Ponytails, vacuuming and fireman Jim

I found a little vacuum for 50 cents at Goodwill and it has been a big hit!

Here's my attempt at ponytails in Laura's whispy hair. She doesn't look to amused, huh? But she tolerated it well.

In case you haven't heard, Jim has started volunteering with the city's fire department. He's still in training, but still gets the pages and can go to the station and help clean up the truck after the calls. He had to bring his uniform home one night to transfer it from one station to another, so I got some pictures:

A few from home

Laura's first snowman...

I know its a sad little snowman, but the snow just wouldn't stick together.

When Laura was really little, Aunt Emma gave her a bunch of puppets and these curtains to make a stage. We finally pulled them out the other day and she has been obessed with them ever since.

Christmas

I found the CD of the pics from Jim's folks'. Here they are...

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

We've recuperated well and spent about a week at both family's houses.

Here are some holiday pictures. I'll add some pics as soon as I can find the CD with the pictures on it. (we're still unpacking):

The best kid I've had so far

Our daughter is such an awesome kid!!!! She did so great on our trip home yesterday, its crazy. Zero melt downs, and just an all around happy kid. We had talked with her about how we were going on a looooonnnng airplane ride and that she needed to be a nice girl all day and apparently, she understood and did what she could to make it a better day for all of us. Sure we were tired and irritable, but we definitely survived and are much better off than anticipated. We lost one bag on the way from Minnesota to Tulsa (can't believe that's where we had the bag trouble. we fully expected it to get lost in Japan or the Philippines.) but it should be delivered to my Grandma's house in Ponca today. And we had a box that fell apart on the plane, but I don't know yet if we lost anything out of it.

So the details...We woke up at 4:30am and had breakfast and took a big van taxi to the airport since we had so much luggage. When we got there, we waited in line an hour to find out that our 8am plane was delayed until 3:30pm! But when we got to the counter, they found us a seat on Japan Airlines that would let us make our next leg from Tokyo to Minnesota. We had to wait another hour in the Japan Airlines line to check in our bags and then run to the plane that was already boarding by then. In Tokyo, we were with about 50 people making the same connection, so they walked us through the terminal and through another security check so we didn't have time to relax or get anything to eat. When we got to the next plane, it turns out that they had given away our seats and put us in 3 different rows in the middle seats. Well, Jim and I were all for leaving Laura in a middle seat with the people on either side of her to hang out with, but the airline wasn't big on that idea. So, we stood in the aisle for 10 minutes and stared at the people who weren't willing to give up their seats for us until one very nice woman gave up a window seat to sit in a middle seat and then we had 2 seats together at least. After they closed the plane door, they found another aisle seat for the other guy in our row, so we ended up all getting to sit together after all. Whew. That would have been pretty rough to do it sitting 2 by the window and 1 of us in another row in the middle. Anyway, she slept probably about 6 hours in the total 30 hour trip (most of it draped across our legs so we couldn't feel them after about 45 minutes) but stayed pretty happy throughout. My parents met us in Tulsa and we stopped at Braums (yum!) and then came home. Laura went right to sleep at about 9:30 and she and Jim are still asleep at 10am today!

All in all, it was a much better trip than we expected and I am soooooo glad to be done!

And no, don't read anything into the title, I'm not pregnant!

coming home to the States

We leave tomorrow morning for our journey home to the States. We'll get up at 4:30 to catch our 8am flight. Its a 4 hour flight to Tokyo, 2 hour layover, 11 hours to St Paul, 4 hour layover, 2 hours to Tulsa, and 2 hour drive to Kaw City. Can't wait....

We've had a lot of fun, but I'm really ready to come home. I think Jim's a little sad that our adventure is over and I agree, but I'm missing family and friends and the life we have back there.

Its been a lot of fun sharing this blog with anyone willing to read my stories. Thanks for your comments, they really encouraged me and gave me a little contact with you guys back home that I've been missing so much.

I'll probably keep this blog open and add pictures of Laura every so often for the Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles and anyone else interested, but our life's just not that interesting to keep up the daily stuff in Minnesota. So check back every now and then if you want to see pictures. Thanks again. Love, Jenny

food

I haven't written much about our everyday food since we've been here and there are a few things I want to remember:

Laura and I have learned to love Japanese food. When I went to Japan in college, I left thinking Japanese food was just cold green noodles and raw fish. But here, we go to one of 2 Japanese restaurants more than once a week! Miso soup, beef and chicken dishes, veggie and shrimp tempura, bean sprout salad, and even a few Maki rolls! And Laura loves the shrimp tempura. She has really become a shrimp lover. Between the Peking duck, shrimp, avocados and cashews, she's getting expensive tastes!!

When we don't go to the Japanese restaurants, Laura and I often go to a Mediterranean place. She loves the hummus and I like just about everything. And there's a security guard that stands nearby and makes eyes at Laura. Plus, there's free wi-fi there.

We also eat pizza a lot. Laura loves it and at least its bread and cheese, which is better than some of the other things she'd like to eat (mostly dessert).

We eat at home about 4 days a week. Much less than in the States, but more than I thought we would. I don't have all the kitchen supplies I like, we don't have the ingredients I'm used to in the stores, I don't have all my cookbooks or internet to get recipes, and there are just so many fun restaurants so close! Thai, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, etc. The food has been really great!

I've also gotten used to all the waitresses keeping Laura busy. Its not unusual for one of them to pick her up and take her to see the cooks (always in my view). She loves it and I get a break! She's going to have to get used to not being the center of attention in the whole restaurant and mall.

yay Kim!

My sister graduated with her Master's degreee today. Yay Kim! Sorry we couldn't make it, but know that we're thinking about you. I'm so impressed by you and proud of you. Congratulations!

CHINA - day 6 Xi'an to Shanghai to Manila

Home today! yea! The rest of the group was headed on to a town called Guiling (I think), but we got to go home today. Even without Laura, I think we would have been very tired. And some of the group even went to Shanghai for a tour before we met them in Beijing!

We didnt' have to leave too early, which was a relief. I think we got up at 7:30 or something. It was a better night for sleeping than last night. Jim thought it was funny that Laura was wearing her Canada shirt in China:

We spent some time in the airport looking for souvenirs. The first flight went fine. Laura had her own seat. The second flight was much more rough because she didn't have her own seat and wouldn't eat much. She was sick of all the food I had brought and didn't like anything we could find. In fact, we knew she needed to eat something, so (being the first rate parents that we are), we fed her the only thing in the airport we could find that we knew she'd eat - peanut M&MS. She loved them and at least she got some protein from the peanut. And its MILK chocolate, right?

We had to re-check in at Shanghai since we were going on a different airline. It was a big challenge to find Philipine Airlines since there are about 100 different airlines at this airport. Turns out that the tour company had sent someone to meet us there to help us transfer, but we didn't know that, so we walked right by her in baggage claim. She ended up tracking us down after we were already checking in for the next flight. too bad. She was really nice! We found some food and hung out waiting for our next flight. It was pretty cool to see all the locations for flights at the gates near us:

Got home about 9, I think. Bed and sleep! Great trip!

CHINA - day 5 Xi'an

Last night was a bad night for sleeping. Laura's cold hit full force, lots of drainage. We were up most of the night because she couldn't seem to lay horizontal to sleep. We tried our beds, her bed, holding her, propping on a pillow, etc. No luck. But we survived. We decided this trip was 3 days too long for a toddler.

First, this morning we went to see Wild Goose Pagoda. Jim really liked this place. I spent a lot of time from here on out entertaining Laura, so I didn't really focus too much on the history or stories about the place. Anyway, it was pretty cool and there's a wholes story about how it got its name since there aren't wild geese in China, but you'll have to ask Jim. I think it has something to do with the man who brought Buddhism to China. I really liked the bell tower and drum tower, which seemed to be all over Xi'an. They would ring the bell in the morning and hit the drum at night before there were clocks.

After this, we headed to the Terracotta Warriors factory. This is where they make replica warriors in the same manner the originals were made so you can buy them as souvenirs. It was kind of strange to go see the fake ones first and then later to see the real ones. A little downer for me, but it was still cool. Anyway, we bought some souvenirs and took a few pics:

Another interesting sign...notice the sign on the sign thats not for recycling points out, as opposed to the recylce sign that points in. It other places, they just wrote "unrecycle" for all the garbage bins that weren't recycling.

Now, on to the REAL Terracotta Warriors! This was Jim's biggest interest on the trip and the reason we came to Xi'an instead of just going to Beijing. The museum is the actual excavation sites where they found 4 pits of 3000 terracotta warriors. Apparently they all used to be very brightly painted, but it all faded when the oxygen got to them. Its pretty impressive to see them all. Each warrior and horse has different facial features and different expressions. There are different ranks of soldiers. There are archers, infantry and cavalry men. Very cool.

They were discovered by 3 farmers digging a well in the 80s. I actually got to see one of the farmers. He was signing books at the museum. They said he's a grumpy old man who won't let you take his picture or talk to anyone, but he nodded at me! I felt so silly, but excited when he acknowledged me. He holds a fan in front of his face so you can't take his picture. He got a whole US$5 from the government after he discovered the statues.

We had lunch at the museum where we got to have Chinese noodles. I was beyond excited because I had watched a show on Chinese noodle making weeks earlier and was really interested. There are all kinds of ways to make them and the chefs go to years of training to learn. These chefs were young boys and were still learning, but it was fun to watch! One was called Flying Dagger noodles where you slice noodles off a hunk in your hand and they're supposed to land in the boiling pot of water (this guy missed just as I was taking the picture and I got a glare for that!). And the other one is pulling nooodles in one long strand. After they cut the ends, they willl have 4096 noodles from this one strand. And they tasted delicious. I keep looking for a book on how to make them, but no luck so far. In this part of China, they only eat noodles, no rice, and their food is much spicer. I think I like this food better than in Beijing. Here's a video of the guy pulling the noodles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlUzeu_SAvA

When leaving the museum, you walk through this market of really pushy vendors. They tour guide even warned us that if we didn't plan to buy, don't even bother to look or bargain because the vendors make this huge ordeal and argue and get everyone upset. So we just kept walking. I don't know why its like that here, it just makes us not want to buy anything.

Next we went to a Hot Springs Palace. It looked a lot like all the other palaces and we were tired by now.

Here's a video of Laura running down a ramp:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUw2BWrieh0

After dinner, Jim, Laura and I took a taxi back to the hotel while everyone else went to see a show. I'm so glad we went back. They didn't get back until 10pm. Laura would have been miserable! And it was nice to be in the taxi in Xi'an. We went through smaller streets and were down on the street level instead of being in the big bus. It was cool to see the smaller shops and restaurants where locals shopped.