Skating with Ashley

Skating with Maddie

Rockin' out with Ashley

Watching movies with Brynn

Saturday we were being SO lazy. It was 1pm and we were still in our pajamas, playing games, and eating the oatmeal chocolate chip m&m cookies we baked (Casey's choice), when Jeanine called to see if we could come over. We threw Casey in the backpack, went for a hike, Eric whipped up some of his famous chili, and we packed it up and went over. The girls had a great time playing and watching movies while the grownups hung out and talked.

Blades of Glory

[Eric posting] The video almost says it all. Casey has decided she loves ice skating. We had gone a couple times with friends and she was like all the other kids. Then one Friday, Jamie took her while I was at work, and she texted me "Your daughter is a speed skater..." See what you think. US Hockey team 2028?

I guess one buddy didn't want her picture taken

Cute wreath though! The circles are supposed to be berries.

And I threw in a bonus picture so you could remember what her smile looks like.

Happy fake Thanksgiving

Since we were in China for real Thanksgiving, we celebrated fake Thanksgiving with Veronica and Ted and the kids when we got back. The next morning we celebrated day after fake Thanksgiving, with the traditional pumpkin and apple pie breakfast, followed by mashed potato snack, and then turkey and cranberry lunch. I accidentally left my camera there, which is why you haven't seen much of us since then. We got it back when we dropped Casey off Saturday night while we went to my office holiday party. Didn't have it for ice skating at Embarcadero with Susan, Steve, and Ava, which is too bad, because it was quite a sight. I took Casey again on Friday and then Eric and I both took her yesterday but forgot my camera both times, so you'll have to believe me when I tell you that she is a fast and crazy ice skater. Scrappy. You think she's going to fall but then she recovers. Can't decide if I should sign her up for speed skating or hockey. She has offered to teach me how to skate fast. We'll be going again soon and I will remember my camera this time.

2nd grade buddies

The second grade buddies came in to help the kindergarteners make a wreath of cut out hands. Each of the three buddies had to trace and cut out four hands and then they glued them to a circle. Mrs. R took a picture of the three buddies to put on the paper bow on the top. The kindergarteners got to bring them home and I'll have to take a picture of the finished product. It's pretty funny.

At the park

At the park with four of our five China cousins after our trip to China.

After school

Always happy to see me on Fridays.

Unexpected beach trip #2

On our last day, Nancy and Mr. Wang came to pick us up to take us to the airport, and Nancy brought her 4 and a half year old daughter, Bohan. The girls had a good time playing before we said our goodbyes and headed to the airport lounge. Again, lots of snacks and this one even had hot food. We were so happy because we were sad to say goodbye to our last breakfast buffet, and now here we were with a big lunch buffet. We were having so much fun we almost forgot to go to our gate. (No joke.)

I watched a bad movie or two, while Eric and Casey were sleeping, and after the movie they showed the map of where the plane was flying. I could see Beijing and I could see a dotted line leading to a yellow dot marking the destination, right in the middle of the blue part, definitely south and west of the clearly marked San Francisco and Los Angeles. I decided not to wake Eric up because I must be reading something incorrectly. I asked a flight attendant what the yellow dot in the middle of the water meant, and she said we were going to have to land in Honolulu, but everything was fine and that the pilot didn't want to wake everyone up yet. Then the pilot came on and said we had lost one of our four engines and we needed to stop in Honolulu. When Casey woke up I told her that we've been wanting to take her to Hawaii and today's the day. (She also knows about the engine in case you are wondering if she thinks we just diverted the plane as a little surprise for her.)

I won't go into the details, but while I was glad the pilot landed if we needed to, United did a TERRIBLE job of letting people know what was going on. They were incredibly inefficient and it seemed like this was the first time this had ever happened. We waited for almost 2 hours at the baggage claim before the bags even came out. Then we went through customs and they shuttled us onto several buses (500 people, with one guy loading one bus at a time even though there were many buses and many drivers) and took us to a hotel. (It was about 7am I think.) They said they'd pick us up at 1:45 for a 3:40 flight to SFO (they brought a new plane out from SFO). It didn't really seem like enough time to me, and of course it wasn't. Anyway, I guess I am going to go into detail because I'm still pissed. (It took them over 3 hours to check everyone in!)

However, I have to say it sure was nice to go to a hotel (once we found out where the buses were taking us). We ran right up to our room, opened our suitcases that had been packed tight with dirty clothes and quickly threw out clothes until we found our swim suits (one more example of why we tell Casey you should ALWAYS pack a swim suit), skipped the free breakfast with the long line (even though we could have extended our breakfast buffet run), bought pre-made sandwiches from the gift shop and headed to the beach! Now Casey has been to 11 states and DC.

We got home at midnight and had Sunday to recover. We unpacked, did laundry, and went to see the Muppet movie. Great movie. That's it.

Last day in China

Today we spent our last full day in China at the Great Wall. We took a tram up to a super-extra-trafficky section of the wall and along with everyone else in China, starting climbing the steep steps. Before the trip, Casey was so worried that she was going to fall off the wall and kept asking us if we were going to hold on to her. Then when the time actually came, I was the one who was afraid she'd fall, and I spent most of our short time trying to get her to stop running downhill, stop jumping, and hold my hand. At least she was willing to hold the guide Nancy's hand. Eric carried her on his shoulders up the first steep part. The stairs are uneven, some are much higher than others, and I thought he was insane, so I stayed close behind so that if they fell I could catch them, but I knew I'd probably just be crushed by them. We managed to get a few pictures, but you can't really see her face due to the hat and the scarf that I was able to convince her to wear, so I guess that's my own fault. I guess we'll have to keep the hat forever so she'll know it's her in the picture. I should add that Casey LOVED it.

Then we went to a terrible touristy restaurant above a terrible touristy store. I must have jinxed us because I had just said to Eric that on this trip we hadn't had to go to any of those terrible touristy restaurants that we had to go to on our last trip. They served us the Chinese version of what they think American Chinese food is, which means deep fried sweet and sour chicken, some gross gross veggies, and some other gross dishes. Needless to say, Casey wasn't the only one who was not happy, although she did like the sweet and sour chicken once she tried it (just the outside though, not that there was much chicken inside), which I'm sure was worse than just feeding her snacks. We've never given her that before because it's just so unhealthy.

After lunch we went to a place called the Pearl Market so we could buy some souveneirs for Casey and her classmates. Eric was a good bargainer. I was not. Casey just wanted to run and jump and ride the escalators.

Now we're back in the hotel, ready to go get some dinner. The last two nights we have ordered room service because we've gotten home after dinner time and have been too tired to go out. Time to go noodle hunting. (After I sent this email, we all lost steam and ordered room service. While we were deliberating, I told Eric, you know, I just told all of our friends and family that we were going out to dinner, and now we're ordering room service again. How sad. But luckily fries won out over pride.)

A bicycle built for ten

Casey enjoyed playing with "Talking Tom" on Nancy's phone. I love this picture of her at the Forbidden City, lookin' too cool for school. I also love it because the woman in the background wanted her picture taken with ME! Not with Eric or Casey. When we were at the Chen Family Temple, Casey was riding around on Eric's shoulders (well, she rode around on his shoulders pretty much everywhere) and someone wanted to take a picture with them. On our first trip, some girls even asked ME to take a picture of them with Eric. I still regret not getting a picture for myself too. Eric also got asked for his autograph on that trip.

The fourth picture is us at the Summer Palace. I think we have the same picture of us from five years ago. We also went on a boat ride.

Then we went to see the acrobat show. And, once again, we were impressed with the 10 women riding on one bike. But this time we had a better camera so you can actually see it. We were also impressed by the 5 men riding motorcycles in a spherical cage. I was happy no one crashed into anyone. Casey was very impressed. She tried a few tricks with DogDog when we got back to the hotel.

Beijing birthday breakfast buffets 1 and 2

The day after the orphanage visit was not too exciting. Buffet breakfast (well, that was exciting. We each ate about 10 perfect mandarin oranges that had no seeds and practically peeled themselves), and then a 3 hour drive back to Guangzhou for the airport. Then about 3 or 4 hours in the airport lounge where Casey tried every kind of little Chinese snack they offered (and stowed many away in her monkey backpack) and then a 2 hour flight which turned into a 3 hour flight to Beijing. We were all so tired. It was rough. When we arrived we were picked up by our guide Nancy and our driver Mr. Wang (pronounced wong). Casey wouldn't even look at Nancy, so Eric and I were a little worried, but the next morning after about 12 hours of sleep she loved her.

Luckily we didn't meet until 10 am, because we had a nice relaxing Beijing birthday breakfast buffet (Eric's birthday - China time) and then headed out for the Temple of Heaven. On the way in we saw men practicing their caligraphy with giant paintbrushes on the ground, using water as their ink. We stopped to watch one and he wrote in English "America USA" and we all laughed. Like our guide on the last trip, Nancy proceeded to give every possible fact on the Temple of Heaven, including the number of steps, etc., and after we'd been there for a while and facts were spilling out of my head as fast as they were spilling in, I said, "Casey, do you know where we are?" and she said, "no." I told her we're at the Temple of Heaven and Eric explained to her that it's like a big outdoor church for the emperor who ruled china and he would go there twice a year to pray to heaven. We were all totally bundled up since it's minus 3 degrees here. (Celsius, hahha). But that's still pretty cold for us.

We stopped at a little tea house to warm up and have some peanuts and tea in cute little cups with a smelly cup (a smelling cup - Casey is dictating here) and a tasting cup. "She can spill the tea on the table and there's a bucket under there and it was my second day meeting Nancy." (Casey was impressed that there were holes in the table, so the woman could pour extra water right on the table and it would go through to the bucket under the table. Casey kept cracking up and yelling, 'She is making a mess!!!' "And we got to see cups turn into different things (we bought a cup that had the characters for panda and when you heat it up it turns into a picture of a panda. They also had the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square) and we got to see a pee pee boy!" (It's a clay baby boy that when you pour water on it it comes out like a stream of pee pee and goes further the hotter the water is. Actually, not only did we see one, but when we bought some tea, the woman threw in pee pee boy as a special bonus - just this one time, only for us since it was Eric's birthday. Heheh. ) We tried about six types of tea and bought one with gensing and one with lychee and roses.

Then we went to Tiananmen Square (the largest city square in the world, if you want the exact number of hectares (?) you can ask Eric) and quickly took a few pictures of ourselves peeking through our winter scarves hats and coats and went back to the van to go to lunch. Our lunch was at the apartment of the Beijing Manager for our tour company! Her name is Cindy and she didn't speak any English, and the head of the company, Michael, was also there! Eric and I traveled with him 5 years ago when we arrived we were surprised to see him. Cindy made us all kinds of homemade Chinese dishes, and Casey helped Nancy and Cindy make dumplings. Casey had a blast and the food was excellent. She also gave Casey a book about Chinese characters, a kite, a fan, and a pearl necklace. It was very sweet. That lunch was a highlight of the trip for all of us.

Then we said goodbye to Michael and Cindy and headed over for a pedicab ride. (There are men pedaling bikes that have little seats for passengers.) Casey only wanted to ride with Nancy so Eric and I went together. We rode through the hutongs (the old part of Beijing - where the buildings are like 400 years old (should probably check with Eric) and people still live in them. Nancy lives in one. We went to visit one of them and Casey did NOT enjoy it and just wanted to get out. Last time Eric and I were here we ate lunch in one, and it was pretty cool but I was glad we weren't eating there this time. We then got back in our pedicab and rode to the drum tower and Nancy let us know exactly how many steps were there (maybe 69) and we climbed up them. They were up to Casey's waist or so (she is pointing to her tummy) but she managed to make it up. She ran around and had a good ole time waiting for the performance and checking out the view. Five people came out and played the huge old Chinese drums. It was really cool.

After all of that, we got back to the hotel (we're at the Temple of Heaven Holiday Inn, in case I am trying to remember some day) and we were all too tired to think about going out for dinner or even standing up for more than 10 seconds. Casey and I tried to convince Eric to go out and bring back some food but we were unsuccessful, so we ordered room service.

Now it's morning and Eric finally convinced Casey to take a bath (I can't even remember the last time she took one and she spilled Sprite all over herself the other day -- we're letting her drink Sprite in China for some reason) and now there is a lot of singing coming from the bathroom. We have to get ready so we can go down for Beijing Birthday Buffet Breakfast #2, since now it's Eric's birthday on my watch since I never changed it to the new time zone.

Today we're going to the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace and then to see an acrobatic show if we are still awake. Tomorrow is the Great Wall.

From Casey "I had a great time. I'm looking forward to the Great Wall."

From Eric "Tell everybody I had a fantastic birthday. I loved the tea ceremony and I loved the jaozi (dumplings) that Casey made, and I was surprised by the birthday cake at lunch (Michael ordered a cake for him when we were here on his birthday five years ago, too). Tiananmen Square is 800 meters long and 400 meters wide. 32 football fields." Unfortunately he cannot rememer the hectares. Maybe next time.