Our House

Just wanted to send a picture of where we are living, so people have an idea. :-)

Fire,Firing's & Vacations

Okay, I know it's been quite a while since I've posted anything. Lots has been going on. We received our shipment and so we have been busy finding places for things to go and realizing how much stuff we could have done without. I think if I had to do it again I would pack a lot more food and stuff and leave the extra clothes at home. Oh well, you live and learn. :-) We had to fire our IE (nanny,maid,cook). Actually Danny did it.......I couldn't because I felt too bad, but she was not nice to our kiddo's when we would go out on date night. She locked Miss Maddie out on the balcony because she wouldn't come inside, and she yelled..... one of my pet peeves. Lot's of reasons, but we decided we could find someone else easily that would be good to the kids.
So, we went out with our friends the Farnsworths a couple of Fridays ago. We decided to go to dinner and then went for a foot massage. 80 minutes for 10$ need I say more? But we were feeling a little crazy and decided to add the fire treatment to it. After we had our massages they wrapped all our feet in tight wet towels and then doused them with some kind of lighter fluid. They then lite the towels on FIRE! They would stand by with another towel to put out the flames. The purpose is to sweat out the impurities in your skin......didn't know my legs had impurities. It was great! Of course only in China would you get to do this......the guys that were lighting the fires were having as good a time as we were. I took pictures but you couldn't see any flames. I've got to figure out how to use my camera.


Then last week we headed to Thailand for spring break! Oh my goodness we had a great time. We started in Krabi at a beach resort which was heaven. The kids loved the sea and the waves and the sand and the shells. They had elephants that they got to ride and a kids club. We went on a tour that took us to 4 little islands to swim and snorkel.....kids loved it. Brigham claims his favorite part was the breakfast buffet, but I know he had a great time. We then headed to Bangkok for a few days. Completely different experience. Big city with lots of people, but we were still able to see some fun things. Went to a big weekend market that had lot's of great things to buy. Took a boat ride down the river to see some amazing palaces and old spots of the city. I still can't believe that I am getting to go to these places. It's really hard to believe sometimes. Here's a few pictures. Obviously I still don't know how to figure out how to post a picture in the right spot. I will keep on trying to figure it out. :-)

Hong Kong Excursion

On Saturday we took our first "Family Trip" outside of China. Danny had to buy a suit for a meeting he has next week but our shipment is being held and wouldn't be released in time (long story), so Hong Kong was the closest place to find suits that would fit him. So, we loaded up the family and drove across the bridge to Hong Kong. It is such an amazing city! We went to the Harbor City Mall on the Kowloon side of Victoria's Harbor. Just for the record to go anywhere in Hong Kong on a Saturday is almost suicide, but to do it with four children who all like to go different directions at the same time...........ummmmm (what were we thinking). :-) We stopped at a few different stores who were asking 2,000 dollars for a suit.....kept on walking. We found one in our price range that was a little too shiny and pimp daddyish for Danny. Soon after we found one that he liked and that fit him, and that was in our price range. Score!!! Stopped for some "New York Style French Fry's", and then headed up to the top of Victoria's Peak. I don't know much about the Peak, but they have tram rides up the mountain and then lots of restaurants and tourist things at the top. We didn't opt for the tram because it was actually freezing that day and very rainy and overcast. We decided to ride the tram another day when the view is spectacular and we can see clearly. Instead our driver took us up to the top and dropped us off. We walked around a little and found a great restaurant for dinner.......Bubba Gumps. Very good food that all had to do with the movie Forest Gump. The restaurant has amazing views of Hong Kong.......very fun. We then took a few pictures and headed home. Had a great time even though I was exhausted by the end. :-)

Moving and Bug Bites

So we moved on Thursday and even though it wasn't a lot of stuff, it sure made me tired.  It could be that we have 5 flights of stairs in the new house and hauling suitcases up and down wore me out.   But, we are settled now and like the new house much better than the old.  Happy to be here, it feels more homey to me.  

This weekend was District Conference and we headed to Guangzhou pronounced gwangshow.  It took us about 2 hours to drive there and we followed our neighbors the Farnsworths because they had been there before.   It was a very different experience.  We stayed at a Hotel and had girls from the ward babysit while we went to dinner and to the adult session of conference.  We just chose a random Chinese place for dinner, but it ended up having really good food.  There are some members in the branch that spoke Mandarin from their missions and they helped tremendously in ordering our food.  The next day we headed to the Ramada Inn for our conference.  It was all in English and the parts that I was able to hear over my kiddo's was great!  

On our way home we were about an hour into the trip and Maddie decides she really really really needs to go to the bathroom.  We were trying to figure out a way to tell our driver who speaks no English that we need to stop.  We thought we got the message through, but he never stopped, so then we called our friends and they had their driver speak to our driver.  I don't know what he said but all of the sudden our driver sped up and started driving like his life depended on it......... we were weaving in and out of traffic and I couldn't tell exactly how fast we were going because it was in kl but it said 140 kl  whatever that is.  First I told all the kids to make sure there seat belts were on tight and then we started to laugh.  Danny and I thought that instead of stopping he (James) was trying to get home super quickly.  We were almost home and then he pulls over at a "Rest Area".  I highly recommend never, never, never stopping at one of these places.  Of course since Maddie was a girl and Mommy is a girl, I was the one to had to take her in.  For all of those who know me well.....I don't do bathrooms!  Especially public ones.  And these were the squatter ones.......you know where there's just a hole in the floor.... Yuck.  There was never enough hand sanitizer or wipes made to combat these places.

Anyway, I know this is getting lenghty, but I just wanted to share one more thing.  The kids have been playing outside a lot here, because that's just what you do and it's warm.  We haven't been really good about putting on the bug spray so they have there fair share of mosquito and bug bites.  Well Mad got some kind of bite on here little thigh and it just got bigger and bigger and bigger.  Finally when we were at district conference I decided to draw a line around it to see if it was spreading and how much.  I checked it a few hours later and it was still getting bigger, so when we got home from conference I called down to the clinic by our house and asked them to take a look at it.  Danny took her down and it was some kind of bug bite but had a bunch of infection in it.  They put her on antibiotics and gave her some cream for the itch.......... I took a picture and will post it when I get it downloaded........ it was huge!  Poor thing!