Twirls 'n Curls

Happy Memorial Day, everyone! We are headed off to a church picnic in a couple hours, but here's what we've been up to:   1) We did it, we did it, yay!! (Can you tell Dora is on in the front room?)  Despite a 9-day trip to China, Tom's hernia surgery, and numerous other distractions, Linsey finished her schooling on May 11, two weeks ahead of schedule! Her final unit in science was on the human body - let's just say I don't think she'll be going into the medical field in the near future! "That's disgusting!" was a phrase I heard often, but she did learn something, because the other day she came to me with a pathetic voice, "Mom, my esophagus is hurting. I think I need some medicine!" 2) This is Nattie, my adorable, devilishly stubborn almost 3-year old. We bought her these "sparkly shoes" a couple weeks ago, and she's hardly taken them off. Actually, for the first 48 hours or so, she didn't take them off. S...

Cruising on the Yellow River I am a talkative person. And I used to think I was fairly good at getting around language barriers - I speak Spanish, so I can get by in most Latin-based language situations if I have to. I also know a bit of sign language and I took shorthand in college, which really has no relevance in the 21st century. Plus, we had a Korean exchange student stay with us for a year. All that to say, I had many frustrating - and humorous - attempts at expressing myself in a language where we don't even share the same alphabet. On our first night, we took a boat tour of the city on the Huangpu River. I noticed the locals pointing and staring at us, but being a group of 34 white tourists on an otherwise all Chinese boat tour, that was no shock. (Much of our vacation locals either asked us to pose for pics with them or just took pictures of us being tourists, like this guy filming Tom hacky sack..) You film my husband, I film you... :) As a 6'2"...

I love, love, LOVE having girls. (more posts on Girl Time here ) I was never much into hair, makeup, or princesses, until I held my own little princess for the first time. I was smitten. She wore nothing but pink and purple for a year, when her white-blond hair was finally long enough for me to make a little ponytail on top with a ribbon. She carried a purse and baby doll wherever she went. Add two more princesses to the mix, and, 7 years later, my life is a flurry of braids, nail polish, and "No, you cannot go out of the house like that"s. Already. One thing I love about having girls is that their soft, nurturing side comes out so often. After our second girl, I decided they needed some "neutral" toys, so we bought matchbox cars. No sooner had I gotten them out of the box than the girls ran to their room and tucked the cars into their beds. "There, there," they said, "aren't they cute?!" I'm pretty sure lullabies ensue...

Eating scorpion on Snack Street, a famous tourist spot in Beijing   (To catch up on the other posts in this series, click here ) The food in China was amazing! We ate each breakfast at our hotel, which had everything from traditional bacon and eggs to a noodle bar and sushi. Lunches and dinners were eaten mostly at restaurants like the above pics, with 8-10 of us sharing a round table and eating family-style. There was usually an egg dish, several noodle dishes, plenty of rice, and lots of veggies. I took pics of our last full day's meals in China, just to give you an idea of what it was like:    Breakfast: Omelet bar, fried rice, dumplings, dragon fruit, bacon, muesli, and a noodle bar. (That would normally feed us for the whole day!) For lunch, we were on our own because it was a shopping day in the local flea markets. There were several American chains in the city - Starbucks, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Subway, but KFC is the biggest American ...

  (For other posts in this series, click here ) Shortly after our arrival in China, I discovered, much to my naive American snobbishness, that not everyone uses the restroom the same way. It seems I had been using a Western toilet for my entire life, or a "sitter." In China, sitters are not as common as a Westerner might hope. (Neither is soap or toilet paper, our tour guide informed us the next day, but he always let us know when and where Western toilets could be found!) Hence, I opened the bathroom door at the very urban airport to find this: No instructions. No toilet paper. Just a recessed urinal-type device. Had I gone into the men's room? Doubtful. Should I sit on top of it? Probably not. Putting my college education to good use, I surmised that I should engage in some sort of hovering maneuver. I cast a look back at the kind cleaning lady, who smiled wanly and urged me into the stall with the handle of her mop. She was obviously not going to be a help....