Redneck-Chinese grilling

After sitting outside for the last several years, 2 of the legs rusted off our grill. We discovered this just before getting ready to grill. Andy being my engineer rigged something up. But c'mon, isn't this totally redneck grilling?! Don't worry, we didn't catch anything on fire.... this wall is total concrete.

Plant & Animal Market

Saturday we went to the plant and animal market. Andy was on the hunt for a bonsai for his office and I wanted to get a few flowers for our front steps. Tori came with us and loved looking at all the flowers. We didn't venture too far into the animal market but she enjoyed checking out the turtles.

So many kinds of turtles!

Tori kept telling this turtle "hello" and then "nihao" much to the delight of the shopkeepers

Flowers! I ended up buying some petunias and a daisy-like flower (because daisies are my favorite)

Tori was excited to carry the pretty flowers. Isn't she a cutie?

Getting the pot ready for planting with the assist of Xiao Lu.

Making a Yurt

Sunday night after all the birthday festivities, Becca built a yurt for a school project. They are studying how and why buildings stand up. Her assignment was to build an interesting structure from somewhere in the world. Due to the international nature of her school, they really encourage the kids to think about and appreciate many other cultures. Then she needed to write about who used it, what materials were used and why they used these things. We found several great websites to aid in her research. After reading this one, she decided that she would build a yurt, a type of portable house found Mongolia. Kind of fun since sometime in our stay in China we might actually see one! We debated about how would be the best way to build it. She used chopsticks for the support beams (because after all, we are in China, what else would we use?) and some fabric a friend gave us for the covering. Unfortunately, we had no wool to give it that authentic look. :-)

I think she did an amazing job (really amazing because she did it all.... I just performed slight assists with the glue gun). Here is her finished masterpiece:

And then a picture of an actual yurt:

Happy Birthday, Becca!

Monday was Becca's birthday. I know parents say this all the time, but I can hardly believe that she is 8! For those who have not seen us since our move, you will be amazed at how tall she is! I think that she grows some every day. This year she has changed so much and is not only growing but maturing before our eyes. Our move has been so good for her. She had decided several weeks ago that she wanted to have a cat party. So, last Friday, I went on a mission to find small stuffed animal cats. Wow, I could not believe how hard it was to find stuffed animals, not to mention cats. After searching at several different markets and even the mall near us, I had found ONE cat. Seriously, people. I kept thinking, I really need Target right now. Or the dollar store. Or something. I kept thinking this is China, land of where so many toys are made. Why can I not find one cat? But as I have learned, there are many things that are available here, you just need to know where to look and apparently I was looking in the wrong places. But do you know what animal I found EVERYWHERE? Cows and bulls. Any guesses as to why? Because, this my friends, is the Year of the Bull. :-) But seeing that no little eight-year-old girl wants a COW party, I pressed on and finally found monkeys. While they were not what Becca originally had in mind, we altered some of our ideas and had a great monkey party. We created a:

Monkey Rehabilitation Center (in case you cannot read it)

All the girls (and Josh) were able to rescue a monkey. We talked about various places that monkeys live and then pretended we were in one of those countries. The funny part to me was that the girls had been to many of the places we were talking about (Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand). After rescuing our monkeys, we played several games, ate cake and of course opened presents. Becca and the girls (well, and Josh) had a great time.

All the kids with their monkeys

Monkey cake (though it was more like a cookie)

And as becoming our tradition we had a fire-flower candle.

Buying a Live Chicken

WARNING: This might be gross. It involves blood. I don't think the pictures are that disturbing, but you have been warned.

For our Easter dinner, we decided to roast a couple chickens. Friends took us to the market to assist us buying live chickens. Yes, indeed we picked out our own chickens and had them slaughtered right before our eyes! At the vegetable market in a nearby neighborhood where I buy my veggies and fruit, they also sell chickens. Who knew? We had friends come with us because I do not have the language to tell them exactly what I want. We picked out 2 females (because they are more tender). The chickens are then weighed - feathers and all. And yes, at this point they were still alive and squawking. He then took them into a side room to cut their jugulars. I couldn't watch, but Andy did. They were then put into a bucket with a lid (yep, they were still moving). After a couple minutes, the chickens were dipped into boiling water and then put into this crazy tumbler machine. A minute or two in the tumbler de-feathers them. They plucked out a couple remaining few feathers, chopped off the head and feet (they also took out all the icky things inside) and we were on our way! How crazy is that?!

Those are our chickens!

Weighing in

On the left is the pot of boiling water and on the right is the tumbler. And yes, all over the floor are feathers and well, other stuff.

One of our chickens after the tumbler. Notice that it still has the tail feathers?

Tori in front of the chickens. Before you all think we are horrible parents taking our 3 year old to see a chicken be killed.... she knew we were getting a "live chicken" but she was too busy playing with a little Chinese girl away from the action and so she saw none of the gross stuff. The man did all the icky stuff in another room where Tori was not allowed. Even so, she kept saying, "we are buying a live chicken!" She then asked when we were going to eat the chicken. You forget that my kids routinely see whole pigs hanging up in the meat section of the grocery store! 

Making tortilla chips

I am always on the lookout for ways to do things more inexpensively. Andy calls this aspect of me "my frugal." There are many things in China that are very inexpensive (most fresh fruit and veggies), but other comfort and familiar things that are "import foods" can be really expensive. Tortillas, cheese, salsa, and pretzels are just a few things that can be twice as expensive as in the U.S.! Some things (like cheese), we buy and really eat a lot less of here than back in the States. And others, I make myself. Taco night means making the tortillas, salsa, and sometimes even the refried beans. A friend recently told me a way to make chips using jiaozi pi (dumpling wrappers). So instead of spending 35-40 Yuan on one bag of tortilla chips that are often stale (this converts to about $5-6), I spent 6 Yuan (less than $1) and made the equivalent of 2-3 bags! At the vegetable market, you can easily find the wrappers. I cut them, brushed a little oil on them, sprinkled salt, baked them. Voile! Tortilla chips! I cannot tell you how excited I am by this find.

This was only 1 of 3 stacks that I bought. Originally, I thought that I might need to roll them out a bit but that proved unnecessary.

A batch ready to go in the oven.

Then finished. They reminded me of baked pita chips. Oh, so yummy!

My boy and his maps

I cannot begin to tell you how much Josh loves maps. I really don't know when or how it started, but he will pore over a map and examine each detail. For Christmas last year, Uncle Dave and Aunt Amree gave the kids a shower curtain with a map of the world on it. This was one of the few selected things that made the journey with us to China. When Andy would travel, the kids would all love to find where he was on the map. Shortly after he started school last September, I asked him if he knew where his friends were from and where those countries were. He promptly told me, "I already found them on the map." But his love of maps is not limited to the world map.... when we were at HK Disney, he commandeered a map and couldn't really enjoy a spot until he found it on the map. At the aquarium in Shanghai this weekend, I actually told him at one point, "Josh put down your map and look at the fish." :-D

Josh (beside the canopy walk in Malaysia) showing off his shirt with, you guessed it, a MAP of Sabah, Malaysia on it.