Juice Box

We drink lots of water, and I haven't gotten juice boxes forever!

So when the boys got juice boxes at a party,

Few things could break between them and their juice.

They downed them in no time flat.


Is the camera still pointing at me?!


And Hunter turned into a nut! I love the following pictures uncle Todd took of him...

"smile Hunter"

Back to business...


And the above is my all-time fav. He is smiling as big as he can... with the juice box straw still in his mouth.

Whatta nut! Go ahead, break it down for us Hunter!

Random Though It May Be...

And now for the 'Fried Rice' segment of this blog... where a medley of random leftovers are fried together to a surprisingly pleasing pallet for your enjoyment.

Okay, or just call it random, that'll do.

A construction crew hard at work. What you don't see is the 10 foot hole within that thin aluminum railing. In the states, they might shut down this entire intersection to bring in the big machinery. But here there are about 6-8 workers and roughly 10 tons of elbow grease that goes into all the shoveling of concrete here. Amazing, shall we say? These people do not faint at the sight of hard work!


And the evidence of the kids being completely spoiled by the local Ayis... just in case I forget why the transition back to the US would be a hard one for them.

Yes, that's my almost 5 year-0ld being cradled by a 50 year-0ld woman.

This is me stepping back behind the glass of the butcher section of the local grocery store to tell them which part of the cow I need for a Sunday roast. At 30 US bucks a pop, you bet I'm a micro-manager on this one.

I love it when they go along with my posing. This guy needs to go to Hollywood already.

Okay, stop zooming in on the photos here, you snoopy girl you! LOL! This is the best part of this random post... Our dossier (the international portion of our adoption) is complete, and the following are the documents that went out for translation for the Chinese government.

And can I just say there is nothing weirder than seeing your life written on paper through someone else's perspective. For those of you not familiar with the process, you meet with your case worker every week for many weeks, and she conducts 2 hour interviews with you and just pulls it all out of you in a very strategic way. Dang they're good. These skilled ladies, at least the two we worked with, were like family to us. I made crab wontons with one and baked cookies with another. We cracked jokes, and shared family stories. Maybe it was all part of their plans (wah wah wah)... lol. I seriously had plans to play tennis and go garage sailing with one, and the other, sheesh, what I'd give to be at the wedding to the most sweetest guy she met out here in China! And I've even seen her interior design work, amazing. These ladies really are like sisters to me. The opposite of what you'd expect.

So we got our official "wait time", for those of you interested. We now have only 19 months until we receive pictures from the orphanage and info about the bundle of joy (or bundles :)).

On another note... someone please tell me why this man can sleep anywhere, anytime, no matter what. Simple man, Mr. Chen was in the car waiting for Tim to grab a fax in the building while I was in the back seat. Within 1 minute (not exaggerating), dude was out cold. I couldn't even shake the car hard enough to get him to stop snoring. I'm talking the kind of snoring that prohibits any other thoughts you'd like to maintain on the inside.

The kind of snoring that wakes you at 2 AM, and makes you pull your 'earthquake roll over' in bed to wake the dude up. Don't tell me you haven't done that either. You know what I'm saying. Your spouse is snoring, you can't sleep, so you roll over, and bounce as hard as you can in the process so that he wakes and says "what was that?!" and you pretend like you can't hear him b/c you are still sleeping. But really you're thinking "that just bought me 20 more minutes of solitude".

Anyway, props to ya Mr. Chen. It's only us insomniacs that despise this attribute, in somber admiration.

Daryl the Elf

Now before you go on thinking the American on the left side of this picture is a totally refined serious individual...

And while "what happens in Shanghai stays in Shanghai" would be the polite thing for me to conform to...


I have to reveal him, he's hilarious. You wouldn't forgive me if I didn't. It's too funny of a story. And you could use a funny story today...

Here goes:

"Lovely" she said in her thick Chinese accent as the seamstress peeked over the Elf DVD picture to see this full grown man, Daryl, feeling the yellow stretchy fabric on the bolt.

She proceeded measuring his legs in three different places and his waist for the custom made 'adult male leggings'.

Next, Lisa, hiswife, and I ran to other booths at the fabric market to find the perfect fur for the cuffs of the "buddy the elf" costume Daryl had always wanted.

He even had a custom patent leather belt with a gold buckle made of three different belts to perfection.

We went back to the fabric market the day after and picked up Daryl's 'Buddy the Elf" costume. Here's the break down...

1 Custom made Elf Sport coat- green cashmere: $70

3 Belts to build one custom belt- $10

1 Patent leather scrap for elf shoes $6

1 Scrap of the perfect fur $5

Daryl speed walking down the halls of Hunter's school with his elbows sticking out and greeting all the children as Buddy the Elf in China... Priceless.

Or, even more priceless was what took place as soon as he tried the costume on for the first time:

"SANTA!!!" he randomly yelled out while pointing in the distance, following it with "I know him" whispered in Todd's ear...

Todd having never seen the movie, smiled politely...

Priceless!!

We love you guys! Hurry come back soon Todd, Malissa, Daryl, Lisa!! Shanghai loves you guys!

Lucy Must Love Me...

Maybe I shouldn't be so self-centered... Lucy loves alot of people.

Girlfriend can cook!


When she brought everything to the table, she noted the origin of the recipes. IE: "this dish is from Taiwan...." etc.


And we couldn't stop eating. She has a dream of opening a family style restaurant and just cooking for the people she loves.

That's Lucy, top left corner of the table, short hair. She sure made a lot of happy faces at Chinese scripture study!

Even mine.

But then I knew she must love me when she brought me this daddy. Does Chocolate count as one of the 5 love languages?

The Boys

Hi Guys! Just letting you know we're still alive...

And that the boys are still handsome.

China's ONLY Drive-thru McDonalds

China has about a trillion McDonalds (rough estimate). But only ONE drive-thru, or so Tim thought, though not quite sure. Mr. Chen, our noble driver had never heard of such a thing. So we went out of our way just to try it out.


There wasn't a single car in front or behind us; and it was lunch time.


On our way though, our driver was nervous. "What do I do? What do I say? Where to I stop?" Perhaps this explained why we were the only car there. My jokester mind likes to think of all the possibilities going through his mind at this point. Maybe you drive to certain places signifying certain meal combos?


Not to worry, Mr. Chen. We have much experience in this area. Did you know the most common thing found in an car is a french fry (heard it on "Alice" morning radio show-- brain buster quiz... high quality education going on over here)?

Another interesting thing here... McDonalds in China serves up soup, fried chicken, and taro pies just to name a few.

UPDATE: On Sunday a family visited us from BeiJing. I politely engaged in the following conversation:

Me: "Hi, is this your first Sunday? Where are you from?"

Them: "BeiJing"

Me: (bit confused, they were American) "You live there?"

Them: "Yes, for two years"

Me: "Great. Do you know if they have a McDonalds Drive-thru?"

Them: "Yes we got our first one just a couple of months ago"

Me: "Great" (satisfied with the conversation, I ended it there. Who needs to know names when you've got new found info to impress your husband with).

PLEASE READ THIS POST: My brother-in-law on SNL

Okay, so my Brother-in-Law (click there to see more pics of him) has got to be the funniest man alive. Seriously. He has had a life long dream of being an actor, on Saturday Night Live. He's so talented.

So I am one of those "believers"... I believe that if word gets out, Heath will be found by the right person who can give him a chance. Help me spread the word. If you can copy this YouTube video below and paste it into a blog post to spread the word, I'd just love you forever.

In fact, for every single person who puts a "Heath on Saturday Night Live Dream" post on their blog, I'm offering:

A FREE BLOG DESIGN!

If you look on the top right column of my blog, you'll see a list of links of blogs I've designed. I'll totally do this for you (no matter if you know me or just stalk me through a mutual friend, what, it's flattering, thanks).

The below video of Heath is one of my favorites, simply b/c my cute niece interrupted him in the middle of doing "Lloyd Christmas" from Dumb and Dumber. In the video he was "in character" and his little girl throws her arms around his neck. He is so on-his-toes funny, I just love the way he reacted to Jaedyn's accidental stealing of the spotlight.

Here's a link to his other videos on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=tejcriley&view=videos. Just as a fair warning, the humor is not "G-rated", but more suitable for people who love Saturday Night Live. I posted the one above b/c it was cute and family friendly. Enjoy! And help a guy achieve his all-time dream.

Leave a comment, what do you think? Does he have a chance? Any tips on what he needs to do??