Rob just said to me tonight, referring to the bickering and tattling our kids were doing, " I know this is what Todd (his older brother) and I did to my mom and dad. I don't know how we survived."
So, we are sitting here on the couch on a Friday night in a bit of a stupor, thinking "Please go away.....if we ignore this, it will go away.....please!" Maybe if I write about it on the blog it will go away.
No such luck..... Gotta go!
Friday, November 12, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
China
For the kids' Fall break we took a week long trip to to China. Planning this trip was a little bit spur of the moment. We never thought we would be able to take a family of 4 to China because of the additional Visa costs on top of all the other expenses ($180 Visa per US passport, Chinese pay the same to come to the US). But when we realized a round trip flight was only 20k miles on a partner airline, and there was availability, our dreams of taking the kids to the Great Wall and Worlds Expo in Shanghai quickly became a reality.
Highlights of the trip, according to Rob and I, were hiking the Great Wall, touring the Forbidden City and Jingshan park, and going to the World Expo in Shanghai. Highlights according to Parrish and Sabrina were the Asian Acrobat show in Beijing, the Blue Zoo aquarium (particularly the turtles) and riding on the passenger tram under the Huangpu river in Shanghai.
You have to be ready for China. Things we packed were our own toilet paper for the public restrooms (hotels, malls and some restaurants were clean and ok). Yes, both girls had to learn how to use the squatters but we tried to find proper toilets when possible. We also packed a sense of humor for the traffic and the crowds, particularly for Beijing. And nobody, let me emphasize, NOBODY queues up for anything.
Packing a winning smile for all the photographs and stares we would get each day. Many Chinese tourists love getting their picture taken with a "Westerner", especially our kids. Mostly our kids. We were well aware that we would gain celebrity status here, but never knew how hard it would be to get through a crowd. Tourist locations where particularly bad. We realized we couldn't stop to take a rest for very long or a crowd would descend around us. Sabrina and I found ourselves surrounded by a bunch of screaming school kids at one point. It was a Beatle moment! But the girls started to tire of it even in the first day. Parrish and Sabrina started to refuse to smile for pictures and actually ran away from a few. The Chinese are so polite and nice about it, but to get anywhere we had to start saying no.
Last thing we packed was a little bit of Mandarin tongue. Rob has been taking classes each week for over a year, I did a 6 month course, Parrish and Sabrina get lessons at school. But Rob was the real hero. Parrish was too shy to speak and it was too long since my last lesson to remember anything of value, other than knowing how to say hi and tell someone how old my children are. However, in both cities, there is English on road signs, in the subways and nearly all the hotels have someone who speaks English, at least the ones we stayed in. When it comes to reading characters, we were all lost, naturally. There was only one restaurant we went into that did not have the English or pinyin translation (English alphabet to express Chinese language). There was a lot of pointing to make our order. Rob knew how to ask a question, but understanding the answer was another story. *grin* Luckily we ended up with something edible, but we didn't always know what we were eating. This actually was part of the fun and mostly worked out for us. We went back to that restaurant for breakfast the next day too.
I've loaded some pictures in these slide shows for sharing:
Highlights of the trip, according to Rob and I, were hiking the Great Wall, touring the Forbidden City and Jingshan park, and going to the World Expo in Shanghai. Highlights according to Parrish and Sabrina were the Asian Acrobat show in Beijing, the Blue Zoo aquarium (particularly the turtles) and riding on the passenger tram under the Huangpu river in Shanghai.
You have to be ready for China. Things we packed were our own toilet paper for the public restrooms (hotels, malls and some restaurants were clean and ok). Yes, both girls had to learn how to use the squatters but we tried to find proper toilets when possible. We also packed a sense of humor for the traffic and the crowds, particularly for Beijing. And nobody, let me emphasize, NOBODY queues up for anything.
Packing a winning smile for all the photographs and stares we would get each day. Many Chinese tourists love getting their picture taken with a "Westerner", especially our kids. Mostly our kids. We were well aware that we would gain celebrity status here, but never knew how hard it would be to get through a crowd. Tourist locations where particularly bad. We realized we couldn't stop to take a rest for very long or a crowd would descend around us. Sabrina and I found ourselves surrounded by a bunch of screaming school kids at one point. It was a Beatle moment! But the girls started to tire of it even in the first day. Parrish and Sabrina started to refuse to smile for pictures and actually ran away from a few. The Chinese are so polite and nice about it, but to get anywhere we had to start saying no.
Last thing we packed was a little bit of Mandarin tongue. Rob has been taking classes each week for over a year, I did a 6 month course, Parrish and Sabrina get lessons at school. But Rob was the real hero. Parrish was too shy to speak and it was too long since my last lesson to remember anything of value, other than knowing how to say hi and tell someone how old my children are. However, in both cities, there is English on road signs, in the subways and nearly all the hotels have someone who speaks English, at least the ones we stayed in. When it comes to reading characters, we were all lost, naturally. There was only one restaurant we went into that did not have the English or pinyin translation (English alphabet to express Chinese language). There was a lot of pointing to make our order. Rob knew how to ask a question, but understanding the answer was another story. *grin* Luckily we ended up with something edible, but we didn't always know what we were eating. This actually was part of the fun and mostly worked out for us. We went back to that restaurant for breakfast the next day too.
I've loaded some pictures in these slide shows for sharing:
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| Beijing_10 |
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| Shanghai_10 |
Monday, October 11, 2010
Labor of Love
I volunteered to make these mini apple pies for the International Food Festival at Parrish's school. I thought making single size serving would make it easier on the parent volunteers who were serving the food. I didn't know I would be up until midnight rolling out pie crusts!
Now I want you to respond to this.......I had a hard time figuring out what food represents American cuisine, especially since we mostly eat Asian or Italian. Besides apple pie, what do you think of when you think of American food?
Now I want you to respond to this.......I had a hard time figuring out what food represents American cuisine, especially since we mostly eat Asian or Italian. Besides apple pie, what do you think of when you think of American food?
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Some more race pics
Some spectators trying to get a good vantage point of the track during the parade of celebrity drivers.
Stands were lined in various places along the track. These race marshals had an up-close view of the track (and the deafening noise).
The rumor I heard was that Ferrari makes more money in merchandise sales than it does in car sales. At S$70 a t-shirt I would say so!
I bike stunt show (also shown on big screen) for pre-race entertainment.
Night Race Experience
I have a new appreciation for motion photography. How do the professional photographers make fast moving objects look like they're suspended? Tell me if you can see the subject I'm trying to capture in this shot....(*grin*)
The Formula 1 was in Singapore a few weeks ago and Rob and I decided to share a ticket this year. The race runs for a full weekend with a practice on Friday, qualifying runs on Saturday and the final on Sunday. This is a high profile race that takes place in many countries throughout the year. What makes the race in Singapore so unique is that this location is the only place they race at night. Thank goodness for the spectators because there was no shade in the grandstands where we were sitting! Here's a picture from our seats during the twilight with the iconic Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Casino in the background.
The Formula 1 was in Singapore a few weeks ago and Rob and I decided to share a ticket this year. The race runs for a full weekend with a practice on Friday, qualifying runs on Saturday and the final on Sunday. This is a high profile race that takes place in many countries throughout the year. What makes the race in Singapore so unique is that this location is the only place they race at night. Thank goodness for the spectators because there was no shade in the grandstands where we were sitting! Here's a picture from our seats during the twilight with the iconic Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Casino in the background.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Tripolitan
Readers of this blog......who's tried Tripolitan ice cream? Mango, sweet corn and yam flavor. The purple one is the yam flavor.
So I bought this thinking, "oh, this is something we can't find in the States. We should try it." Being the more adventurous foodie of the family, it didn't occur to me the ribbing I might get when I brought this home.
When I said, "who wants ice cream?" The kids were in a roar and hovering while I scooped. Rob said, "I just want the mango." A few minutes later Parrish gave me back her half eaten bowl and said, "can we put this in the fridge? I don't want the rest." Sabrina just simply said, "I don't like it" as she set her bowl down in front of me. Rob finished his despite scooping him an equal amount of all three flavors, but grimacing at me the whole time saying, "what made you think of buying this?" I said, "well, you finished yours!" See what I have to put up with. *grin*
So I bought this thinking, "oh, this is something we can't find in the States. We should try it." Being the more adventurous foodie of the family, it didn't occur to me the ribbing I might get when I brought this home.
When I said, "who wants ice cream?" The kids were in a roar and hovering while I scooped. Rob said, "I just want the mango." A few minutes later Parrish gave me back her half eaten bowl and said, "can we put this in the fridge? I don't want the rest." Sabrina just simply said, "I don't like it" as she set her bowl down in front of me. Rob finished his despite scooping him an equal amount of all three flavors, but grimacing at me the whole time saying, "what made you think of buying this?" I said, "well, you finished yours!" See what I have to put up with. *grin*
Monday, August 9, 2010
A kiss for you....
We have returned to Singapore from a wonderful trip back to the US this summer. We had a great time catching up with friends and family, got to spend time with our black lab "Lucy", visited our favorite hot spots for eating and shopping, we welcomed a new niece/cousin to the family, Heidi went to her 20 year high school reunion, Rob had guys weekend in Seattle for a Mariner game......and we also dealt with the not so fun stuff with our rental properties. All of this sent me back to Singapore with a mix of feelings about where I prefer to be.
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