April Shower Bring May Flowers......I hope so!

It has been about a month since my last post, life has been pretty normal, daily life :)  The kids are growing, Blake is still really enjoying school they have been learning about the life cycles of animals and Blake's new favorite animal is a kangaroo!  Grace is talking up a storm, she repeats a lot of words and then uses them again later so fun to hear her talking.  She likes to ask to eat and chomp her teeth, she learned animal sounds and the animal names and we are now working on learning our colors and shapes.

Here are some photos of the kids, my parents send them cowboy boots, and outfits in the mail so they have been having fun lassoing and wearing their boots!

There are a few photos of our city just outside out compound, and some pictures of the kids around in the garden and play area.

There are some pictures of our month in China, we took a rainy weekend trip to Hangzhou, China which was for the 3-day weekend of Tomb Sweeping Holiday.  It poured the whole time we were there and it has been raining every few days in Changzhou!  Needless to say we didn't get out of the hotel with 4 kids (we traveled with our French family) and the kids still had fun playing and swimming at the hotel.  I did get out for a little bit to check the Silk Street

and pick up a few souvenirs.

Random things in China....A guy smoking and hanging a no-smoking sign.  In China, they smoke everywhere, even my fruit and vegetable guys is smoking while weighing my products.  This guy appears to be getting his hair permed???  Then the China way to eat a hot dog....as a wrap apparently.  Finally, the knock-off Monopolgy game "Uncle Wang"!

I started to think about more things I find in China that are odd or drive me crazy and i thought of two, when ever you are in a store they seem to be more interested in their phone than making a sale.  I was paying the other day at Metro, our grocery store and the girl stopped my transaction to answer her phone.  Seriously, that better have been a very important call.  Also, they think it is actually a good idea to follow you around the store, it almost makes you feel like they think you are going to steal something but they closely follow you to see if you need any help, i still can't get used to this.

Finally, I started my Chinese cooking classes, it is once a week for 4 weeks and it was a lot of fun last week.  Here are some photos, two popular dishes that were Sichuan style.

Until next time....