Twirls 'n Curls

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....

My husband and I just took the most amazing trip to China on a 9-day tour with SNA Tours . (highly recommended!!)  Being a stay-at-homeschooling-mom of 3, I rarely get out for an afternoon, much less 9 days!! By the end of the 13-hour plane ride, I was already in heaven. We had been served 3 meals I didn't have to cook, and each seat had its own TV and headphones with hundreds of shows to choose from. I could have spent the remainder of vacation in the plane and done just fine! But there was so much more... this first post is an overview of our tour, then I'll write a few more about our experiences. Admittedly, I was a little skeptical of the accommodations for our trip - after all, we had bought it on Groupon ! But the entire time we stayed at Radisson hotels, which were much more elaborate than most any hotel we've been to in the States (but remember, we do have 3 kids...) Lobby of our hotel - gorgeous!   We spent the first few days in ...

I love having girls. I love the giggles, I love the baby dolls and Barbies. I love fancy dresses with ruffles. I love getting out makeup and nail polish and doing facials, such as I wrote about here . I even love the hair accessories, to a lesser degree. But more than any of those, today I love that, in homeschooling three little girls, any one of them is likely to walk out of their room at any point of the day looking like this: It's great. Life with my crew is so entertaining, we don't even have television. We don't need it! There is ... bling everywhere we look. They say outrageous things, they do outrageous things - I LOVE raising girls! And laughing at with them. And blogging about them. The other day my oldest said something we found hilarious, and she cried in horror, "MOM!! Do NOT blog about this! Or Facebook it!!" Apparently, I've been found out :)

As with any job, there are many parts to our school week I would like to remember, as well as a few I would like to forget. Moments to Remember was created by some bloggy homeschooling friends as a way to hang on to those moments worth hanging on to . Lately I've been reminded of the perks of homeschooling, flexibility being a big one of those. Whether we are planning a vacation or just having "one of those days," I love that school can work around our family's needs. Linsey has been getting the spring break blues, and working outside has freshened her perspective a little. Not many kids can say they recite poetry from inside the family fireplace! I also appreciate that often, we get to include our whole family on projects. Here the girls are making homemade play dough... we made a great mess and had even greater laughs. Oh the memories we will have from our kitchen days...  I absolutely love seeing these sister friendships develop firsthand! ...