Friday Fotos

A random conglomeration from the past few weeks...


Could it be that Superman is a tad OCD?


Breakfast is a dangerous sport.


Clearly, Caleb is having the time of his life.


Winding down with ChunJie, Chinese New Year.


Headed out to the bus stop...or a taxi...whichever comes first. It's blurry. But it's a glimpse into life here.

On Being Prepared...

Almost 5 years ago, a crazy day changed our lives forever.

Well, maybe that sounds a little more monumental-ish than is really should be.

Five years ago we decided that we'd always be prepared.
We're not always prepared for a fish fry. Or a pinata party. (among other things.)

But by golly, we WILL always be prepared for when our visa and passports need updating.

Because that day left us emotionally scarred for life, we've taken passport picture printing into our own hands. At any moment, of any hour, of any day, we can hand off to you a passport or visa picture of each one of us.

But before I get ahead of myself and make us sound more awesome than we really are, let me remind you of Salem's current passport photo.


ahhhh, yes. The jammies. Mommy fail.

Determined not to make the same mistake with Caleb, I changed him out of his dinosaur jammies first...


Is that not the cutest little mug shot you ever did see?
Who could say no to that precious face?!

Well, we're hoping no one!

Tomorrow we leave for Thailand and on the agenda (among other things) is acquiring a new Big Chicken visa for Caleb. His current one expires soon. We're assuming that since he's a dependent he won't have any trouble getting a new one. But sometimes assuming doesn't get you very far in Asia. Otherwise, poor mini-est man won't be allowed back home and he and I will have to find a place to kick it for awhile!

More to come soon from the Land of Smiles!

The Blogs that Could've Been

I'm in a blog funk. And having a hard time getting out of it.

I'm one of those bloggers that first writes the entire blog post in my head with commas, sarcastic remarks, anecdotes, italicized emphasis, everything. I lay in bed at night editing my pretend blog in my head.

I wake up in the morning and try to piece together what I came up with in my head. Apparently I was such a poor writer the night before that I put even myself to sleep.

Thus, the slow activity on our blog.

But over the past week or so I've mind-blogged about several things going on in our world. I don't get more than a couple sentences in before I give up hope on making it long enough to actually blog about. So, I'm giving you the summarized and ragged remnants of a few of my nightly mind-blogs...

The Blogs That Could Have Been. 

(see there's the italics I mentioned.)

mind-blog #1:

The Day My Son Ran into a Trash Can

High point: Salem ran full-speed on into a plastic garbage barrel. He didn't cry. So I laughed. I haven't laughed that hard in a really long time.

Low point: Salem's face, nose, and probably tongue and lips implanted on the side of the trash can. 

Awesome... For .2 seconds I thought about having him drink some antibacterial hand gel.

mind-blog #2:

Roach in Our Sink

Our house helper is deathly afraid of roaches. She apparently has a long standing history of waging war against them. One morning this week before she arrived at our place, Brandon killed a roach in our kitchen sink. When she arrived, I informed her of what he'd found. She looked at me wide eyed and worried. And well, maybe slightly confused too. And then that's when I realized my Big Chicken language wasn't quite ready to kick in at 9 a.m.
"Oh, uh...I mean...a roach. NOT a dragon."
(note to self: learn how to say "My bad..." in Chinese.)

mind-blog #3:

Adventures in Rice Cereal

(in my #3 mind-blog I wasn't going to write any words because a picture is worth a thousand words, right? well, that and sometimes I'm just lazy... 

BUT then mind-blog #4 happened and it's just better suited for a no-words-mind-blog)

mind-blog #4:

I Have No Words

mind-blog #5:

My Husband, My Hero

Setting: local friend's home.

Opening scene: We sit down for dinner with the three friends at a table with homemade local dishes scattered across it for us to choose from. I'm thinking to myself that with this much to choose from it'll be easy for me to politely avoid the slow cooked beef-fat, the congealed duck eggs, and deep-fried lotus root.

Crises: Our friend in slow-motion form, reaches across the table and scoops several congealed duck eggs into my bowl and encourages me to try them. I'm having flashbacks of 5 years ago. 

Tension builds: Brandon sees the terror in my eyes. He knows his wife well and knows that I'm a total weener when it comes to trying weird new food.
Climax: Nearing the end of the meal, both friends notice that I've yet to try the congealed duck eggs and do they're best to persuade me to have a try. Brandon, knowing that this cannot end well, informs them that he really liked them and that he'd like some more and proceeds to eat every one of my congealed duck eggs.
Conclusion: "Face" was saved. And Brandon went to sleep with a stomach ache that night.



That's the best of my mind-blogs from the deep recesses of my brain, a very scary place to visit!

Friday Fotos

We got to see a friend this week that we haven't seen in 4 years.
This photo was originally here.


What a difference 4 years makes!

Chinese New Year

On Sunday night, the night of non-stop 5 hours of fireworks, Chinese New Year, I was fully expecting myself to be a completely grouchy, foreign, white-lady, irritated mess.

But when midnight rolled around and our children were soundly sleeping in their beds and all around us were the sounds of war-fare, we sat in our windowsill in awe of the bright lights, in awe of the noise, and laughing hysterically at the utter drama of it all.

It was our first time to be in country for Chinese New Year, and we truly enjoyed it. We started the evening off at a friend's house, eating local food, watching the Chiense equivalent of the "Ball Drop" on tv, and blowing up fireworks in the middle of the city streets. (of which Salem was definitely not a fan of...as you can see in the video)

3 hours later, at 9:30 at night, we decided bedtime was futile for the kids, so we popped in a Disney movie, and let them watch until they fell asleep. Truly, they couldn't hear much of the movie because of the noise going on outside. 

At midnight they brought out the big guns and lit up the sky outside our apartment with fireworks that are illegal to shoot off in the city limits in The States. (and after they nearly shot out windows in our apartment complex, I can understand why! :)  With no fire bans or fireworks restrictions, the next morning our apartment complex looked like a black cat graveyard!

Enjoy the video!

In the blinking of an eye...

Happy 5 months, baby boy!

Don't grow up too quickly, please.

Fish in my Bathtub

The events of today culminated in Brandon tossing a bag of dead goldfish into our trash can outside.

Eight goldfish to be exact.

But let me back up here. I'm getting ahead of myself.

You see, I thought when I went out to our local cloth market today that the only thing I'd be returning home with would be some material to make a few things for the kids. I guess I forgot where I live. Allow me to let you in on a little secret about Big Chicken living:

Things are never as they seem.

This token rule applies in most cases. I could exaggerate upon this point all day long, but for now, I won't go down that road.

The rule still applied today at the cloth market. I bought several yards of fabric from the same lady that I usually buy from. She tallied up my total with her little calculator that speaks to her in Chinese and I paid my insanely cheap amount for some way cute fabric.

Then she pulls a bucket out from underneath the counter and says, "My husband likes to fish!" She points in the bucket toward a bunch of large shiny goldfish that he'd caught at the local lake and asks if I'd like to take one home. I insist that I truly don't need a goldfish today.

She keeps asking... "Do you have a bathtub to put it in?"

Me: "Yes. wait. What? A bathtub? No. no. We use our bathtub. I can't put a fish in our bathtub."

Her daughter (laughing)... "No. Not a bathtub. A fish bowl. Do you have a fish bowl?"

Darn those Chinese language tones. They get me every time. Bathtub and fishbowl are the same word, but toss in a few different intonations here and there and you might have yourself a goldfish in your Whirlpool.

I concede. "Ok. ok. Yes I'll take home a fish for the kids to see."

That's when the daughter pulls out 2 plastic sacks, double layers them, and my fabric lady starts pulling goldfish out of the bucket with her bare hands like she's Bear Grylls. 

One. Two.

"Ok that's plenty."

Three.Four.Five.

"No really. That's enough."

And then she dumps the last three in...Six.Seven.Eight. She pours some water in with them since they're fish (after all), hooks the sack over my handle bar and says, "Good. Just like this!"

The fish slished and sloshed the whole way home. At a stop light the guy next to me informed me that there wasn't enough water in there and that they'd all die.
Note to self: Learn how to say, "you think so, eh?!?!" in Chinese.

Lo and behold, he was right.
The kids enjoyed them for about 2 hours before three went belly up. They were too big to flush down the toilet so we did the next best thing. Bagged them back up, and took them to the trash can outside.

And that's the story of how things are never as they seem, even at the cloth market.