go on let's take a sec and discuss the fact that Chinese people have a very distinct difference in what is considered personal space. Um yeah... no, they don't know what that is.
Picture yourself in the U.S. getting on an average sized elevator. Picture the 4 other people who could comfortably fit with you on the elevator. Now picture the same scenario with Asians. After you and 4 others get on, 6 more will squeeze on in until you're spooning a stranger and resisting the urge to cry "UNCLE!".
K, now back to the crowd that suddenly stopped. Lot's of people were holding their lanterns up over their heads because we were crushed so close together that there was only room above. We were all so close together, wow, I'm not claustrophobic but boy I considered converting. The frustrating part was not knowing why we weren't moving. And there was no where to go. We were stuck. For an hour. A very long hour... with a now fussy baby.

 We made the best of it though. We tried to enjoy our company... even though we didn't know 99% of them.

 And every 20 minutes or so we would see a big group lantern lift off (the red squiggles above) which was beautiful to watch. Eventually the crowd opened up inexplicably and we headed to the area where they do the group lift offs. It was different though this time and we weren't allowed to let ours off there. So we just watched others and then went and found a spot to send off our own wishes for the year.

Those few minutes were wonderful.
I should leave it at that but I'm sorry, I just can't.

So after our lift offs we hurried back down the hill and quickly by passed the crazy long line for a seat on a shuttle home and joined the line to stand on the way home. We waited in line for another hour, now with hungry tummy's, fussy and exhausted baby, tired backs and feet... we finally got on a bus and Scarlett was hungry and I'm thinking, I guess I'm going to have to feed her standing up (again) this time on a moving bus. Thankfully- seriously, thanked him specifically in my prayers that late night- some young guy who had stood in the line for a seat, insisted that I have his seat. I was SO grateful. I was able to feed Scarlett and not get as motion sick as another in our party did.
We got home at ONE am. That my friends, is a lot of hassle to let off a lantern!!!! Good thing we were with good friends. (all 10,000 of em!)

To see one of the beautiful group lift offs I taped, click the video below.

CNY, Year of the Dragon

Guess where we went over Chinese New Year Break this year? Guess what we did?!

NOWHERE and NOTHING.

It was wonderful. 

Because everything shuts down and no business goes on, Nathan was home and the kids were out of school. We had no plans. Un.heard.of. 

 It rained 95% of the break. So... we did stuff indoors. We have a Wii but the menus are all in Chinese so Nathan is the only one who can navigate us to the games. Works out super conveniently because we hardly ever play it but when we do it ends up being a special family activity. Above, I am kicking everyone's trash in Just Dance. And yes, I took great pleasure in it, even if my biggest competition is only 9.

 We stayed in our pajamas more than usual and spent a lot of time snuggling. The children still always want to hold Scarlett. It surprises me a little bit that even Ander requests to hold her daily. Some kids argue and call "Shotgun!"; Our kids argue and call "Scarlett!". Someone is always claiming it's their turn to hold her.

Our favorite babysitter Cecily was competing in basketball and since the Lower, Middle, and Upper schools of TAS are all under the same roof, we definitely felt it was our duty to go and cheer on our Tigers! You can barely see Scarlett on my lap next to Ander but we had the whole crew and we were quite the cheering section. I was somewhat surprised how much Ander enjoyed the game. He loved cheering for the team and had his eye on the basketball the whole time. Made us miss our days in VA cheering on our Bell girls!

 I'm never inspired to take pics when it's dreary and rainy but as soon as the sun comes out for it's five minute tease, I grab the camera. It makes for a deceptive representation of things but I'd rather highlight the nice weather anyway. We had it for one day. It was so incredibly lovely. The kids even jumped into the frigid pool.

 When we were getting cabin fever from being inside too long we searched online and found this thing called Baby Boss where you go and your kids get to try out all sorts of different jobs. They wear costumes, have lessons about the jobs and even earn baby boss $ after they "work" each job. The $ can be spent in the Baby Boss store. Sounds amazing right?

Reality: Kids under 3 are listed as "free", but in actuality are not allowed to participate in anything. Would have been nice to know. There are about 25 different jobs but they have it scheduled and you have to go wait in line to get a spot for the job. The popular jobs where you actually make pizza, ice cream, or doughnuts were always filled with people waiting in line forever before hand. Worse than Disney lines. 

Our kids really wanted to try the Captain and flight attendant job. They had a huge plane replica they got to work in and everything. We waited in line for an hour. The place was absolutely swarming with Chinese people on CNY break. Oh, and did I mention all of the Job lessons were in Chinese? 

Lastly, the $ they earned bought absolutely nothing in the store. Our kids did 3 jobs and earned enough for a sticker. That would be fine if they didn't pimp out the store with all sorts of toys utterly out of reach for the kids to earn. Epic fail. 

One morning during break Nathan gave in to the older 3's request to make a volcano. We got a classic Kohen moment at the end of the 30 second clip. Enjoy.

I loved our dreary, rainy CNY. Bring it on Dragon.