Parents: the last installment

Reason #42 to keep blogging: it makes you go back and look at all those thousands of pictures you've taken.

I thought I had seen all the pictures I took while my parents were in our city, but I came across one last folder.  

One afternoon, I took my parents out shopping.  Or at least, that was the goal.  ;)

We ended up riding the bus down to a street by the university...

 ...stopping in at a little nail salon while the girls got their nails painted...

 ...and then we stopped at my favorite little drink store!  We all got fresh fruit juices.  Yum!!

The next day, my parents attended Emma's ballet class.

 Wow.  I'm so glad it wasn't me in that class!

 Samantha took an art class - her teacher always wore feather earrings! - while Emma had ballet.

Sharing big things like Disney is fun, but sharing little bits of life is so nice too.

A new post. Amazing.

I can't think of a single funny thing to say to address my absence from blogging these last many months.  I'm afraid if I sit here any longer to trying to think of something funny to say, I'll give up altogether and go another 9 months without posting a shred of information about the kids or our life...and....well, I promised my grandmother I'd start blogging again.  

So here goes.

I really wanted to post the rest of the pictures from when my parents came to visit us, because it was such a special time (and my blog-mind is stuck in May until I get them posted!)

Samantha turned six just a few days after they were scheduled to leave, so we decided to party early.  We could dub 2012 the Year of the Barbie, since it was in May of 2012 that some friends introduced  my girls to the world of Barbie.  [Sheesh, I do think if I could turn back time, I would have avoided the Barbie situation altogether, but I guess you can't control everything as a parent!]

Samantha requested a Barbie cake for number 6, so I decided that the unfortunate Barbie who had permanently lost her legs could finally have some redeeming value...and we stuck her legs in a cake.

My parents did set a really bad precedent by being here for samantha's birthday.  Now ALL the kids want Mimi and G at their birthday parties!

Samantha was so pleased with her cake!  Truthfully, she'd be pleased with just about anything - the girl is SO easy to please! - but she really, really liked her cake.

And it was yummy too! Strawberry cake with cream cheese icing...

To round out the Barbie fun, we got her a Barbie pool playset.  I ran into Toys R Us one day with my dad -- he distracted the big kids and I made the secret purchase.  He's a great guy to have around!  =)

Then the girls spent the entire afternoon helping Barbie splash in the pool!

One super cool thing we got to do was take my parents to Hong Kong!  In some ways, Hong Kong feels like a second home because we've been there so many times.  We have our "own" restaurants, favorite shops, parks, pools, milk tea shops, milkshake shops, etc...    I enjoyed taking my parents around and showing them some of the places we love.  

Mimi, G, and I also took the girls to HKDisney.  (Josh and Silas stayed back at home and didn't make the HK run.)

We got in a few quick pictures before my camera battery died.  I know, what a sad thing to have happen!

This was the first HK Disney trip where there was an actual "prince" in attendance.  To say the girls were excited would be quite the understatement.  They were excited.  And nervous.  And giggly.  

Almost like he was a real prince.  

I have a few more pictures to throw in here later, but for now...this is a start.  =)

welcoming my parents to our home

It was so great to travel with my parents to Taiwan, but it was even more fun to have them in our home for two weeks!  It is such a special feeling to have them waking up and eating breakfast with us, sitting with us in family devotions each night, and letting them gradually assimilate to the chaos around us.  

Unfortunately, our first day back home brought flu-like symptoms to Samantha.  She curled up on my bed the entire day.  My mom - tenderhearted little grandmother that she is - just couldn't bear to see Mantha so sick.  Mimi snuggled up to her so she wouldn't be lonely; Samantha loved the company.

The next day, she was back to her normal self again and sat with my dad while he played the piano.  It's nice to hear music being made by someone else!

One of the fabulous things about my parents - you know, besides the fact that they've raised me all these years, put braces on my teeth, loved me when I got married at 18, and travel the world to see us - is that they always buy shoes for my kids.  I don't actually know what size shoes my kids wear because my parents ALWAYS buy shoes for them.  It's a wonderful little arrangement.

This trip to our home brought lots of shoes for everyone.  Samantha's sparkly light-up shoes had laces...which meant G-pa had to teach her how to tie!

And ta-da! Samantha can now tie her shoes!  Thanks, dad!  =)

Silas got new shoes too, but his are velcro.  (No shoe tying lessons for him for a while; if only he'd stop sticking shoes in his mouth, I'd be happy!)

 New shoes for all!

Partial though they are to shoes, my parents are equal-opportunity shoppers. When my dad heard about a quaint touristy shopping area an hour away, he wanted to check it out.  So my parents and I herded the girls on a nice little bus ride to go visit this shopping area.

It's laid out like an ancient asian city, with the pagoda-style roof and old city wall.  Inside among the knicknacks and chinese vases were several little archery booths.  Emma was beside herself with joy and could barely contain her "Narnian" English accent.  (You'll do well to remember that Susan from Chronicles of Narnia was gifted the bow and arrow by Father Christmas.)

 For $1.50, we got 10 arrows.  Everyone got to try their skills:

Well, ok...everyone except Abby.  I didn't trust her with sharp objects, and I likely never will.

Emma and Samantha freaked out this hat vendor when they started wildly grabbing at hats and starting their pretend playing.  In hindsight, I should have bought these two hats to add to the dress up collection; they're always playing Jessie from Toy Story, and this hat would have been perfect!

Samantha had more of the Queen of England look:

One of the winding paths took us next to an old church.  Even though this building seems like it's not used anymore, the gardens around it were still beautifully maintained.  I really loved the rustic look of the place surrounded by such lush greenery.

A little closer to home, we still found plenty of ways to spend money.  One afternoon while we were out walking, we stumbled upon this man making artistic chinese calligraphy.  He'd write your name or anything else you wanted on there, and then decorate it with traditional chinese art.  His work was beautiful, and inexpensive too!  He just sits on the side of the road with his desk - talk about low overhead!

We had him make scrolls with each of our girls names on it, and then we had some made for my parents and my siblings.  This scroll has our family name on it.  

 Later that night, we introduced my parents to Apples to Apples, Jr - our favorite game to play with the kids.

 If you've never played it before - and have kids - you really should!  It's good, clean fun and can be such a riot!

Samantha's 6th birthday pics coming up next...

the best of the rest: taiwan through the phone

Of course, I'd get all the way through my taipei posts and THEN realize I had a whole stash of undiscovered pictures on my phone.  Do you have it in you for one more post about Taipei?  I hope so.  

Here goes:

First full day in Taipei - lunch at Subway.  You know you've lived overseas too long when a turkey sandwich feels like a $100 steak.  

I led this group of good sports on a wild goose chase to find (what else?) a grocery store.  We found some interesting things along the way, but never did find the grocery store I was looking for.  =(

Taipei 101(the world's second tallest building) was a fun landmark to see no matter where we were in the city.  In my opinion, it ironically looks like chinese take-out boxes stacked on top of each other.  

More Zoo pics---
we had two great guides!

And we bought everyone a stuffed panda.  Since acquiring the panda, Silas is virtually inseparable from it.  He loves his panda!

My girls always play it up for the camera!

I was so glad that the kids loved being around my parents.  It's always iffy since we go such long stretches without seeing them, but they all had loved being with them.  Silas especially loved G-pa!

These signs were appropriately placed in all the bathrooms in the zoo.  Interesting facts to ponder while you do your business...

Date nights are hard to come by, but let's just have a public shout-out to my parents who gave us multiple date nights in Taipei!  The first one was shopping, MIB3...

...and Chili's!!

Be still my beating heart... (looking at these pictures again makes me HUNGRY!!)

Again, my kids and the slurpees. A friend of mine told me she thought this picture should be on the cover of an album.  =)

Dinner at TGIFridays -- with some cheeeeeeesy mozzerrella sticks!

My kids were NOT happy with me taking this picture.  I thought it would be brilliant to have them all crowded on the slide.  It was hot, they were sweaty, and just wanted a burger from Burger King.  All that stood in their way was me and this picture.

Date night #2 - a fab steak and great friend to share it with!  (I still think my potatoes au gratin are better than theirs, but the steak?  Unbelievable!)

One afternoon when everyone else was otherwise occupied, I took my kids to the Taipei National Science Museum.  I was a little concerned about how much my kids would actually be able to do, but then I saw that the whole bottom floor was a Kids' Discovery Center.  It was SO fun!

For one thing, there were huge foam legos.

While the others did the legos, Abby moved around huge foam shapes to make an obstacle course.

And she colored on the walls.  (The girl has a hard time sitting still.)

I'm pretty sure that all the big girls did was build stuff with legos.

Silas moved around a bit, though.

We were good friends with everyone by the time we left.

The Science Museum was a little hard to get to (have to take MRT and a bus) but we could easily have spent longer than the 3 hours we were there.  There's also a BK and several other restaurants inside the museum itself.  (There were also lots of other floors that we didn't buy tickets to; only the bottom floor discovery center.)

Uhhhh, yeah.  We went to Chili's more than once.  

More water park pics:

There was a little pizza restaurant close to our lodging that was perfect one evening when our plans got messed up:  (and if it seems like all we did was eat...well,....that's not too far from the truth!)

And finally - we bless you, Taiwan Department of Transportation - a look at the terminal our plane left from.  If only all airport were this nice and kid-friendly...

Whenever we go back to taiwan, it won't be too soon!