Goodbye China!

We are now back in the States! It's good to be back, but we are struggling with the time change. I was looking over some of our photos from China, and here is a glimpse of some of our most memorable moments in China that we will never forget.




Our Apartment - and Taelyn's first home






View of Hong Kong







Ralph & Snowball










Bamboo Construction









Communist Bill Boards

The Best and Worst of China

Now that we only have a couple of weeks left in China, we have started to reflect on our time here. Here is what we have come up with.

Things We Will Miss About China:
* 70 minute foot massages for $4 (this has been a weekly treat since we first moved here two years ago)
* Simplicity of life - no bills, no car, we would simply just walk to work together in the morning, and then go home afterward and spend the evenings together. Time outside of work is always "quality time."
* Random Chinese people saying "hello" while we are on a run. They will even call out from the 10th story of a building to say "hello" to us.
* Traveling at least five times a year. During our time here we went to: Hong Kong, Xian, Yangshao, Beijing, Macau, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia.

Things We Will Not Miss About China:
* The extra step - whenever we are getting a service such as eating out at a restaurant, there is always an extra step. Ex: when going to the doctor, first you go to a desk to pick up a service card, then you see the doctor, then go back to the front desk to pay, then back to the doctor to get the service, and finally back to the front desk to return the service card. Do you really need to go to the desk three times??
* Sidewalk chaos. With 14 million people in Shenzhen alone, you would think there would be some organization on the sidewalks (stay to the right, no sudden stopping/starting, etc.) but people seem to wander from side to side, push and shove, and dart in to oncoming traffic (people and cars) at any time. Just this morning, I took out a woman with the baby jogger on my run because she wasn't looking and made a sudden move to the side as I was running by.
* No personal space. If you are not touching the person in front of you in a line, then someone will cut in front of you!

Taelyn Rolled Over Today!

It all started after Taelyn was screaming for a good half hour. This is very unlike her. She will usually get a little fussy when she is hungry or tired, but light crying is very different from screaming. I tried all the basics to soothe her: feed her, rock her, put her to bed, but nothing seemed to work. So I decided to go through the bedtime routine to calm her down. First I gave her a bath (which she loved but started screaming again once I took her out), then I put her on her tummy and gave her a back massage. During her massage, she kept leaning more and more to her right side and my anticipation rose. I started leaning to that side too, just waiting and hoping for her to make the next move. Then before I knew it, she leaned far enough over that she rolled right over on to her back - amidst the continual screaming! I put her on her belly one more time, and she did the same thing! So it is official: Taelyn has rolled over (twice).

I never did find out what she was screaming about. I thought she might be teething, so I gave her a cold wash cloth to suck on which helped for a little while. I also thought she might have some gas, so I tried moving her legs and bouncing her to move it out. That was a temporary fix too. Eventually, she was so exhausted from crying that she fell asleep in my arms. Oh well... at least something exciting came out of it!

Taelyn - 3 Months

Taelyn is growing more and more each day, and that has been pretty fun to watch. She now weighs 13.4 lbs., is 23 inches long, and has a head circumference of 15.75 inches. What has been most exciting this month is how Taelyn is revealing a bit of her own personality. Here are a few examples of some of her finer moments:

1. Her favorite color is red, and she will fixate on anything that color for long periods of time. She especially loves to stare at her red paintings on the wall. Needless to say, those must now make the trip back to the US with us when we leave China.

2. She loves it when we play contact games like blowing on her belly or "Got Your Nose." The best is when we kiss her nose and say "got your nose" out loud. Then she wants to do the same thing, so we give her one of our noses, and she loves to suck on it. This game always generates a big smile.

3. Taelyn smiles and talks often throughout the entire day. She is even starting to put the two together and will talk during a really big smile - mostly a lot of "ooh's" and "yah's." She is on her way toward laughing but is not quite there yet.

4. When laying on her back, she now likes to lift her legs in to the air, and she is really close at grabbing her toes with her hands.

5. Sometimes Taelyn will cry when she doesn't feel like she is getting enough attention (although I don't really see how that is possible!). This usually means that she wants to play "Got Your Nose" or that she wants someone to look at her only inches from her face.

6. She now loves to splash her hands and feet in the water during bath time. It's no wonder she had such a good time swimming in Bali.

7. She loves her soft, purple blanky. She will often snuggle with it up against her face and occasionally chew on it too.

8. Taelyn hates the hiccups (just like her daddy) and will definitely let you know this when she gets them.

9. She loves to play the piano with her mommy. She will sit on my lap, and I will take her hands and push down the keys for her. Then she tries to do it by herself but can't push the keys down quite hard enough to make a sound. She has a very intense look of concentration when she does this, though, so it is obvious that she wants to play by herself.

10. And our personal favorite.........

At least once a day, Taelyn will give a little smile and then turn really red and grunt as she's pushing out a big poop!

Hugs & Kisses

Today, Taelyn learned how to express herself by giving hugs and kisses. First off, she has been working on giving kisses by sucking and licking anything that we put in front of her mouth. This is usually one of our noses! But today, she added some hugs to the mixture. All week, she has been extremely fascinated with her hands. All day long, she will hold them in front of herself and just stare at them and see what they can do. Well today, we put a stuffed animal monkey in front of her, and she was pretty intense about testing out what her hands could do if she reached out toward the monkey. She kept grabbing his nose and then his arms, and before we knew it she pulled him toward her like a hug and started licking his nose like a kiss!

Then we tried a different toy. She has a stuffed turtle with a mirror on its belly. First she gave the turtle kisses on its mouth. And then she noticed the mirror and was very interested in the baby inside. Again, she grabbed the turtle, pulled it toward her, and started giving herself kisses in the mirror! It was so fun to watch; she is such a little sweetheart!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Our Trip to Bali, Indonesia

We just got back from our vacation to Indonesia, and we had a fantastic time. This was Taelyn's first trip with us as well, and she did well too. We started the trip at Legian Beach where we stayed in a beautiful hotel not far from the beach. Taelyn had her first swim in the pool at the hotel. The water was a little too cold, so she wasn't quite sure about it. She made some pretty funny faces at first, but once her body adjusted to the temperature, she seemed to have a good time. Then later that day, we took her to the ocean. Unfortunately, she was fast asleep the entire time. Although the waves came crashing in on her little body and moved her legs around while I held her chest, she was out cold, so she had no idea that she went in to the ocean! We spent the rest of our time in Legian shopping the local stands for souveniors and clothing and eating some great dishes.

Next, we took a small boat to a nearby island, Lembongan. We stayed at a quaint lodge that was connected to a scuba diving company. Justin and I both went diving the first day and saw beautiful coral and a couple of very large fish. The visibility wasn't great, but it was nice to see a new area of sea life. That night, we had an amazing local experience eating a local dinner by a woman from the village on the island. As we walked to her place, we saw locals driving by on motorbikes with cargo balanced on their heads, we saw people partaking in an intense volleyball game which seems to be quite popular with the villagers, people were farming and drying seaweed - the main source of income on the island, young children came running out to see us and touch the baby, and we saw a beautiful sunset. When we arrived at the dinner site, we found ourselves in the middle of a 6 year-old's birthday party. She played the hostess for all of the children at the party and served them small presents and slices of cake. She then handed all of us visitors some cake. It was such an experience to hang out and interact with the children. We found out that the birthday girl recently lost her mother and had no one to care for her, so she just stayed on the island by herself. It was a very sad story but also touching to see her so happy on her birthday. After the birthday party was over, a woman prepared our meal. She made rice and vegetables inside the concrete-slabbed hut while her husband cooked fish over an open fire pit. The meal was delicious!

The next day, we decided to travel around the island like the locals do; the three of us all climbed on to a motorbike, and Justin drove us through paved pathways of the island. Here we witnessed gorgeous beaches, thick forests, seaweed farms and the farmers at work, and buildings that looked like ancient ruins in which the local people still live in.

After our trip to Lembongan, we took the small boat back to Bali and landed in Kuta Beach. This time we stayed in a bungalow overlooking a pool and just down the street from the beach. Again, the lodging was beautiful! At Kuta, we enjoyed full body massages, more shopping and great food, and spent time with Taelyn in the pool. The water was much warmer in this pool, and she loved it! Justin took her all around the pool on her tummy and on her back. The best part of our time in Kuta, though, was when we learned to surf. Justin and I took turns on the surf board and both had two very different experiences. Justin was quite a natural at the sport and was able to balance on the board right away. I did not have as much luck, though. I spent a good deal of time falling, but I had so much fun! We both were really happy that we tried it out.

Indonesia has a lot to offer with its white sand beaches, but we found that the best sites to see were away from the beach and immersed in the culture. We are so fortunate to have gained all of the great experiences from this trip.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

I Have Hands!

Taelyn has officially discovered her own hands this past week and now loves to touch everything around her: her pacifier, blanky, mommy and daddy's hands, etc. But today, she did something amazing. As I was reading her a "touch and feel" book about baby animals, I noticed that for the first time, Taelyn was actually focusing on the pages instead of staring off into space. Each page contained different textures of material to represent a furry rabbit or rough elephant, and I would take Taelyn's hand and have her touch each page. When we got to the fuzzy gorilla, though, I let Taelyn look at the page on her own without forcing her hand to touch it. She was so fixated on the material, and before I knew it she lifted her hand up and reached for it on her own! It was such an "aha" moment, and I am so proud of my little girl.