Water Town Temple

Tim's big plan was to have the boys sleep on the way to the Water Town.

And they both did according to plan.


Until Mom's flash woke this one up. Shoot.


My boys at a phone booth.

In front of the Chinese Temple. "Look at the Camera Tann"...

A cat crawling up the side of the temple.

The family :). We were told it was a sacred place and to keep noise to a minimum. Is that possible with two boys?

I gave my incense to Hunter, and the pyro came out. This is a Grandpa Jack gene, Tim tells me with a wink ;). I then had a very serious talk with Hunter about fire safety. I told him of all the risks, but I could still see the fascination in his eyes. Then I broke it down to his language "Hunter, if you ever ever ever get near fire, you will never play a Wii game in your life". Then he went on to say all that I needed to hear "Yes mommy, I will NEVER touch fire. I won't let my friends touch it, or my brother. Never ever ever." Hmmm... leverage... nice.

Here's where all the other incense are burning.

And why all the burning? So good things will make their way up to the heavens where ancestors are. Here's where they burn fake paper money to send that way.

BTW, the next three posts are pictures from the Water Town... so keep scrolling to read about the boat ride steet vendors and what Hunter threw over the bridge.

Water Town Boat Ride

You can't go to China's Water Town without going on a boat ride!

A passing boat.

The whole Gang.

Locals washing clothes and dishes in the water.

Somebody LOVES boats.

The bridge behind us is almost 500 years old!

Water Town's 450+ Year Old Bridge

Here we are on the bridge we went under while on the boat ride, it's almost 500 years old!

The locals sold us some live gold fish that we could toss over the edge. A little different, eh? Do you see the little orange speck parallel to Hunter's knee on the other side of the half wall? That's the fish.

Here's another fish in Hunter's hand ready to be freed.

Checking to make sure Nemo made it.

Us with the fish. Tanner is still grossed out by this kind of stuff, so he just watched from the stroller.

Water Town Vendors

It's always interesting to see what the street vendors are selling. And being in China's "Venice" water town, we were not disappointed.

The boy's favorite? Turtles.


Curious Tanner. In his stroller, at a safe distance. This dude is always running from me whenever I try to show him bugs and rolly pollies.


Hunter wanted to take them all home.

Disgusting, Mom, sick sick sick.

Here the vendors got angry when you'd take their picture. This one didn't mind. Here she's selling, Pig. Parts. Of some sort. Wrapped in bannana leaves.

Chinese Crepes.

Then we passed the Calendar maker. This is one where you get your picture taken and you make calendars of yourself for you and yourself to look at. The people in the examples posed like magazine cover models. I absolutely loved it.

So I did what any crazy wife would do, and I dared conservative Tim to get some made. Three to be exact. For him to give to certain undisclosed recipients, who perhaps are currently reading this post.

He took me up on it... The whole time telling me how crazy I am. I like it when he does that.

What. He's one hunk of a guy, I could look at his calendar all day. This is the picture I caught of him smirking and shaking his head at me. The other pictures I took of his head shot were dirty scowls at me that said "STOP IT ALREADY DANG IT". Oh how I love this man that I married "up" to. What other guy would put up with my bottomless desire to shake things up. Know what, I think he likes it.

Little Helpers

If I could set New Year's Resolutions for this family journal, I think I'd post more pictures of the everyday things. Living in China, I think I get caught up in taking pictures of crazy cultural things or events. While, in all honesty, my favorites take place right in the home.

Like how the boys like to delicately put spaghetti in the pot as if it were a floral arrangement.

And eating some along the way.

Putting back the ones that don't seem to go.

Then Hunter got time out for spitting in the pot. Really?! Sick. Just think, if I'd never typed that, you'd think we lived a charmed perfect life making sweet spaghetti. You've heard of "blagging" (blog-bragging) but what do you call it when a mom posts pictures of her kid in time out?!

Call it darn cute- Hunter's bro joined him in time out.
Just to be next to him.

Yah, once again, there goes my ideal parenting. Disciplining your kids while telling them to smile for the camera at the same time. Don't tell me you've never had them say cheese with marker covering them from head to toe...

What. Spit boils out. Kids smiles need to be captured.

I'm Dreaming of an Ayi Christmas

Just when we thought we'd let the Ayi's (housekeepers) in our area know what Christmas was all about...

They showed us! We gathered them to give them a few small gifts (socks, bandaids, combs, ear muffs etc). And yet, they came baring gifts! Check out that fruit carving above! And those pot stickers are dyed with grinded vegetable juice. They tried to make them Christmas colors.


Another carved flower with homemade cream puffs (only with sesame filling).


More deliciously cut fruit.

Really, who will eat this? Too pretty to touch!

Gorgeous!

And so yummy!

Wonder how long it took to learn!

So beautiful!

Then they sang for us a beautiful song they'd practiced.

And I begged the Christensens to serenade us.

Tami's really only 25 years old. Don't know if you knew that. Her daughters came in town for Christmas and they confirmed it. Girlfriend is young in every way! So unattached to pretention or material things. She is ready to be there for anyone in a split seccond to serve.

JiangJie is singing an old Chinese Opera song. She used to perform on TV here in China.

We were crying all over the place, they were so sweet to prepare for this little gathering.

Loves!

Zhangjie sang "Edelweiss", it was so beautiful it silenced the room.

Then they sang Tim and I's wedding song "YueLiang DiaBiao Wo De Xin"... or "the moon represents my heart". My mission companions sang this at my wedding.

A group hug to close the night! I'm in the Santa hat. I love Ayis from the North. They are considered the "islanders" of China. They'd give you the shirt off their back. They are very affectionate and love to help people. They would work for free if they could. Like Tami has said "Heaven is filled with BeiFang (northern) Ayis!" Oh to be as pure-hearted as they are naturally!