Wedding, beach and a birthday

Ryan got to go out to California this month to join in Regan and Erin's wedding. While there, he also got to see all his family, eat Mexican food, listen to Spanish Pop radio, drive on the right side of the road, use his windshield wipers as turn signals,  and gaze longingly across the Pacific Ocean missing us.

Last week we enjoyed unusually warm weather so we went out to see if we could find any sea glass on one of our favorite beaches. Luckily it hadn't all disappeared over the winter. 

 Alice is officially at the age where she thinks she is a grown up and wants to walk alone.

Helen turned 5! You might not recognize her any more because she is smarter, faster and taller than she has ever been before. My attention was drawn to these very details by her all day long. Five-year-old kids are a lot of fun!

 Everyone loves birthdays at our house. Especially since the birthday girl shares her treasures. 

Cherry Blossom Season

Springtime in Japan brings a lot of rain to our neck of the woods. The girls have been anxiously awaiting the time to use their new umbrellas while "Singing in the Rain." 

Apparently Alice has learned that the secret to covert activity is a good disguise. She gets in trouble for messing with the Tupperware, but who could growl at such a cute little dragon.

  Jane turned 3! This has been a much anticipated birthday (by her) and she requested chili for her special dinner.

I love that I can still talk my kids into ice cream cake rolls for their birthday! Helen is so exited to turn 5 in a month that she thought she would join Jane in the finger action.

Alice discovered the piano a few weeks ago and has embraced it. The best part is if she gets a little tired from practicing, she can always look out the window to check on the construction work.

I love cherry blossom season. The blossoms are beautiful, the weather is warm-er and it means that spring is really here.

Guilin, China

I was so excited for our next stop. All the travel books said that Guilin is the perfect place to escape the crowds and pollution readily available in the rest of the country. We took a boat tour down the Li River with 40 of our closest friends. It was foggy, but it never really rained on us, and the views were worth it. 

These little boats would come up behind our boat to sell food for appetizers and meals. This man has a fish, but we also saw a squawking chicken take the transfer over.

Alice was not our most enthusiastic nature appreciator on this trip. She seemed to think it unfair to be in the backpack instead of running from bow to stern (thanks Horatio Hornblower).

These karst hills were so impressive and the girls had a great time wandering around the boat, looking at them and chatting.

Happy travelers!

The following day we drove 3 hours up to the Longsheng Rice Fields. They were really impressive and worth the nauseating drive up the winding road to reach them.

Ryan staved off the rain by purchasing a sweet double hinged umbrella.

Poor Alice is not going to remember any of these adventures, since it is so easy to fall asleep when fed, warm and swaying back and forth.

A view from the top. That's the river you can see below, not the road - it's not twisted enough. 

One night we had a hard time deciding where to go for dinner. Then we saw these fun buckets of fish. On the menu are 8 types of fish, turtle, crayfish  clams, duck and chickens. The girls had a great time watching the wildlife while we waited for dinner to be prepared.

We ordered braised chicken, which turned out to be the whole chicken. Helen was super excited to eat the foot. The girls loved, loved, loved eating the pieces of chicken. I was surprised. Clearly my aversion to recognizing parts from anatomy was a learned response.

Here we are at Elephant Trunk Hill and there's a woman with her Cormorant birds, which don't look like they fish for her anymore. It is amazing we were able to get this picture since there were 50 people trying to take their pictures all in the same spot to our right 5 feet away.

The girls really embraced the Reed Flute Cave experience. Especially since the use of pink and purple lights were found throughout the cave.

Camel mountain in Seven Star Park in Guilin. The sun came out!

Street food! Ryan thinks were ordered Mongolian hot pots from real Mongolians. Who knows, but it was easy for me to point to everything for them to put in the hot pots. They were delicious.

Xi'an, China

To add to the general excitement of our trip, we took the overnight train from Beijing to Xi'an. We had a 4 berth cabin which had enough room for our luggage and sleeping. It was great, especially since it got us out of the train station, which was a more intense Chinese cultural experience than I was ready for. 

Here we are on the old city wall in Xi'an.

Before going to see the Terra Cotta solders, we got to see how modern tourist-friendly replicas are made. (note Alice's strict attention to what was happening). I thought the girls made great Terra Cotta warriors and a big shout goes out to Hannah for giving us the idea for the photo. 

These 8,000+ warrior sculptures from 200 BC were so impressive, as were the hundreds of tourists vying for the same photos. 

For lunch we ate dumplings - my favorite meal while in China. Ryan claims that they all tasted the same, but to those with more refined taste there were at least 3 flavors: burning fire, regular and sweet.

After lunch we had a personal dumpling-making class, which was one of the highlights of our entire trip. I The intensity of our Play-Doh time will be going up a few notches in response.  Disclaimer - the fine dumplings you see on the right were not ours but those of the chef. 

On our way to the airport we talked our guide into letting us stop at a park to stretch our legs before our flight. The cherry blossom trees were beautiful and our little girls made quite a stir. 

China Montage

Come visit China with us!  Ride a richshaw, make dumplings, cruise down the Li River, and I dare anyone to try falling asleep to the traditional music.



 

 

China

We just spent 10 exciting days in China - first in Beijing, then Xian followed by Guilin.

Here we are at the Forbidden City in Beijing. We got to wear all of our cloths because of a surprise snowfall the night before.

These pictures were taken at the Temple of Heaven which was beautifully restored for the 2008 Olympics.

 We decided that we couldn't go to China without visiting The Great Wall. The girls favorite part was taking the cable car up. Most people who visit the wall probably don't take great note of the little openings near the bottom of the wall, but they made great peepholes for our girls.

 Check another wonder of the world off our list. :)

 After much research on the internet, Ryan decided that The Great Wall probably can't be seen from space, but that didn't stop us from looking up, just in case they were taking pictures from satellites.

 I really had a great time trying all these dried fruit. Many of them I had never heard of before.

 This is picture from one of the restaurants we ate at, the girls look so happy that I couldn't resist.

  Here we are at the Summer Palace, where spring hasn't even arrived yet, let alone summer.

 We got to ride some rickshaws in the old - now super-touristy part of Beijing. It was fun to ride around.

 This was our typical lunch set up. Rice, kung pao chicken, stir fried vegetables, soup and bottled water. Alice would eat her weight in kung pao chicken every meal it was served.