V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N!

This week has been absolutely crazy but I finally got around to downloading our vacation pics.  First off I should say that we are apparently not big on recording family memories.  Any time we were really anywhere doing something fun we didn't have the camera.  Like when the boys played with friends and got to feed a giraffe and elephant.  And even just played at the play ground.  Thankfully we got a few good beach and pool shots and attempted some family shots.  Not sure we will ever get one with everyone looking, but we tried.

The view from our room.  Out beyond this was the beach.

Over to the left of the pool was a play ground.  The boys loved it!

The imposing storm on the horizon.  We had a tropical storm later that night--like all through the night--but thankfully by the next morning it was all gone and the sun came out.  I had left our wet beach things out on the balcony.  They didn't dry.  Also, they didn't blow away.  Which is good.

The boys got to build a small sand castle.  I didn't get many pictures cause I was wrestling a very cranky Judah at the time.

A very happy Kirby LOVED the pool time each day!

Bennett too!  He didn't understand why we couldn't live at the hotel, and therefore have a pool in our yard,  forever.

The pool waterfall was really fun. 

And what we loved best of all was that the boys got good an worn out each day.

I desperately wanted to get some good shots of the boys.  This was the result most times.  Goofy faces.

This was the best one.  I don't know why I thought we could get a good shot of a 5, 3 and 1 year old all at the same time.  Sometimes I lose reality.

And even though I really hate full shots of myself, I knew I would want to remember our family from this trip.  So this is our best family shot.  4 out of 5 looking in the general direction of the camera is not too shabby if you ask me.

Next time maybe we should take a professional photographer.  Kari?  Lora?  Anyone interested?  Anyway, we had a nice time.  We learned many things on this vacation, like relaxing is impossible with small children and 5 people crammed into a hotel room.  And it will be soon that we won't be able to all fit in one hotel room.  Stan and I did each get some time on our own to relax (mine was an hour and a half massage, can we say oh yeah?).  Next time we might try teaming up with another family so Stan and I could get a date night--although I should note that some friends that live there offered to watch the boys one night but we really wanted to hang out with them since they live far away and we don't see them often.  It was wonderful to get away and hard to come back knowing we were jumping right into a busy September.  More on that later.

Is it too soon to already start planning our next vacation?

trapped

As I mentioned on Thrusday, my friend W, who will move away in such a short amount of time :(, got locked in our downstairs bathroom.  This is how it went down.

W and I went to get our tonails painted earlier in the afternoon (I couldn't go off to vacation with bare toes!), run a few little errands and then I decided since we were right there at KFC it would be a nice surprise for the boys for dinner.  W offered to stay and eat with us and give me a hand with the boys--Stan was still gone--and then we made plans to watch a few episodes of One Tree Hill (I got her hooked and although I've seen every episde, that drama just sucks you right in.  And I really like making fun of Brooke with her raspy voice and extreme self centeredness.)

So as soon as we finished dinner it was time for the boys to go to bed.  Kirby and Bennett are so great at getting on their pajamas all on their own, so while they did that I got Judah ready for bed.  As I was changing J and such Bennett came in telling me something, but all I saw was that he came upstairs with crayons when he was supposed to be telling W goodnight and getting in bed and waiting for story time and hugs and kisses.  I ignored what he was saying, told him to go put the crayons away and come right back up to get in bed.  But as I turn off Judah's light I hear a little commotion downstairs.

The boys were hanging around the bathroom door.  Strange...

Then I hear W and her explination.  Because I'm a really good friend, I busted out laughing.  That's how much I care.  She had been in there about 10 minutes already, had sent Bennett upstairs to tell me what was going on (ooohhh, that was what he was saying that I completely ignored) and then just waited patiently, talking to the boys so as not to scare them (I'm telling you, she's good like that).  As we fiddled with the knobs on each side we quickly found out this was not a problem easily solved.  Especially when I turned just a little too hard and my side came off in my hand.  I learned quickly that when your friend is trapped in the dungeon like bathroom at your house and she hears you say 'oh, that's not good', she may freak out just a bit.  No not really, she wasn't freaking out.  That much.

I ushered the boys up to bed and gave our friend G a call.  Men know how to handle these things.  Especially one who has had this almost exact same experience not a year before.  I called him all prepared to explain this very serious situation but when I started I could hardly get the words out for laughing so hard.  It could not be said with a straight face.  Because he knows us well enough, he knew he better come over quickly.  Mostly because we couldn't stop laughing and would get nothing acomplished.  Also because I couldn't leave the boys to get a locksmith.

So G came over.  And checked out the situation.  I just retired to the stairs to take pictures. Like I said, I'm a good friend like that.

He tried several things which basically boiled down to taking the door knob apart peice by piece.  But he was having touble with the tools available to him.  So after a good effert, he decided a locksmith would be the most timely solution.  She has already been stuck in there a good 45-50 minutes.

While G was out finding a locksmith, W started to run low on oxygen.  That may be the only explanation for what followed.  This video is just a glimps of this time.

You will want to turn this up to hear her, but it will make me quite loud.  There were times I couldn't tell if she was still singinig or talking to the voices in her head.

Finally the locksmith made it.  He started out doing all the same things G had done.  They still didn't work.

So he got busy prying out parts of the door know, piece by piece.

We were almost there!  She could at least see through the door!

And a hour and a half later...she was FREE!

This chinese man thought we were CRAZY taking pictures and laughing like insane people.  G was probably close to that as well, but he's used to us.  Needless to say, OTH was not watched cause it was now bedtime, for me at least.  But as one of our recently-moved-home teammates used to say 'We're making Christmas memories'.

W, I'm sorry you got trapped in our dungeon for so long.  I'm sorry my plan to keep you here did not work.  But most of all I'm sorry that Bennett was slightly traumatized by all this and this afternoon while I was showering in the upstairs bathroom he refused to go potty in the downstairs bathroom and therefore had quite a messy accident.  His first since wearing big boy underwear.

But there were some lessons learned that night:

-Always take your phone with you into the bathroom.  If you are home alone, or the only adult home, you will be glad you have it when your cheap chinese door know breaks with you stuck in there.

-Food rations and drinking water may or may not be a good idea as well.

-Reading materials are helpful.  Even for those who don't neccesarily need them while doing their business.

The End.

catch up bullets

So it's been a really long time since I posted.  The past couple of weeks have been extremely nutty.  Then something happened to my google account, apparently there was strange activity.  I had to have a code text to my mom.  Working now.  So to catch up I will do some bullet points, cause that will be easiest.

-My weekend away with the ladies was wonderful.  We shopped. We stayed up until 2 am--actually one night E and L stayed up till 4 cause they are CRAZY like that, I was asleep.  We shopped some more.  Ate TCBY.  Talked non-stop.  And had some wonderful personal retreat time.  It was a perfect weekend.

-About 12 hours after I returned from my trip Stan took off for 4 days.  He got back and was here about 48 hours and then took off again for four more days.  As I write this he is on his way home, stuck in a traffic jam on the bus.  He'll be home soon...I hope.

-We leave for vacation Sunday morning.  3 days from now we will be arriving. I can't wait. Nough said.

-One of the funniest things that has happened is a long time happened last night.  As a teaser I will tell you it involved a friend getting locked in our downstairs bathroom.  The place we sometimes call 'the dungeon'.  There are pictures and even a video.  Hopefully I can get our internet to be cooperative and I can post about it.  It won't disappoint.  If it does, you can't tell me.

Till tomorrow...

more ramblings

The weekend was so inccredibly fun/busy that I had to spend yesterday recovering from it.  Friday I had errands and such and my friend W went with me.  We had some fun girl time.  I'm on the lookout for a beach bag of some sort but I'm quickly realizing people don't have much use for something like that so my hunt has been failing.  I've got a couple more places to look and then will have to settle.  Saturday Stan went on a man hike for his friend D's b-day.  The men had fun and I enjoyed time at home with the boys and even squeezed in several little prodjects around the house.  Sunday morning was fellowship time and then for lunch we went to this new pizza place that has a brick oven.  It was SO good.  A place where I would even choose to eat were we in the States.  That isn't typical for Western food around here.  And then Sunday night we had a cookout for a co-worker, J, who is on his way home.  He wanted to play poker and so we were up way past my bedtime.  Which meant I didn't get up till 7 on Monday morning.  So I got a late start.  It's ok, I still got a workout in later in the day by walking to the errand I needed to do.

I've had second thoughts about my Fashion Friday with a twist.  I told W that I was thinking of taking pictures of the random fashion that I see here and posting it to give you all a good laugh.  But I'm starting to think that if I'm called to love on these people and really have a heart for them, is making fun of their fashion OK?  I just don't know yet.  It's bad enough that I make fun of them in my head or make comments to my friends, but publicly?  On the internet?  Not sure yet.  But honestly, I'm thinking no.  Plus I never have my camera with me at the right time.

Also, my ladies weekend has been rescheduled for the coming weekend.  I am SO excited.  We are riding the train on Friday.  This will be my first time on a Chinese train since I was here 10 years ago for study abroad.  Actually my frist time on any train at all in 10 years.  I'm hoping it will be a pretty relaxing ride with the ladies.  It'll be nice to sit and chat and not on a bumpy bus.  We still aren't 100% sure of our return trip time and mode of travel.  We have train tickets for Monday morning but we're hoping we can get back Sunday night by bus or car.  We're still figuring that out.  But no matter.  We have a great place to stay (near a Cicago Coffee I should add).  We have a car lined up to take us all around Saturday (taxis get way expensive, this way we don't waste time waiting for taxis and save money).  I get to go to FaKEA and find all sorts of great stuff I never knew I needed.  AND I get time away with two wonderful ladies.  And even though I'm sure I'm too old to say this, it deserves a big WOOT!

I better go get my day started.  I have several busy ones leading up to my trip.

drawing a blank

I don't really have a lot to write.  I haven't really even been in the writing mood this week.  It's been one of those weeks.  It's week 5 of Stan's intense language study, the last week.  How people make it through the 8, or more?--I can't remember, weeks of this when you do it full out is beyond me.  I know it doesn't help that we are fast approaching the year-since-we've-had-any-time-away-as-a-family mark, with a vacation less than a month away.  We are weary and need a break.  But really that is all just whining and I didn't want to do that.  So instead, to celebrate the end of crazy study time and our fast approaching vacay, I'm going to make a peach dump. That is what my family calls a cobbler type fruit concoction, cause you just dump all the ingredients in.  It's good despite the unappetizing name.  And I'm going to do my best to just eat one piece.  And maybe one for breakfast Saturday morning.  But that's it.  I hate that I do so well all during the week with making good food choices and exercising and then go nutso with eating bad on the weekend.  Pretty counter productive.  And I am determined to get this last 25 pounds off. 

So to end my pity party--not really, I just know none of that sounds too positive, except the dump, that's quite exciting--I just want you to go through my linked blogs and look at some amazing things God is doing.  Baby's, church plants, Frugaladee deals.  The wonderfulness is endless.  And much more interesting than me this week. 

Tomorrow I have errands to run.  Hopefully I'll remember my camera cause I'm thinking of starting a semi regular Fashion Friday, with a twist.  It's gonna be fabulous.