Shanghai Dixie

First Snow

2012-01-27T19:32:00.000-06:00

We finally had our first, and only, snow last week. It was more of a dusting than real snow but it's all we've had all winter so we called it snow. Rosie's favorite Christmas movie was Frosty the snow man and she really likes all snow men... or as she calls them, "Nose man." So even though it was cold and night time I wanted to make sure she got some time out side in the snow before it all melted away in the morning. William got some really great pictures of her playing in the snow. She loved it and didn't even mind that she was cold.

There's something magic about the first snow of Winter... especially when Rosie is there to smile and laugh and enjoy it.

Family

2012-01-12T16:32:00.000-06:00

It's not very easy to get a family picture of us all. First of all we don't ALL get together that often, and when we do we often forget to take a group picture. (or the one we take turns out very bad)

When we do remember there always seems to be some one missing... Like this picture, one of my favorite childhood pictures, but where's Mom? Obviously she's the one taking the picture.

Here's a rare picture of all of us. Seriously, I had to look a long time for this... it's hard to find one with both parents AND all four kids.

Well this Christmas we still had people missing. Amanda and her 4 kids weren't able to make it, but we DID manage to get a group picture with every one who was there actually in the picture.

Thank you William for taking such great pictures of us, I know we were a routy bunch to manage but you did a great job.

Now if we could just get Amanda and the kids to visit. Maybe we can photo shop them in...

Merry Christmas Day!

2012-01-10T17:15:00.000-06:00

If you thought the pile of gifts was huge on Christmas Eve you should have seen it on Christmas day. Santa came while we were all sleeping and left some more goodies for us.

Rosie was very excited about all the presents under the tree. Her favorite part of the whole day was being allowed to pass out the gifts. She liked that better than opening them I think. She was a perfect little Christmas Elf.

I wish I'd taken more pictures of our wonderful day but I guess I was just enjoying it too much to think about my camera.

My mom made her famous breakfast burritos. A Christmas tradition that I think we all look forward to more than the gifts. I of course woke up super early... I've never been able to sleep in on Christmas day... and started examining and shaking the presents before William caught me and scolded me.

We tried a couple new things and learned don't like when every one opens their stockings at the same time (instead of one at a time). We also learned that Lottery tickets make super fun stocking stuffers and we were all impressed that Luke got all the girls smelly lotion and that he even went into the "smelly store" to buy them him self. He must really love us.

Rosie got way too many gifts but was super excited about all of them. She got to open the first gift, a stepping stool from Nana that she now pushes around the kitchen so she can see what we're doing or help with dinner.

I didn't take pictures of all her gifts but she was totally cute opening each one and exclaiming her "ooooo" every time.

She was especially happy to get her very own bath robe ... or as she calls it her "robe bath, like mama's"

But as I said before her favorite part of the whole day was passing out the presents to every one.

The gift of the day was when William open his gift from my dad. William was very surprised and excited to get the gas mask he wanted for Christmas.

None of us really know why William wanted a gas mask... and none of use were brave enough to get it for him. But he sure was happy and excited about it and it does make for some really funny pictures. Like this one on William's Tumblr.

It took us 4 and half hours, plus another half hour just with William and me and Rosie in our room opening gifts from William's parents. It was wonderful spending time together and eating truffles that Annie made and getting to watch each other open the gifts we'd spent months collecting for each other.

But then it was time for naps and relaxing for every one.

Rosie likes to relax by watching Peep and the Big Wide World with her Nana.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing, napping and hanging out, playing with our new toys and video games. Also, I think some people went out to the back woods for target practice.
One major highlight of the day was when Father Michael came over for Christmas dinner. Again, I wish I taken pictures of our Christmas dinner but I was just enjoying it way too much.

Rosie is such a fan of Father Michael, she was so happy that he came to her house and the rest of us enjoyed his company too. I think we made him laugh, I'm not sure he knew what he was getting him self into when he agreed to come over but I think he had fun. I did warn him that we were crazy... and I think we lived up to that for him.

Video games in the living room and a board game (Settlers of Catan) in the dinning room with lots of Christmas goodies and junk food ended our perfect Christmas day.

It was so nice to spend a day with every one and to share Christmas with my family. Every one was so generous and thoughtful in the gifts they gave and we all enjoyed watching each other opening them. It's really fun that one one minds that it takes us 5 hours to open gifts... plus Mom keeps us all very well fed during the whole day and Annie kept us all sugared up with her truffles and rum balls and peppermint bark.

I'll leave you with a couple pictures William took of Christmas Smiles.

Merry Christmas and may the magic, joy and love of the season stay in your hearts all year long.

Christmas Eve

2012-01-09T22:34:00.000-06:00

Now that Christmas is over and we've spent a couple weeks doing absolutely nothing, I'll share some pictures and memories with you about our wonderful Christmas.

On Christmas Eve William and I decided to let Rosie open her gift from her Godmother, Julie.

I'm not sure what the official roll of a Godmother is... but if it's to totally spoil a child then Julie has that completely covered.

Julie remembered, from her visit this past summer, that Rosie loves to sit at the vanity table and "put on her make up." So being the wonderful Godmother that she is, she sent Rosie her very own make up.

As you can imagine Rosie was very very excited about it. She spent hours putting on her make up. She'd even be playing with something else and remember her make up and run away saying "Rosie's make up" and go back to put some one. She carried it around the house and put it on while we watched a Christmas movie.

And in case you're wondering, it is special mineral make up made especially for delicate children's skin.

Another fun thing that we all really enjoyed was being visited by Christmas Carolers. I can't remember the last time I've been Caroled to. Not only were they friendly and festive but they could all sing really well too.

Last year we all went to a midnight Mass. But we were all so tired the next day that we decided it was better for every one if we went to an earlier service this year.

William and I have been attending the local Catholic church so every one agreed to go with us to the 5:00 mass. Look how adorable Rosie and my dad look on their way to church.

Father Michael gives some of the best sermons I've ever heard. He also does the best Christmas services than any one I've ever encountered. It was really special that my family was willing to try something a little different and go to a Catholic Mass with us. It was also really fun that we got to take up a whole row in our little sanctuary. It reminded me of when we were kids and took up most of an a row.

At the end of the Mass Father Michael called all the children up to the front to sing "Away in a Manger" to the baby Jesus while Father Michael played the guitar. You can see Rosie at Father Michael's feet watching him play. She always loves it when he sings and plays his guitar.

I wanted to take a picture of Rosie in her pretty dress in front of the huge pile of presents we had before she went to bed. The pictures are a little dark but you can see how tall the pile was... it got taller by Christmas morning. Santa was very generous this year... we must have all been very very good.

Rosie LOVED having all the presents under the tree. She loved looking at them all and asking who they were for. Annie went around and told her who each gift was for and then Rosie would remember it hours later and tell me "Nana's pesant" or "mama's pesant" she is so so smart.
She especially loved the gifts wrapped in shiny paper and the poky-dots paper.

Before we went to bed we asked Rosie if she wanted to leave some cookies and milk out for Santa. She said she did and she took it very very seriously.

Aunt Annie told her she should leave a carrot for Rudolf too so Rosie asked for a carrot and left that with the cookies.
Since Mass was so early we had time to watch a Christmas movie together before we all fell into bed. We watched "The Santa Clause."

I didn't even know Rosie was paying attention to the movie.. she was playing the whole time. But when we were putting out the cookies and milk Rosie insisted on Soy milk! (there's a scene in the movie where Santa tells a girl he's lactose intolerant so she gives him soy milk).

We couldn't believe that's what she was saying at first but she kept shouting "soy mirk" so we all had a great laugh and decided that if she wanted Santa to have soy milk than that was what he was going to get.

In the end I think Santa was pretty pleased with his cookies and soy milk and the thoughtful remembering of his reign deer because our stockings were all over flowing.

I'm really glad I started decorating and celebrating Christmas well before Thanksgiving. I felt like, even though I'd gotten a head start on thing, the last few weeks before Christmas really flew by and Christmas snuck up on me. It was really a wonderful Christmas season though and a very happy and memorable time with my family. We all managed to get our gifts wrapped before Christmas Eve so we were able to spend a relaxing time together.

I'd added a white candle to the center of our advent wreath and lighted it on Christmas Eve. It was really fun to make and light the wreath and I think it's a tradition we might keep up. Here's a picture of our wreath all burned down to the very last bits of candle stubs. Remember when they were all tall and new?

Christmas at the Gaylord Hotel

2011-12-18T20:10:00.001-06:00

I know my mom already posted about the great day we had on her birthday, if you haven't read it you should check it out HERE, But I wanted to post a few more pictures of our fun Christmasy day in Nashville...

William took Rosie on a Christmas Carrousel, TWICE. Both times she insisted on riding the Moose.

Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like "Check your weapons at the door." We're not in California any more Toto.
(This was at the Bass Pro shop next to the Gaylord)

Rosie really enjoyed the Christmas decorations at the Gaylord Hotel.

Ok. Rosie wasn't the only one who enjoyed the decorations.

We got lucky enough to show up just before closing time for their Christmas tree land so we didn't have to pay to get in... We all enjoyed walking through and admiring their Christmas tree collection. I got so many ideas for next year.

This one was Rosie's favorite. It had neon lights that would flash and it rotated. It was very bright and colorful.

Rosie got to play on the peddle cars. She thought the fire truck one was the best and kept talking about how "Rosie did it. [in a] circle" afterwards.

She also got to ride a Christmas train with her Nana. Rosie loves trains.

Rosie wrote a letter to Santa.

And then mailed it to him.

The rest of the hotel was decorated in amazing Christmas lights.

Rosie loved walking through them and looking at everything...

Even if she was a little tired.

We ended our super fun, but long day, at the Irish Pub in the Gaylord Hotel. This is one of our favorite places to just sit and talk, have some nice snacks and fun drinks and listen to live music.

This time they had a special Christmas drink on the menu that was divine. I tasted like you were drinking a candy cane.

Rosie stuck with her favorite drink, Apple Juice. That seemed to perk her right up and then she was energetic again and danced and got really huggy with every one. Yeah, we take our baby to the Irish Pub and get her drunk on apple juice.

The first time we went here Rosie was just 5 months old and William danced with her.(my mom blogged about Rosie's good Irish upbringing back then.)

This time they danced again to the live music.

Every one in the pub enjoyed watching Rosie dance. She's such a good little dancer and I think it's one of her favorite things to do. Especially to good Irish music.

So that was our fun day at the Gaylord. If you've never been and you ever find your self in the Nashville area I would totally recommend checking this place out. Especially at Christmas time. They have wonderful decorations and fun things for the whole family. Including shows, live music, and pictures with Santa.
The only place I've seen that does a better job at Christmas time is Disneyland.

Franklin Dickens Festival

2011-12-14T20:03:00.000-06:00

Ever year the city of Franklin, TN has a street festival in honor of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

I read about it this summer and I've been looking forward to it and counting the months, weeks and days to it since then.

FINALLY, this weekend was the weekend to get bundled up and wander the historic streets of downtown Franklin in search of Father Christmas, Tiny Tim, Scrooge, roasted chestnuts and apple cider.

(Rosie and her Nana are like two peas in a pod, bundled up and ready to be festive)

The day did not disappoint. People of all ages we dressed up in costumes from the 1800's. Some were actors with specific rolls to play, like Scrooge, Tiny Tim, and the ghosts, and others were just people who decided to get into the spirit of things and dress up.

There were street performers all over the place. I really liked this girl who played and sang songs from the 1800's. There was also a group of kids who did scenes from Oliver, as well as a stage where an Irish Dance School really captivated Rosie's attention.

Besides street performers there was lots of great food, including hot chocolate, chestnuts, apple cider and meat on a stick. And to top it all off there were booths and booths of artisans and crafts people selling unique Christmas gifts.

There was also a horse drawn carriage that I was very excited about. Every time the carriage stopped to pick up and drop off passengers this dog would climb out and stand on the horse. It was very funny and very cute.

Even the Police officers on duty got into the spirit of things and were dressed in Victorian inspired uniforms.

AND we met Father Christmas! He was very nice and actually got Rosie to talk to him and smile at him.

Here's a random family that decided to come dressed up. Aren't they cute!

We also found a stand that was selling Sugar Plums! We each had one and yes.... they've been dancing in my dreams ever since. Even Rosie liked them.

Rosie is such a cool baby in her sunglasses. She loves wearing them.
She also really loves to watch people dance. Here she's mesmerized by all the dickens characters dancing 300 year old dances in the street.

Our favorite part of the whole day was when all the Dickens Characters got together in the street and danced traditional dances for the 1800's. It was so much fun to watch them. Even Rosie couldn't take her eyes off them. You can even see the Ghost of Christmas Past (in the white dress) dancing with The Ghost of Christmas Present. (the Ghost of Christmas yet to come isn't much of a dancer apparently.)
It made me want to learn how to dance all those all dances... and dress up as a Dickens character.

It was a wonderful day with yummy food and fun things to look at. A lot of the churches had performances in them too but there was so much to see we couldn't do it all in one day. With a toddler and a pregnant lady in tow we were pretty tired and had to go home to sleep. But I'm very much looking forward to going again next year, and hopefully next year we can go both days of the festival and attend the Christmas All Sing in the town square.

For information about next years event and other Festivals check out www.historicfranklin.com

Advent

2011-12-13T17:45:00.000-06:00

Advent is my favorite time of year. Advent is the time before Christmas. It starts 4 Sundays before Christmas and ends on Christmas.

Many Churches, both Protestant and Catholic, celebrate Advent as a time of "looking forward" to or "Anticipation" of the birth of Christ. Some even mark off each of the 4 Sundays before Christmas with candles and an Advent Wreath.

This is a picture of the advent wreath at our local Catholic Church.

On the first Sunday of Advent we made our own Advent wreath with some of ladies at the Catholic Church. The ladies brought fresh cut Holly and Ever Green branches and ribbon and showed us how to wrap it around the circular candle holders. It was really fun.

Purple is the color of Advent. It represents Royalty. Pink represents Joy, since Advent is a joyful season. The ever greens represent the everlasting love and salvation of Christ, as does the tradition of it being a circle. As far as I can tell the red berries are just because they are pretty... but I'm sure someone could come up with something more meaningful if they wanted to.

Here's a picture of Rosie with our Advent wreath at the wreath making party. She also has next to her a paper nativity the church ladies gave her.

Each week we get to light another candle. I usually light ours at dinner time so we can enjoy it while we eat. Some people put a white candle in the middle and light that one on Christmas Eve.

Another fun Advent thing, and this one is not church related, is Advent Calendars. I've always loved Advent Calendars. When I was a kid we got the kind with little card board doors and we'd get to open a door every day of December. There was a piece of chocolate behind every door. I also like the kind that just have little pictures behind each door.

When Rosie was a baby I bought a string of small stockings each numbered 1 through 24 for our family Advent calendar. My mom and I have had fun putting little toys and candy in the stockings and Rosie has had fun getting them out.

Every day she asks for her "stocking" and then she's allowed to get out what ever is in the one for that day. She's always happy to find whatever it is that's in there. But I think her favorite so far have been the little Dinosaurs that her Nana put in there for her.

Girls' Shopping Trip

2011-12-07T23:01:00.001-06:00

We girls went Christmas shopping today. Our first stop was Starbucks for a bit of holiday cheer.

Rosie is such a good little shopper. She likes to look at the make up, purses, dresses and then of course the toys.

We all had fun and ended our shopping date with a nice dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant and then Rosie danced for us.

What can be more Christmasy than, Starbucks, tamales and the cutest holiday elf dancing to Mariachi music?

Rosie likes to wear her hat over her eyes in the car

Leftovers

2011-12-06T10:55:00.000-06:00

Another Thanksgiving post?!

Well kind of. Like I said before. This was one of my favorite Thanksgivings ever. But there was one down side. Since we flew home the day after Thanksgiving we missed out on all those wonderful turkey leftovers.

I thought about turkey and cranberry sandwiches all the way home. OH and Gluten Free Stuffing. yum.

When we finally landed in Nashville it was kind of late and Rosie was hungry. So we stopped by Publix Grocery store on the way home to get her some yogurt. We decided to look at the turkeys just to see if they were on sale. And sure enough, they were!

We got a 15 pound (never been frozen) turkey for $4.41.
(that was the smallest they had)

Well we couldn't pass that up, so we bought it and a bag of potatoes. The next day we did Thanksgiving all over again.

It was really fun to enjoy the Thanksgiving meal again. Just the three of us.

And then of course there were the leftovers the next day. Which was the ultimate goal anyway.

Oh heavenly and wonderful turkey and cranberry sauce sandwich on gluten free bread.

Now I'm hungry again...

Wonderful Thanksgiving Part 2

2011-12-05T17:32:00.000-06:00

Our Thanksgiving was so wonderful it deserves two posts.

By the time Thanksgiving Day finally rolled around Ross and Jenny had taken us bowling, feed us great food, took us shopping and the boys had played on the farm with the ginormous tractors. We'd also put up the Christmas tree and watched Christmas cartoons and old classic movies. AND we'd made friends with the cat, who wasn't so sure about us sometimes but was really loved by Rosie.

We decided that we should have Thanksgiving Supper instead of a Dinner/Lunch so that my mom, who was flying in around 5 pm, could eat with us. So that meant we didn't have to get up early to start cooking. It also meant that we needed to decide what we wanted for lunch.

Since Ross had shot a deer the day before you can guess what we decided on. Yup. We had venison steaks wrapped in bacon for lunch on Thanksgiving day. This was William's favorite part of the whole trip.

Not only did we have venison for lunch but Ross is an excellent meat cooker and it was cooked to perfection. Yeah. it was amazing.

Then it was back to work on Thanksgiving Supper. William and Jenny did most of the cooking while I washed dishes. We also had the pleasure of "watching" Seven Brides for Seven Brothers while we were cooking since Jenny has a TV in her kitchen. This meant we spent the day singing show tunes as well as cooking.

Jenny planned a completely Gluten Free Thanksgiving dinner. Everything on the table Rosie, my mom and I could eat. Even the stuffing. I can't remember the last time I had stuffing. It was incredible.

My mom's flight came in a little early and we all had Supper together.

Jenny started the meal by reading Psalm 100 and Ross prayed for the meal and then we all age to our heart's content and drank 3 bottles of Sparkling Apple cider.

It was perfect and wonderful Thanksgiving.

Rosie loved it too. Her favorite was the Turkey leg. This is the only picture I remembered to take during the meal, because I was enjoying it SO much.

Afterwards, Rosie played "horsie" with William, we sat around and talked and then opened Christmas presents.

Rosie loved looking out the airplane window

The only part of our trip to Ross and Jenny's that we regretted ever so slightly was having to leave so soon. We flew out the day after Thanksgiving, which by the way is an awesome day to fly if you don't like busy airports. But it also means you miss Black Friday shopping, which was especially sad because Jenny is much fun to shop with, and have to get your Thanksgiving left overs at breakfast time.

Ross and Jenny are some of the most hospitable and welcoming people we've ever visited. Not once did we feel like we were in their way or like we'd stayed too long. They are so much fun and laid bad. And did I mention they fed us really really? It's not easy or cheap to feed a pregnant lady and a toddler but with Gluten Allergies... but Ross and Jenny managed it. Thank you guys.

The most wonderful Thanksgiving Part 1

2011-11-30T19:33:00.001-06:00

My family "adopted" Jenny a number of years ago.(you may remember I attended her wedding last summer). She's really more of a member of the family than a friend. She's spent Thanksgiving with the whole Coleman gang a number of years now and she's also been inviting all of us to spend Thanksgiving at her house, in South Dakota, for a few years now. So this year William and I and my mom and dad decided, whether she meant it or not, we'd take her up on her offer. And off to South Dakota we flew.

Luckily William and I still had frequent flyer miles we collected while flying back an forth from China. This trip was our last gift from China.

We used the tickets well.

This was also Rosie's first time to have her own seat. She's over two now so can no long fly free as a lap child. She was very proud to have her own seat.

She is such a good traveler. She especially enjoyed the toys in both the Nashville and Dallas airports and she enjoyed looking out the window on the airplane.

We did so many fun things with Ross and Jenny. The first night we were there Ross's family generously included us in a family birthday celebration and took us bowling. This was Rosie's first time Bowling and William and I haven't been since the Halloween before we were married... 7 years ago.

Rosie LOVED bowling and got a better score than I did. Actually I was so bad I just let her play most of my turns. She giggled and danced and cheered for every one all night long.

Rosie also really loved playing Jenny's piano. Jenny is a wonderful musician and sings and plays amazingly well. I've always loved listening to her. This trip she had her Christmas song book out and would stop and play something almost every time she walked passed the piano.

Rosie thought this was splendid and loved playing the piano too. We may have to get her one.

My favorite part of the trip was our girl's shopping day. Jenny is wonderful to shop with. She's so much fun.
While the boys played on Ross's ridiculously large farm equipment we girls when to town, got Starbucks, and went shopping.

Jenny took us to Sephora and taught us how to shop there. I've always been completely intimidated by that store and have never gone with any one my own age, gender, and color. (the Sephora in Shanghai had nothing that would match my skin tone. Everything was too yellow or too pink.)

I've never had so much fun in that store before and now I feel much more confident about going back. Rosie also loved shopping in Sephora. She loves make up and loves colors and walked around and looked at everything with Jenny while I got a make up consultation.

In the end we came away with a little black and while bag that Rosie was very proud of and they even gave her some of her very own samples. She was so proud of them she wouldn't let them go the whole time we walked around the mall. She is such a good little adorable shopper.

After some very productive shoe shopping it was time to meet up with "the boys". We'd left it to Ross and William to pick up my dad from the airport and then we headed to Falls Park, on the Big Sioux River. (that's where the city if Sioux Falls gets its name).

We went there because it was magically decorated for Christmas and Jenny knew we would love it.

ALL the trees were covered in lights. It was so fun and magical I kind of forgot how cold it was.

We then ended our wonderful day with Gluten Free Pizza and hot tea.
Doesn't Rosie look so grown up with her own cup of tea?

Geeky Baby

2011-11-29T13:25:00.000-06:00

Rosie likes to play video games. She also loves to watch sci-fi, like Doctor Who and Star Trek.

She's a good little geek baby.

It's Starting to look a lot like Christmas!

2011-11-14T08:55:00.027-06:00

Happy 40 Days till Christmas!!

Our week has been fun. First Rudolph Rosie came to see us.

I started getting the Christmas decorations out at the beginning of the week. I wanted to spread it out instead of trying to do it all at once.

Rosie thought it was great fun when she discovered the Christmas hats in one of the boxes and went and found her fake nose. She puts them on and laughs and laughs.

She really loves it when Nana puts on the nose and hat... but you won't see a picture of that.

We also went to a Christmas craft fair at the local Catholic Church and got some wonderful had made decorations. We also picked up some extra lights at the store on the way home.

I've been buying lights since before Halloween so I think we MIGHT have enough this year. We'll see.

Then today after Church William and my mom put the lights on the Christmas tree. After nap time we had dinner and made cookies and home made hot chocolate and then put all the ornaments on the tree.

Rosie was such a good little decorator.

William decided that Christmas was way more fun with kids. I think he might be right.

It was so much fun to see Rosie excited about every little thing we took out of the boxes. About the lights. About the Tree in the HOUSE. About putting things on the tree and even about the Santa figurine that my mom put out. She now has all her toys around Santa... who she calls "Daddy" and she likes give him kisses.

Yep. Christmas is pretty dang fun with a little one.

Another Anniversary!

2011-11-13T20:52:00.001-06:00

Wow, This has been a crazy week for Anniversaries! First mine and William's wedding anniversary, then our one year in China and yesterday (Nov. 12) was our good friends Julie and Martin's one year Wedding Anniversary!

Last year William and I landed in Nashville airport on November 9th at about 10pm. Then we took the long drive home with my mom.

We rested for a day and tried to figure out what time zone we were in and then got back on a plane on November 11th to fly to New York. Yes. We are crazy.

Julie has been a dear friend of mine since we lived together in college, she is also Rosie's Godmother, and she was getting married. It just so happened it worked out that the date she wanted was the day after we arrived in the US so that was super awesome. There was no way we were going to miss that wedding. So off to New York, New York we flew. It's not like we knew what time zone we were in any way... so what was one more flight?

We had such a wonderful time. I'm still really happy we decided to go. It was the most fun wedding I've ever been too. And what made it really really special was the fact that Me and William and Rosie, and one other person, were the only guests. It was relaxing and fun and happy and wonderful.

We started our day with breakfast and sitting around talking and laughing. Then a limo picked us up at Julie's Manhattan apartment and took us to New York City Hall.

There was a short, simple but totally sweet ceremony where we all laughed and smiled. We also doubled as Wedding Photographers so that was fun too. Then the Limo picked us up again and we drank the most amazing champagne while we drove to a very nice restaurant for lunch.

It was such a simple and intimate day of celebrating the love of close friends and the love of Julie and Martin. It was simple and elegant and perfect.

I think my most favorite moment was when we were all walking home from lunch and a man stopped Julie to tell her how amazing she looked, and what a wonderful dress she was wearing. (He was right. She looked totally hot) I told him that it was her wedding dress and he got all excited for her and clapped his hands, took a good long look at Martin and said "And he's CUTE TOO! I would know. I'm gay." I said "we know" and we all had a good laugh. It was such a funny typical New York moment.

William and I really enjoy New York every time we go but this trip was extra special. We spent the rest of the weekend exploring Manhattan in the early hours of the morning (we were jet lagged) and letting Julie show us some of her favorite places.

But it was also a wonderful trip because we got to be part of a very special day of a very special friend.

So Happy Anniversary Julie and Martin. We love you very much and we are so happy that you let us be a part of your special day and a part of your lives.

One Year

2011-11-09T21:33:00.003-06:00

One year ago today William, Rosie and I took a one way flight from Shanghai, China back to the USA.

My mom had this block calender in our room when we arrived. It said November 9th. I've left it on that date for a year. I guess I felt like if I turned it, I would be moving farther and farther away from China.

Tomorrow I'll turn the date over. Tomorrow it will be more than a year since we left our city, our Shanghai.

If you'd like to read about my last day in China you can go HERE. If you'd like to see a picture of the van my mom had to rent to pick us up from the airport and our ridiculous luggage go HERE.

Other wise, here are some pictures of our last couple days in China...

Last family picture in China.

Visiting the Shanghai Art Museum one last time

I spent the my last day in one of my favorite hang out places, Tai Kan Lu, with my dear friend Shirin and her baby boy.

I'm so glad Rosie is such a happy baby. Her joy has gotten me to many sad and lonely times.

Shanghai is such a fun mix of modern and traditional

William went for a walk on our last day... He took some nice pictures

and got him self some street food breakfast one last time.

Here is William sitting in the airport waiting for our flight and chewing on a Cuban cigar. We knew we would not be able to get those in the US.

Thinking about who and what we're leaving behind and wondering what we're about to get our selves into.

It's been kind of a weird emotional day. I'm happy we came back to the US and I know my mom is too. I think it was the best thing for our Rosie baby, for our marriage and for our health. But that doesn't mean we don't miss it sometimes.

To commemorate our one year anniversary we went to a new "Asian Cuisine" Restaurant. Most of the staff are from China and they were wonderfully nice to us. They even brought William a plate of dried fish that wasn't on the menu because he was craving it so much. They were happy to meet an American that appreciated real Chinese food. Now if we could only find some Hot Pot.

Picture from William's tumblr account.

With These Rings... Happy 7th Wedding Anniversary!

2011-11-06T19:07:00.034-06:00

Today (November 6th) is mine and William's 7th Wedding Anniversary.

It does not seem like it has been that long. It seems like just a few years ago really.

Out of the 7 anniversaries we have celebrated, only 3 have been in the US. We've had more anniversaries in China that we have in the States.

I'm not sure if we should do something very American, like eat steak, today. Or if we should have Chinese food.

We've had so many grand adventures since we've been married.

We've visited 13 states in the US. Not counting the ones we had to drive through to get to our destination.

They had the fewest teeth in New Mexico.

We started our marriage with an international flight, and we have been on countless flights since then. Rosie has been on 22 since she's been born, and that's just in two years. So I can't even count how many flights we've been on.

Several have been International.

Swan Lake Ballet in Prague, on our honeymoon.

We Honeymooned in Prague, Czec Republic. Since then we have visited 6 countries.

Plus Hong Kong, which isn't it's own country but you still need a visa to go there and it's not really China either.

The one nice dinner we had on our Honeymoon.

We've moved 4 times. Two of those were Internationally.

Across the river from the Prague Castle

We've learned to cook some Chinese food and some Korean food and have eaten things we never imagined we would.

Donkey is quite good actually.

We're also pretty dang good with chop sticks by now.

A romantic carriage ride through the old streets of Prague

We've made two brand new humans. Though we're still waiting to meet Human number 2.

I think we should make a couple more.

Our first Thanksgiving, days after returning from our honeymoon

We've visited 3 different Disney lands!
There are currently 5 world wide, with another being built in Shanghai.

I think we'll collect them all.

We've had some pretty amazing adventures during our short 7 years of marriage.

I couldn't imagine doing any of them with out William. His courage and strength have made me a better person.

I look forward to many more years of wonderful adventures.

I love you my darling William.

Happy Anniversary.

Also, thank you for letting me warm my feet up on you.

(Picture by ingridjoystudio.com)

Halloween in Shanghai (The Ghost of Halloweens Past)

2011-11-05T23:29:00.001-05:00

Thinking about our fun American Halloween season made me think of last Halloween. It was our Halloweens in Shanghai.

In 2008 we went to an art gallery Halloween party and then to a bar with some friends.

William was a Lumber Jack.

I was a Chinese Gymnast. It was the year of the Beijing Olympics so it made sense that year. (That's my fake Chinese Passport that says I'm 16... in crayon.)

In 2009 Rosie was only a week and some days old, so we didn't go any where. Rosie was Tigger.

In 2010 we were Mummies.

We were just about to move back to the States so most of our stuff was packed and on the slow boat to the US. So William bought a bunch of medical gauze and we just wrapped out selves up.

It was SO hard to get a taxi that night. People looked quite nervously at us. I think they thought we were actually hurt or sick or something. When we were walking down the street we got some pretty funny and scared looks.

Rosie was a cute little mummy.

So serious.

Halloween is NOT celebrated in China and few people have even heard of it. I learned the Chinese name for the holiday but most people just looked at me funny when I told them why we were dressed up.

Some of our younger friends had heard about it on TV or online and thought it sounded very strange. But they were also interested in celebrating with us and having a new American experience.

A friend of ours hosted a Halloween "Cultural Exchange" Party. She gave a presentation about Halloween and the Celtic history of it as well as modern traditions, like costumes, trick or treating and pumpkin carving. Then we all carved pumpkins.

These are the pumpkins carved. I think they turned out really well for being the first time they had ever done it.

It was a great Halloween. It was fun to share the child like fun that Halloween can be with people who were excited to do the things for for the first time. It was also a really fun way to say good bye to some old friends.

Our Happy Halloween

2011-11-05T13:32:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned before, we started our Halloween celebrations in September at Disney World when we attended "Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party"
Which mean our Halloween season lasted extra long and we got lots of use out of our costumes. It was a magical life changing experience.

We got 3 uses out of our costumes this year. Once at Disney World, once at the Nashville zoo's Halloween Party, and then on Halloween night. So we got lots of use out of our costumes.

On Halloween night we had planned on going to a local church carnival to play games and eat hot dogs. But Rosie woke up with a runny nose and not feeling too great so we were a little apprehensive about taking her out in the cold. We didn't want her sniffles to turn into a full cold.

So instead, we put our costumes on and went took Halloween treats to Uncle Joe and Aunt Janna's house. (Reverse trick or treating is much more fun).

Rosie was happy to get a bag of Reeses bits and to play with Joe. He always makes her laugh and smile... even when she's feeling under the weather and shy.

Then we took Apple Butter to Aunt Mae. Rosie and William enjoyed Aunt Mae's stash of children's books. Aren't they so cute?!

After our fun visits we went back home and dressed the dog up in Rosie's fairy wings and played chase around the kitchen. While William got carry out dinner from the Mexican restaurant and we watched some sci-fi.

Rosie wanted Andy to stay close to her. She love bossing him around.

So even though Halloween night didn't turn out how we'd planned it was ok, because we'd gotten lots of use out of our costumes already and done alot of fun Halloween things.

The next day, when Rosie was feeling better, Nana carved a Pumpkin with her.

She thinks it great fun and giggles every time she sees it and says "Pumpkeee! eyes. Mouth. Teeth. hehe"

So that was our Happy Halloween.

Rosie's Special Day -- Happy Birthday little one

2011-11-01T09:29:00.015-05:00

Rosie's Birthday was such a wonderful and special day. I have WAY too many pictures of it, but she is just so cute it's so hard to post just a few.

She is also very very loved and had gifts coming from all over the world. Literally. she got gifts from friends in China, Venezuela and several states in the US.

We started our day with tea and pancakes and of course a present or two. Rosie was very excited when she saw her big pile of gifts, but I was so proud of her that she just wanted to open one at a time and play with it for a few hours before moving on to the next one.

Since it was Rosie's Special Day she got to pick all the things we did that day. Of course that meant a dance party. So we put on our dancing shoes and all danced in the living room to Christmas music.

Also, Rosie loves Rainbows and colors so we tried to incorporate as much color into our day as we could. That is the reason for Rosie's extra special rainbow outfit and her sparkly red dancing shoes.

After dancing for a good long time Rosie wanted to go out for a walk. Going for walks is Rosie's favorite thing. She loves being outside, especially now that the weather isn't so hot.

We also decided to show her how to play in the Autumn leaves. She thought jumping in the pile of leaves that William made was great fun.

I know it's a lot of pictures... but doesn't she just have the greatest smile?!

Rosie's favorite place to walk is out in the back pasture, far away from the house. She likes to follow the goats and dogs out there and check on every one.

Rosie giving her little Andy a kiss. He got too tired on our long walk and William had to carry him home. William is so nice.

Of course our new baby goats need kisses and cuddles too.
Rosie loves playing outside with her goats. She likes to talk to them and pet them and make sure they are all doing well. She's such a good goat girl.

Here are a few pictures of Rosie opening her gifts. As I mentioned before, it took us ALL DAY to open her gifts. She really enjoyed taking time with each one. Each one was very special to her.

We had to read each book she got a couple times before she could move on to any thing else. Here she got Corduroy from her Grandma in Truckee.

oh yeah. and we had cupcakes for lunch.

another gift....

It's a hat! Rosie loves hats.

Opening more gifts...

And another stylish hat!

Hanging out with our rainbow socks...

And reading the book about Home Birth that our friend Diana sent us. Rosie really likes this book. Here she's pointing out the mama's belly and telling us how it's going to "open" and then an "egg" will come, then the baby is born. Rosie is so smart. She calls this her "boobie book."

Our friend Fanny, in China, sent Rosie some pretty princess things...

And William made us a very special dinner of Rainbow Clam Spaghetti.

Rosie loves pasta, and she likes clams, and since we were doing a rainbow themed day we thought this would be fun. I got the idea from Rosie's Godmother, Julie. It turned out really really well. It was super tasty and the colors looked great. They didn't turn out very well in the picture, but in person they were great.

As you can see Rosie loved them very much. She especially loved the pink noodles and giggled every time she took a bite.

Since it was a special day we had Sparkling Apple Cider and Rosie got to use an extra special glass for it.

Then it was cake time!

We sang Happy Birthday twice because Rosie thought it was so much fun to all sing together ....

Then she blew out both of her candles all by her self.

I made a Rainbow cake of course. Rosie had fun telling us what color each layer was.

I was very happy with how well it turned out and that it didn't fall apart or fall over or anything.

Then it was time for some pre-bed time silliness with dancing, chasing through the house, wearing of hats and of course a few cartoons.

It was the most wonderful Birthday celebration I think I've ever participated in. We all had fun all day long. It helped that we had an almost endless flow of presents and cake. Rosie was such a good girl all day long and smiled all day.

We had so much fun opening her gifts all day long that we even ran out of time and had to wait till the next day to open the last one.

Rosie didn't mind at all though. She got a little dolly wagon house with two little dolls and a horse. She played with it all day long and still carries the dollies around the house with her. Some times she even nurses them, takes them to the potty and wraps them up in her blankie for a nap. She's such a good little mama.

I love that she can be both girly and rough and tumble dirty at the same time.

So that was our super wonderful Birthday Celebration with our little Angel. Thank you everyone for making it so wonderful and for all your love and gifts and cards you sent. Rosie LOVES cards and keeps some of them in her bed where looks at them in the evenings. Others she keeps on the kitchen table where she can tell us what colors they are while we eat breakfast.

Every day she is more and more fun to be around.

Also, thank you William for all these wonderful pictures you took of Rosie's special day. (check out his iPhone pics on the right for more awesome photos)

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T13:31:00.000-05:00

Happy Halloween every one!

I made these Rice Krispie treat Pumpkins last night to help us celebrate.

I found them on the Whisk Kid blog. She always has such fun dessert ideas.

Hope you all have a Happy and Fun Halloween!

Happy Birthday my little Bonita Rose

2011-10-18T22:13:00.000-05:00

I can't believe my little baby is 2 years old today. She has gotten so big, so fast. It wasn't very long ago that she was still crawling and was all chubby. Now she's such a little person!

We had a really fun day today doing all the things Rosie wanted to do and eating cake and opening presents. I'll post more about that tomorrow. But for today here is a silly little video of Rosie talking and dancing for the camera. She thinks it's funny to make faces at and dance for the laptop camera (thank you MacBook).

So here she is ... in all her adorable cuteness,

Bonita Rose on her 2nd Birthday, after a bit of cake.

Our Little Pumpkin

2011-10-17T17:04:00.000-05:00

Our little Rosie loves Autumn. She loves being out side and now that it's cooler she can run around to her hearts content with out getting over heated.

She also loves the leaves when they fall. She thinks that's really funny and she loves the run through them as fast as she can and kick them up around her feet. It makes her laugh and giggle when they crinkle under her feet.

She also loves pumpkins. Every time she sees a pumpkin she announces "PUMPKIIIIEEEE"

She also really loves Pumpkin Butter. She likes to eat it by the spoon full.

I love watching her enjoy this time of year. It's my favorite time of year too. I'm trying to make sure she has lots of Pumpkies around.

This week I hope to carve a Pumpkin with her and make a big pile of leaves to jump in. I'm very much looking forward to her smiles and laughs as she enjoys the fun things we can do this season.

Sweet Sicky

2011-10-15T19:40:00.000-05:00

Last week we were all sick. It seems to happen this time of year.

We were all miserable but our little Rosie was still a cute little sick girl.

At least when you're sick you get to watch cartoons for comfort...

...and cuddle the thermometer.

From Shanghai to Dixie Land

2011-10-14T14:57:00.000-05:00

According to Wikipidia

The Region of "Dixie Land"
As a definite geographic location within the United States, "Dixie" is usually defined as the 11 Southern states that seceded to form the Confederate States of America. They are (in order of secession): South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. This definition is strongly correlated with history and, in the minds of many Southerners, remains the traditional South.

Yup. That's where we live now. In "the south." It's alot different from California. It's kind of different from China, But the adventures are just as fun.

A Magical Day at the Magic Kingdom

2011-10-12T15:06:00.000-05:00

OK I really need to finish up our Disney Trip so I can tell you what other fun things we've been doing this season. So Here it is.. my favorite day at Disney World... The Magic Kingdom. I could have spent all 3 days of our trip in the Magic Kingdom. I think it's the most fun and most Magical.

William got up early on Thursday and went to the park as soon as they opened. Since we did midnight swimming us girls were a little tired and had a hard time getting up in the morning. Plus we like to relax when we're on vacation... something William has a harder time doing.
So William got the the park when there was hardly any one in the park and got some good pictures of main street and road Space Mountain a few times.

I love the way Disney decorates for every season. But I especially love their Autumn and Christmas decorations. Also the castle is Disney World's Magic Kingdom is so much getter and grander than the castle in Disneyland California, which I still thinks is pretty big and nice.

Once we girls had eaten and finally got to the park we decided to spend the morning getting our pictures taken with as many Characters as we could... you know, while our hair still looked good and the lines were short. Rosie's favorite Character is Mickey Mouse. She was pretty excited when we told her we were going to see Mickey and kept saying his name while we were in line. When she finally was face to face with him she smiled and giggled and was very happy. She even posed by her self with Mickey and Minnie and wasn't scared at all.

Then we went and saw the Princesses. Rosie's never seen a Disney Princess movie so she didn't know she was supposed to be unpressed. Sleep Beauty was very nice and talked to Rosie alot... but Rosie just wasn't very interested.

Then we saw Belle, my favorite Princess. I was pretty giddy and excited about that and Rosie was more warmed up to the idea also...

But she couldn't take her eyes off the next Princess we were in line to see....

For some reason Rosie LOVED Cinderella. I loved that her dress was blue and called her blue. She smiled for pictures with her and even gave Cinderella a kiss on the cheek.

We saw a couple other characters and then headed over to Fantasy land. I've never really spent alot of time in Fantasy land.

In California it's too small and feel claustrophobic. and I think I must have grown out of the rides pretty quickly. But in Florida there is alot more space and Rosie loved the rides.
She insisted on riding the horses and liked it very much.

She rode dumber twice...

I did not, since it makes me motion sick... but I did get my picture with Dumbo.

And we rode It's a Small World a few times... It's always been one of my favorite rides and I was so happy that is was Rosie's favorite too.

Of course we did some shopping too. I spent way too much time in the Christmas store of course, and I also very much love the shops on Main Street. I mostly just like to look at everything but I also like to get a couple nice souvenirs. Ever since I was a kid my two favorite souvenirs have always been a balloon and a hat.
Well I did get a pretty wonderful hat...

And Nana got Rosie a balloon that lit up. It lasted for almost two weeks and we took it every where with us while we were at Disney World.

There are so many amazing things to explore at the Magic Kingdom. So many shops and great things to eat. So many little details and lots of fun rides. I didn't get to do half the things I would have liked to do... but that just means we'll have to come back. It was also pretty great that we were there for "off season" so the lines were not long at all.

It was a wonderful trip and definitely a dream come true for me, and I know Rosie really loved it too.

Water Baby

2011-10-02T13:06:00.000-05:00

Vacation is the best time to do things that you wouldn't normally do. Even things that are just a bit irresponsible.

When I was a kid we were allowed to have anything we wanted for breakfast. Naturally we asked for steak and ice cream... and got it.

While Rosie did get her first taste of Chocolate Soy milk, what she loves more than anything is swimming. So since we were on vacation, and since Epcot closed at 9pm but our hotel pool didn't close till Midnight, We all went swimming till midnight.

Rose was very very happy. If not a little cold. Even in Florida.

Our day in Epcot

2011-09-30T11:19:00.000-05:00

After staying up past 2am at Mickey's Not-so-scary Halloween Party we got up a little later than we planned and headed over to Epcot.

Disney World has 4 parks. The Magic Kingdom, Epcot, The Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios.

When I was a kid it was just the Magic Kingdom, which is a bigger nicer version of the Disney LAND in Southern California, And Epcot. The only thing I ever knew about Epcot growing up was that there was a big silver ball that looked very cool and had some sort of ride in it. I always wanted to go visit it. I think my brother told me there was a roller coaster in it. Well there isn't. but there is a fun little "future" ride.

What Epcot does have is much more fun that I ever expected. It has pavilions from countries around the world. Much like the world's fair had when we were in Shanghai, only much much better. They are called Pavilions but really they are little streets with shops and restaurants set up to look like the country they are from (only cleaner than the actual counties in some cases like Italy and China).

Not only did each little section have food and shops from their part of the world but all the people working in each pavilion was from that country too! So all the shops in "England" were staffed with people with lovely British accents, France was full of French people. Even the people walking by sweeping up trash from the country of that pavilion.

We were definitely world travelers that day.

Here's a picture of my mom in Japan with her Tokyo Sunrise drink. We also had some really good Sushi for lunch in Japan.

After lunch we wandered over to Italy. Where we looked at very fancy cologne and designer bags. There was a mime there too... but we didn't stay for that. I don't know what it is about mimes... do they make every one want to punch them or just me?

On the way to Germany was a miniature village with an electric train. Rosie LOVES trains and she an her Nana stood and watched it for quite some time.

In England they had red phone booths. William was pretty excited about them and took Rosie in to play in one when the phone started ringing! So he answered it. It was so much fun. I have no idea how they knew he was in there but some one with a British accent called him in the phone booth to ask him how his day was and how he was enjoying his stay in Epcot and England.

It was really funny and very surprising. Rosie, who had just woken up from a nap, wasn't too sure about it though.

Here's a picture of me and Rosie in Germany. I really liked Germany. It was very cute an had a wonderful Christmas Shoppe that I spent a lot of time in. They also had a beer garden and a mechanical clock that Rosie and I enjoyed watching.

We spent more time than we needed to in China. But it was kind of fun hearing Chinese and looking at all the things for sale that we saw so often in China. I think we spent too much time here but it was kind of like visiting home.

The country we spent the most time in was France. They had great chocolate and wine and really nice shops. We also had dinner there. Not only did all the staff speak French but the "chef" rat from the movie Ratatouille came to our table too. That was pretty funny.

The dinner at Les Chefs de France was incredible. The real chef came to our table and talked to us about our Gluten Free options and then made us a wonderful Duck breast dinner.

The atmosphere and friendliness at Tony's, on our first night in the Magic Kingdom, was by far nice than Chefs de France, but the dinner in France was was amazing. They also had the best Creme Brulee that I've ever had in my whole life. And I've had a lot of Creme Brulee in my life, since it's one of the only Gluten Free desserts.

Epcot was very fun and there was a lot to see. There were entire countries we never even made it too and we missed most of the rides. I could spend a lot more time there. I think next time I'll ride the rides first and then go visit the countries. And next time I'll eat a lot more in each country.

(Across the lake from England looking at the US pavilion at dusk)

The Magic Kingdom

2011-09-14T08:33:00.000-05:00

I do not remember life without Disney. I do not have a time when I can ever remembering NOT knowing what Disneyland was and that I loved it. My mom says I was 2 when I first went and I think ever since my first visit I carried the magic if Disneyland in my heart always.

Growing up in California we were lucky to always be driving distance from Disneyland.

As kids Disneyland was the ultimate vacation. We always had fun with our parents. We were always going to interesting places and learning about fun things. But always looked forward and enjoy Disneyland the best.

Even in High School Disneyland was my favorite place to visit. And it still is even to this day.

When William and I started dating one of the first things I did was buy us a Disneyland pass. We went every weekend and sometimes we'd even meet there after work just to walk around, have a hot chocolate and sit and talk. It was truly a wonderful and magical way to start our relationship and marriage.

Our first time at Disneyland as a couple

When I was a kid I heard that there was another Disneyland. Something called Disney World in a place called Florida. I looked it up so I knew where Florida was. I knew it was far away but I was told that Disney World was even bigger and better than Disneyland. It was always one of my childhood dreams to someday visit Disney World.

Well, you know what they say, When you wish upon a star dreams do come true, and last night my dream came true.

Last night was the first night of the Halloween Season at Disney World and it was the first night of their after hours Halloween party. Guests not only get to stay in the park till midnight, but they are also encouraged to dress up in Halloween costumes!

Tinkerbell and Peter Pan check things out

We started our evening out with dinner at Tony's Italian Restaurant. It's the same restaurant that Lady and the Tramp ate at on their first date. This was the most amazing meal we (my mom and I) have ever had in a restaurant because it was all Gluten Free! The chef came to our table and talked to us about what he could make us and then brought it to our table. We even got Gluten Free dinner rolls! hot ones!

Of course since we were at Tony's Rosie and I got Spaghetti and meatballs. It's Rosie's very favorite food... after chocolate.

Then it was out to the Magic Kingdom to have a magical time!

Disney knows how to do holidays!

All the decorations were changed for the season along with the music and the lights.

I never would have imagined that Disney could ever be improved on, but Disney with costumes is spectacular.

So many people were dressed up, and not just kids. A lot of adults were there in really great costumes. Even adults with out any kids with them were enjoying the festivities and the tick-or-treating.

I was very impressed with everyone's costumes, but I was especially gleeful about meeting these two. Captain Picard and Captain Janeway from Star Trek!

Since it was a Halloween party we dressed up as the Peter Pan movie. We were Peter Pan, Wendy, Tinkerbell and Nana... the nurse maid dog. I always thought it was unfair in the movie that Nana didn't get to go to Neverland with the kids... So last night we took her.

Rosie LOVED all the flashing lights and wonderful costumes. She especially loved pointing out all the Mickeys she saw... she was pointing and saying "Mickey" all night long. Nana got her this flashing balloon (that is still floating the next morning by the way) and she loved playing with it and dancing with it.

Rosie also loved the parade very much. We managed to get front row seats on the ground and she danced and clapped the whole parade. Except when the zombies came dancing by. She wasn't sure about them. I don't blame her... zombies creep me out too.

Here's a great picture of my mom as Nana. She was by far the best costume in the park. It was so much fun having people recognize her and seeing their reaction when they realized who she was. A number of Disney employees said that she was the first Nana they had seen and that she made their night.

Since we were the Peter Pan group we decided we needed to visit the Fairy Forest

We were in the park from 7pm to midnight. We got back to our room about 1am. It was a wonderful wonderful night of magic and holiday fun but it wasn't long enough. I think we are going to have to go back again tomorrow and see the park in the day time.

Rosie did so well the whole night. She smiled and laughed and stayed awake and in a good mood all night long. In fact, at 2am she was running around our room squealing and laughing. I'm so happy she enjoyed it as much as I did. It's so important to me that she grows up knowing Disney and having the Magic of the Magic Kingdom in her heart.

This trip is supposed to be her birthday trip. It's about a month early for her 2 year birthday. I don't know if she'll have specific memories of this trip or not, but I know she will never know a time Disney Magic wasn't in her life... and that's important ... to me.

Dickson County Fair

2011-09-12T08:00:00.000-05:00

On Saturday we went to the local Fair. My mom read that they were going to be showing meat goats and since that's technically what we raise she wanted to go check them out.

This was our first local fair so we weren't sure what to expect. We were very pleasantly surprised. There was a bird barn with chickens that Rosie really loved. She also really liked the ducks and turkeys.

I enjoyed the 4H barn where kids had entered their canning, and arts and crafts, science projects, and collects, which are always my favorite. I love seeing what people collect and how they choose to display them.

We also enjoyed the produce barn where I saw green tabaco for the first time and a water melon that was 110 pounds!

After enjoyed the birds and produce we made our way to the goat barn. Other days of the week they had other animals but today was the goat judging.

The first group that showed their goats was the 5 and under age group. These kids were so cute marching their goats around the coral and they all had such cute goats. Everyone in this group was a winner.

Here's a picture of the high school group for show goats. The girl in the red shirt in the bottom right corner of the picture won first place. This group was really hard to judge and it took a really long time for them to pick a winner. All the goats were really good looking and the kids did a great job with them.

Rosie also enjoyed watching all the people on the crazy carnival rides and games. Of course she wanted to do the fishing game. That was her favorite game back in July at the Irish Picnic too.

I think she could have stayed there and fished all day.

She won a purple bouncy ball.

Then we found the ponies. Rosie was very happy just watching them walk around in a circle. We asked her if she wanted to ride one but she kept saying no. Then all of a sudden she decided she really wanted to ride one.

She was SO happy to be riding the "horsey"

She smiled and giggled the whole time.

She was so cute that every one was taking pictures of her and the pony lady gave her an extra long ride.

All in all it was a great day. We were all very impressed with the fair and came home with smiles on our faces and a very tired baby girl.

The end of a hard day

2011-09-10T13:45:00.006-05:00

At the end of a long hard day both Nana and Rosie enjoy playing video games. Sometimes Rosie even asks for specific games. Her favorite is Little Big Planet. She calls it "Babbit."

By Special Request

2011-09-09T13:55:00.008-05:00

We are LOVE the cooler Fall weather.

Sometimes we just like to be silly outside.

On this day she is 22 months and 4 weeks old. She weighs 24.6 pounds and she's 34 inches tall. I can't believe how big my little baby is. When did she get so big? She was such a little baby just last month.

A day in Nashville

2011-09-08T16:00:00.001-05:00

Last week we had to go to the airport to pick up my mom. We decided to take advantage of the drive to Nashville, so we stopped at two of our favorite place.

First we went to the zoo to see the monkeys and to have a picnic lunch. Rosie loves to sit and watch the monkeys. She also loves eating outside.

Then we went to Trader Joe's. Our very favorite store. It was the first time that Rosie got to push her very own cart. She looked so adorable walking through the store shopping with her Nana.

She look very carefully at the milk and other things she thought we needed. She was definitely the cutest shopper in the whole store.

I can't believe how big my baby girl is getting. She's growing up so fast.

What did you do for Labor Day?

2011-09-07T17:55:00.000-05:00

We BBQed in the rain, enjoyed the chilly Autumn weather and ...

moved pieces of the old roof around the yard.

Guess What! We're Pregnant!

2011-08-25T20:57:00.001-05:00

That's right. We're having another baby!

And today we got to hear our little kumquat's heart beat!

(Rosie was a little unsure about the midwife using the doppler on her mama. That's why you hear her yelling in the back ground. She has since watched the video several times and enjoys it very much.)

International Baby

2011-08-16T18:53:00.001-05:00

Rosie eating Pho

On of the things, if not the only thing, I miss about living in Los Angeles is the amazing food. In LA you can have food from every part of the world without having to go far at all. You can have Vietnamese for breakfast, Indian for lunch and Korean for dinner and you can even drive to little Ethiopia for tea if you like. Every food from every part of the world is there, and authentic too.

It's a little harder in the Nashville area to find good authentic international food. But William and I are determined to find it... even if it means long drives and a little extra research. We want to do this for ourselves, because we love and crave this food and we want to do it for Bonnie Rose because we want her to grow up with a very international world view.

So far we are pretty happy with our results. We still haven't found Chinese food that meets our standards but after living in China for so long that's to be expected. We pretty much just make our own now if we really want it. However, we have been able to find one of our all time favorite foods though. Pho!

Pho (pronounced "Fuh" with the O making the sound that U makes in the word UP and f*ck) is a Vietnamese rice noodle soup with a wonderful wonderful beef based broth. You can put all kinds of stuff in it from fish balls to tripe (cow stomach) to tendon to thin strips of beef. Pho is comfort food.

Not to long ago we also found a very yummy Sushi place. It was a special treat. Sushi has always been something special to me and William and yes... we are a little snobby about it. Unfortunately, Rosie wasn't really a sushi fan. But she did like the rice and she very much liked the Miso soup.

Our most resent and surprising find was good Mexican food. William and I are a little snobby about our Mexican food too... ok so maybe we're snobby about most of our food. Living in Southern California we've come to expect a lot from our Mexican food. Out side of California it just tastes too American. So we were very happy to find a very local place that actually had food that tasted pretty authentic. Some things on the menu are better than others and it's not San Diego Mexican food... but it's pretty darn good. We ate there twice last week because it's so close I was CRAVING their Cheese Enchiladas. Rosie loves their beans and Enchiladas too. She's also a fan of tacos.

Next on our list of food to hung food. Korean food. Good Korean food. Wish us luck!

Little Blue Creek

2011-08-15T18:43:00.002-05:00

On Sunday we went down the the creek to play.

William taught Rosie about the rocks and leaves. She really enjoys tossing them into the water.

She also liked sitting in the middle of the creek playing with sticks and leaves.

Then William taught her how to build a rock sculpture.

This is truly one of my favorite places.

St. Patrick's Irish Picnic, Day 2

2011-08-14T18:42:00.000-05:00

Well it's been a while but the St. Patrick's Irish picnic was super fun. After the first night at the picnic I dreamed about eating the pulled pork all night long. As soon as we got up on Saturday morning my mom and I went to the picnic grounds to buy some. I nibbled on it on the way home. It made a wonderful breakfast. and lunch... and a few other meals after that.

Even though things were in full swing fun in the morning when we were there to buy our BBQ pork we didn't go to play till that evening. Joe's band was planing around 7 so we went about an hour before to make sure we got good seats.

While we were waiting Rosie and I got our faces painted and William and Rosie shared a funnel cake. Actually she just ate the whipped cream.

We went to all the game booths again and had fun playing in the bubble machines. Rosie loves bubbles and really enjoyed dancing in and chasing the bubbles. She also wanted to go back to the rubber duck booth where she stood and played in the water with the ducks for about half an hour.

Here we are wandering through the picnic checking out all the good food they had. I made William try the deep friend Oreos. He was less than impressed.

One lady walked up to us and said we were the cutest family and asked if she could take our picture. It was like a little taste of China again. It's nice to be seen in public with such adorable red heads.

Finally after some technical delay due to a little rain Joe's band, The Dotson Brown Band, took the stage. They were wonderful, as usual. Rosie enjoyed dancing to the music and climbing on her Nana. She very much enjoyed her time at the Irish Picnic and I know we are all looking forward to it again next year.
It's always the last weekend in July if you're ever in the area.

New Do

2011-08-09T12:40:00.000-05:00

I got a new hair cut. It's the first hair cut I REALLY like. I think I'm in love with this hair dresser. It's only taken me 32 years but I finally found someone I like and trust with my hair.
I also got a Dairy Queen soft serve ice cream dipped in hot fudge. Both made me very happy.

St. Patrick's Irish Picnic, Day 1

2011-07-29T21:11:00.000-05:00

Every year the town we live in has a huge Irish Picnic, hosted by the small Catholic church and school. This year is the 157th Irish picnic and we've been looking forward to it all year, as has every one. Today was finally the opening day of the Irish picnic and I couldn't wait to get there and enjoy the festivities.

Bonnie Rose wore her Irish dress for the occasion. Here she is "smiling for the camera."

The star of the Irish Picnic is the BBQ. People come from all over Tennessee and even from surrounding states to buy pulled pork and roast chicken and get a jug of St. Patrick's famous Sauce.

I was pleasantly surprise to find there were a lot of carnival games to play where every one got a prize. Rosie loved the fishing game the best.

She was very happy to win a blow up doggie for her excellent fishing.

There's a picture of them putting more wood on the fires for the pork shoulders they will cook tonight. They will slow cook them all night long and in the morning there will be lines of people there to buy them.

Bonnie Rose also like the "Ducky" game. Pretty much she just likes games with water and was very content to just stand there and play with the ducks for a while.

"William go stand by the fire pits so I can take a picture of them." Poor William. They were too hot to get too close to, but he's a good sport.

William tried playing the tick tack toe game with Rosie but she just kept dropping the balls on the ground and laughing.

The booth people said we were the most entertaining customers they'd had all day and gave us a little prize for the good laugh we gave them. But most importantly Rosie had fun.

Tomorrow we'll try to get to the picnic early enough to get some famous BBQ. We'll also go hear Uncle Joe's band play and hopefully play some more games. But mostly we'll go to do what every one else goes to do there. Eat BBQ.

My little cutie pie

2011-07-28T14:06:00.000-05:00

Congratulations New York

2011-07-24T12:09:00.000-05:00

I wish I could be there to celebrate with you today.

Date night and a crowded bed

2011-07-22T19:39:00.000-05:00

William took me to see Harry Potter on Saturday.

gryffindor and ravenclaw

Rosie, smile for the camera!

She likes to wear mama's scarf. Such a good little Gryffindor.

And on a totally unrelated note, this is why I need a king size bed.

Time with Books

2011-07-19T21:02:00.000-05:00

My friend Joy and her babies came for a visit.

Happy Harry Potter Day

2011-07-15T21:40:00.002-05:00

Today the final Harry Potter movie was released in theaters around the world. Ten years ago I went to the midnight showing of the very first Potter movie. Wow. Ten Years. I feel kind of sad that it's finally all over. When the last book came out (I went to the midnight release of that book as well) there was the consolation that we still had the movies to look forward to. I almost don't remember what it's like to not have a Potter movie to look forward to every year.
I look forward to reliving the Harry Potter magic of the books and movies with Rosie some day.

So in honor of 14 years of Harry Potter (the first book was published in 1997) and Ten years of Harry Potter movies, I give you Dobby.

My little House Elf.

Smile for the camera!

Rosie's Smiles

2011-07-14T23:03:00.000-05:00

Isn't she the cutest thing you've ever seen?

This is the face she makes when you tell her to smile for the camera.

Then she laughs

My perfect little angel is getting so big

Last Day with Auntie Julie

2011-07-13T17:46:00.000-05:00

On our last day with Auntie Julie we decided to take her into Nashville and show her a bit of the "city life" in this area.

We ended up in the Franklin's Historic District where there is a Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream shop. Julie bought baby her very first, very own, cup of ice cream. Bonnie Rose was very happy about it.

Then Auntie Julie took Rosie's mama to the Mellow Mushroom for Gluten Free pizza. Julie likes to spoil us.

After a nice walk around the old houses of Franklin,

in the rain...

and visiting a few shops...

Rosie drove us to the airport,

where we played tag for a while and then said good-bye to Auntie Julie.

It was so nice to have Julie come visit us. I love seeing how much Rosie loves to be with her Godmother and I'm so thankful that Julie is a part of our family.

I feel grateful to Julie for being such a good and loving Godmother to my baby girl and her devotion really touches my heart. Julie even got a tattoo in honor of Baby Rosie. It's one of my favorite tattoos ever.

Julie's Tattoo, on her right wrist and hand

I know that my baby is perfect and wonderful but it just makes me happy when other people think so too. And I'm so thankful for how many people surround my little Angel with love.

Celebrating the 4th

2011-07-11T22:05:00.000-05:00

Here are some pictures of our Fourth of July celebrations.

Julie and I had matching Mickey Mouse in an Uncle Sam hat.

We are very silly.

Girl's Picture!

Julie spent the whole weekend reading to Rosie.

A local church in the area advertised that they were going to have a free fireworks show. They also said they were going to have ponies. I got super excited about the ponies and made us leave like 5 hours too early. The ponies ended up not being there and we had to wait a really really long time for the fireworks show.

Be we did get to play on the play ground while we waited.

Julie took Rosie on her first slide.

Here's a picture of Rosie looking adorable.

Julie and I in the Aloha photo thingy

Rosie's favorite part of the whole day was this little play house. She loved that is was just her size. She spent almost the whole evening in there and loved opening and closing the Rosie sized door.

It made her really happy

Finally it was time for the fireworks. The show started with every one standing up and singing the national anthem and they perfectly timed the first fire work with the last word of the song.

It was a pretty good show and I think we were all glad we stuck around for it. It's just not the 4th of July without a fireworks show.

There were lots of families and kids around and Rosie loved watching them.

This little baby watched the whole show peeking out from under her blanket.

Rosie did a really good job during the show. She didn't like the noise, but if her ears were covered she liked watching the lights. She watched almost the whole show with wide eyes and then said she was all done right before the grand finale.

Aunti Julie and blowing things up

2011-07-10T08:07:00.002-05:00

Julie is Rosie's Godmother. Her and I were roommates in college and soon found we were bosom buddies.

Julie and I have been a part of every major life event for the last 11 years in each other's lives. I don't know what I would do without her. Even though I'm the world's worst Keeper in Toucher Julie still loves me. And every time we go months without talking we can just pick right back up where we left off.

Julie lives in New York but came to visit us for the 4th of July. The day before the 4th we went to a road side fireworks stand to buy our explosives. Julie was rather nervous about all the large things it is legal to shoot into the sky here. I was very pleasantly surprised too. In California most of this stuff is illegal, but here in Tennessee they have stuff that could rival the Chinese New Year fireworks in China!

As you can see, I am quite pleased with our explosive purchases. We bought two different ones that shoot up into the sky and explode like professional ones. So exciting!

Of course it wouldn't be a holiday with out some decorations. So we hung a bunting on the front door.

It looks very nice from the street. Very festive.

While we were eating dinner that night Julie got to meet one of our neighbors. Yogi was tormenting this little cutie in the back yard and we had to go rescue him.

He made funny noises at us and then waddled off.

Here's a cute picture Julie took of our little nerd in the making. She's such a good girl and loves to play on the computer.

Rosie loved having her Auntie Julie around. She was all smiles and goofy the whole time. She had Julie wrapped around her little finger. She didn't want any one else to read to her or chase her except Julie.

At one point William was playing the "who's this?" game with Rosie, where he points at each person and she says our name. When he got to Julie, Rosie looked at her, paused, and then said with great confidence "BOOK"! Julie said she'd take and will forever be called book.

Here is the only picture of our fireworks that turned out. Rosie did a very good job at watching them and was only a little scared. She sat behind me with her arms around me and watched with big eyes.

Busy Summer Days

2011-07-03T16:48:00.002-05:00

I was talking to a friend of mine online the other day and I mentioned we've been really busy lately. She laughed at me. You see, she works full time and has to be clever all day, then she goes home to her toddler and nurses her and plays with her. During the week she goes to preschool performances. She spends every minute she can with her baby, but she also has to go to work all day. She is a busy Mama.
My busy days are not quite the same... but are still busy. My friend says it's "the best kind of busy" and think she's very right.

Baby Girl and I wake up every day and go outside right away. Some days I can get Rosie to eat breakfast first, but other days I feed it to her on the porch. We walk out to the goat pen and hang out with the goats.

Rosie walks around and says hello to all the goats. We check and make sure everyone is healthy, make sure they have food and walk and we bottle feed one of the babies.

Rosie stays very busy climbing on the logs and rocks with the baby goats.

When Baby Girl doesn't want to go for a walk outside, she wants to be pushed in her stroller. She loves her stroller. She can climb up in it all by her self, and then she asks to be pushed around the house or out side. Some times we just go around in circles and sometimes we even chase William around the kitchen with the stroller. Baby Girl always loves that and laughs and laughs.

We take walks at sunset and admire the wonderful sunlight, walk down to the mail box and chase each other up the hill.

Sometimes we chase the cats too.

At dusk I like to go out and watch the fireflies dance. They look like fairies sparkling up from the lawn. Actually I just call them fairies when I show them to Baby Girl.

In my ideal world I would never live in a place that didn't have fireflies. They are so magical.

Despite how it sounds we do spend some of our day in the house. Especially if it gets really hot outside. Rosie doesn't like to be hot. We come inside and count the rocks in her rock collection, read books, stack blocks and of course have dance time.

Rosie is so creative and sometimes I just like to sit and watch her imagination work.

Of course there are normal life things that have to be done, like laundry and cooking dinner. Sometimes I even manage to clean the house a little.

By the end of the day we are all exhausted. We watch some Doctor Who (Rosie loves SciFi) and Shawn the Sheep (Rosie calls them goats) to wind down and then we all fall into bed.

We do have to convince Rosie that she is indeed tired. She fights it so hard and we usually end up running circles in the house and playing chase in the evenings. I am definitely more tired than she is.

So at the end of the day I can't always tell you what we've done or how productive we've been. But we are busy. I agree with my friend Diana. It's the best kind of busy and I'm so thankful for it. I wouldn't give it up for anything.

It is the best kind of Busy.

Bumps and Bruises

2011-07-02T04:39:00.001-05:00

Baby Girl and I take walks out to the goat pastures sometimes. We walk out with the goats and sit with them for a while. After a couple hours we try to sneak away before they notice. But they always do. Then when they see that we're getting away they start running as fast as they can to catch up with us. Sometimes they don't stop before they reach us, they just run right through us! or rather, into me.

They don't mean to get me with their horns. They just get excited and start running and then run into me... with their heads. They do it to each other too... I guess they think I'm a goat.

I got this bruise a couple weeks ago. It really hurt and was swollen for a couple of days. I couldn't even sit down comfortably for days. Actually it still hurts!

I don't mind the bruises. That's life on the farm, and really it doesn't happen that often. The only thing I mind a little is that William gets in a fight with a tree where the tree tries to eat his leg and he comes out with a couple of scratches, some sore muscles but not much else to show for it. I take a walk outside and come home with my leg falling off.

Video my Life

2011-06-29T20:25:00.000-05:00

Today I followed Bonnie Rose around with the video camera and tried to capture her doing all sorts of adorable things.

Here's a video of Rosie playing the drums for the baby goats, Daisy and Danny. I'm trying to teach her not to push the goats, but she thinks she IS a goat so she likes to push them off whatever they are standing on. It's a goat thing.

I thought this was cute so I'm putting it up here. You don't have to watch it if you're not interested. It's Bella nursing her babies. I just love the little sounds Daisy makes when she's nursing.

After lunch we had dance time. This was the first time Rosie has danced with one of her bears. This bear was given to her on her first birthday by the waiter at The Teddy Bear Cafe in TaiKang Lu, Shanghai China.

You can hear Rosie say "more" when the song ends and then "dance" to her bear.

Here's another one of Rosie dancing with her bear. (Sorry for the mess behind her... it's laundry and cleaning day.)

Here's a couple pictures of our day for those of you who just want a quick glance or can't get the videos to work.

Bella teaches her babies and mine how to climb on a log...

And Rosie makes her teddy bear tap dance.

Life's a Zoo

2011-06-25T20:58:00.000-05:00

Today we went to the zoo. We've been wanting to visit the Nashville zoo for sometime. Bonnie Rose loves animals so much, and we want her to be exposed to them as much as she can as she grows up.

Rosie was so fascinated with most of the animals and studied them very intently. She tried very hard to say all of their names.

She thought the Flamingos were fun because they were pink and drank water upside down. She stood a long time watching them.

In the petting zoo her favorites were the goats of course but she also liked this Sicilian Donkey a lot too. They also had 8 week old Camels that she really enjoyed looking at.

She was almost overwhelmed in the gift shop with all the fun things to play with. She loved hugging and giving kisses to the stuffed animals. But of all the things in the gift shop she liked the table full of pretty polished rocks. Rosie loves rocks. She spent a good long time picking out her favorite ones.

The Meerkats made her laugh and laugh the way they wrestled and ran around.

But her very favorite animals were the Gibbons. At first she wasn't quite sure what to make of their loud singing, but she was definitely intrigued.

Here you can see her clapping for them when they stopped singing and then asking for "more."

Every time we walked near the Gibbon habbitat she asked to go watch them again. They not only sang all day long but they would swing from tree to tree.

Right before we left we found the "jungle gym" play area of the zoo. It was the nicest play ground I've ever seen. We will being coming back to play here for sure, and to see the Gibbons of course.

Up a Tree

2011-06-23T22:46:00.002-05:00

I like Trees. I like the way they dance in the wind. I like the way they smell. I like the way they change with the seasons. I like the different shades of green they come in. When I was a child one of my favorite poems was about trees. It said "Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree."

Trees are important and formidable figures in literature and pop culture. Tolkien had the Ents in Lord of the Rings, that fought to free the people of Middle Earth. In the movie the Wizard of Oz the apple trees threw apples at Dorthy and her friends. In C.S. Lewis's Prince Caspian the trees come to life and destroyed a whole army of men. There are a number of stories in which trees fight back.

We have some very beautiful trees in this area, but a few months ago we had a bad wind storm that knocked a bunch of them down and broke some branches. You can see some of the damage HERE.

William had a lot of work to do after that storm, and a lot of trees to clean up. You may remember this picture from my mom's blog when he was trying to cut a half fallen tree down and decided it would be a good idea to tie a rope around his waist and try to climb it.

Luckily I did intervened before he managed to get up in the tree. I have no idea what he was thinking.

A few weeks ago another branch of a tree half broke and was dangling over the wooden fence. So while everyone was in the house William decided to try to take care of it by himself. Keep in mind that when the branch first broke I specifically told William not to climb that tree to try and cut the branch down.

That's a pretty good rule of thumb actually: Do not climb trees to cut them down.

So today around 4pm, I was in the house and heard what I thought were goats bellowing very loudly. We have some pretty load and talkative goats so for a while I just figured that's what I was hearing. Until it seamed that one of the bellows sounded like my name. I decided to investigate just to make sure that every thing was ok. Sometimes one of the goats gets their head stuck in something and need help.

So out I went and saw all the goats standing in a huddle looking very scared, and then I heard why. A very loud shout of help. I ran towards where I saw the goats looking and where the sound was coming from and sure enough there he was.
William was hanging from a tree.

I ran and got my mom and a ladder before I had fully assessed how he was. Since he was at the bottom of the hill our house sits on I didn't see clearly how he was but I knew we needed to get him down. Of course I expected the worse. From the top of the hill it looked like his leg was stuck and may be broken.

It took both me and my mom wedging the latter up against the tree and holding it stable enough for William to put his weight on so he could lift himself up and unwedge his leg from inside the forked tree. Luckily the leg was not broken. Just very very stuck.

I'm very very very thankful that he's ok. He's very bruised and scratched up, but we have him heavily medicated, well fed, and resting with his leg up.

So for future reference. Do Not Climb Trees in Order to Cut Them Down.

Or if you're William. Do Not Climb Trees.

Bed time routine

2011-06-21T21:11:00.007-05:00

Every one has different ways of getting ready for bed. Especially with kids it's important to have a bed time routine. Some people have nightly bath time and read books. Those are good things. Calming things.

In our family...We have nightly round around the house time.

And Baby Girl isn't satisfied to do it by her self. She wants as many people and she can round up to run with her... and always wants poor Andy, our dog, to chase her.

I love how she pats her little butt to get him to come. Silly little baby.

Here's a video of the full circle she runs. Baby Girl loves to watch this video. She always waves at herself as she comes around the corner and laughs and laughs.

I don't know what we would have done in Shanghai in our teeny tiny apartment and our energetic little girl. She wouldn't have had any space to run around. I'm so thankful for the space we have here and for my parents being so willing to have us with them.

I love our night time with our Baby Girl. She's so funny and entertaining.

Maybe we should look into that nightly bath some time.

Happy Father's Day

2011-06-20T20:35:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was Father's day and we had a wonderful day of celebrating William and how thankful we are for him.

This was William's first father's day that he got to spend with his Baby Girl. Last year he was in China and I was in the US. So I wanted to make sure this year was extra special.

On Monday I made William oatmeal raisin cookies, one of his favorites. He got to eat them all week long and then on Sunday I made him Ghirardelli double chocolate brownies, another favorite.

Rosie examines Daddy's Boo-boo

Actually I got the date of Father's Day wrong this year. I thought it was the second week of June, like mother's day, but it's the third week. After sending both our dad's cards by express mail because I thought they would be late, I learned that I had another week to plan. That turned out great actually because I had more time to get a few more things for William, and to plan our church outfits.

Baby Girl got her Daddy a new iPod shuffle. It's so teeny tiny! It's perfect for wearing around outside while he's working and won't get in his way because it's so small.

I got William a new tie. Partly because it was a nice looking tie and partly because I thought it was funny to get him something so cliche.

Boys love new toys. Even small ones.

We are so proud of William and are so thankful to for how much he loves us. He really is an amazing father.

William request hamburgers for dinner so I made big thick garlic burgers with colby-jack cheese. I was quite pleased with how they turned out and I think William was too.

After dinner we played in the liquor cabinet to see what we could make from what we had. William made dirty martinis and something with Chocolate milk, Kahlua and Bailey's Irish Cream. After we got him good and drunk we sent him to play video games.


Shaken, not stirred.

Thank you William for being such a loving Daddy to our little Angel and for never being too cool or serious to be silly with us.

Drive In

2011-06-18T08:49:00.000-05:00

Last night we went to the movies. We saw Green Lantern on opening night. It's been a long time since I've seen a movie on opening night, but the best part about it wasn't that we were getting to see a nerdy movie the night it opened. The best part about it was that it was at a drive in movie theater.

For six dollars per adult (kids under 12 are free) you can sit in your car with your own snacks and you can watch not one but two movies! How crazy is that?!

When we first got there I was a little surprised that it wasn't more crowded, it was Friday night after all and opening night of a big movie. But I was also very happy it wasn't too crowded. I realized right away that I am a Drive in Noob. We showed up in our car with a small cooler of snacks and that was it. Every one else had comfortable lawn chairs and pillows and their dogs, and sat comfortably and ready to enjoy the perfect summer evening.

I thought the movie was good. Sure it followed the predictable comic book formula, but hey, it was a comic book movie so what do you expect. I thought the Green Lantern character was cute and loveable and slightly sarcastic... in a funny way. There was the nerdy side kick (every one needs a nerdy side kick, that's why I have William) and the cute girl that sees the hero for who he is before he does (every one needs a cute girl to support them, that's why William has me). Sure it was predictable but it was fun and cute and the characters for likeable and funny. We all liked the movie very much.

Baby Girl got to climb around the car during the movie when she wasn't watching it intently or trying to smash her face against mine, she always does that after kissy scenes. She also thought it was great fun to hang out the open window to watch the movie. She looked like a puppy dog.

We didn't stay for the second movie. I would have liked to but it was a romantic comedy and it's not one of Baby Girl's favorite genres. She pretty much just goes for Sci-fi or movies with animals in them and it was a small space for her to be confined in for another movie. So we decided to go home and watch some Doctor Who.
Except, the car wouldn't start.

We had the car on, but not running, so we could have the radio on. That's how you hear the movie. And as a result the battery died. Luckily the guy at the concession stand had a portable car starter and helped us get the car started. He says he does it all the time.

How do people go to drive in movies and not have their cars die? And how to people sitting outside their cars hear the movie? Any advice from Drive-in-theater veterans would be great.

Our drive home was beautiful. The moon was a perfect sci-fi moon, big and bright and yellow and partly shrouded by wispy crowds. All in all it was a great night and I very much look forward to doing it again. Especially now that I know that the concession stand has a portable battery starter.

Fish Fry

2011-06-17T16:45:00.000-05:00

Last weekend we went to our very first Fish Fry. Fish Fries are a very special local past time here. Politicians must host them if they want to get elected, Churches host them to draw people in. To me a fish fry is the mark of Summer around here.

A fish fry is just what is sounds like. A bunch of people getting together and eating fried fish. In these parts that means Catfish.

I think I could eat fried catfish every day. It's amazing. I'm so glad we live in the South. I can't believe I've gone all my life without fried catfish.

This particular fish fry was hosted my Aunt Mae's church and was a pot luck. Every one brought their specialties. There were hush puppies and french fries and 3 tables of desserts and of course Coleslaw. Or as people around here call it "Slaw."

Coleslaw is historically a dutch dish called "koolsalade", which means cabbage salad. It's main ingredient is shredded cabbage and often has shredded carrots in it too.

I thought there were only two kinds of "slaw," vinegar slaw and mayonnaise slaw. But last weekend I learned I was very wrong. There was vinegar slaw, and slaw it milk sauce, and slaw with grapes in it, and slaw with green peppers. I have seen so many different kinds of "slaw" in my life!
We sampled most of them and William came home with many ideas to try.

Bonnie Rose enjoyed the fish fry very much. She loves hush puppies and Aunt Mae made sure there were special Gluten Free hush puppies and fish batter just for us! She's so good to us and we all over ate.

Another special treat was Uncle Joe's presents there. At first Bonnie Rose played a little shy with him. But he managed to make her laugh and win her over, as he always does. I'm so happy she has some one as kind and fun and musical as Joe to grow up with.

After eating way too much and visiting and Joe taking Rosie in the bouncy house and playing endless rounds of hide and seek with her, we all rolled our selves home and sat lazily in front of the TV and watched Doctor Who. We didn't even have any room for ice cream.

I can tell we are going to have a very wonderful, if not fattening, summer.

Wednesday Morning Surprise!

2011-06-15T23:30:00.000-05:00

SURPRISE! Two new baby goats!

While we knew that our goat, Bella, was pregnant we thought she was due on July 15th. So it was a bit of a surprise when this morning she popped out these two little beauties.

We had a boy and a girl.

Our boy is Denny...

and our girl is Dottie. (I think... we may change that)

They are much smaller than our last batch. Denny is 7 pounds and Dottie is just 4 pounds. So small!

Bonnie Rose is very in love with them.

Another Day at the Faire

2011-06-14T13:59:00.101-05:00

Every year in May (weekends only) there is a Renaissance Faire just outside of Nashville. We celebrated Mother's Day there this year and then a couple weeks later we visited again.

On our second trip to the Faire we saw different things than on our first, and it wasn't quite so crowded. One of my favorite shows was the live chess game.

It was fun to see the "pieces" sword fight for their squares and it was fun to see the French beat... with some modification to the standard rules.

Since this Faire is not quite so big as the Southern California one it is much more kid friendly, and we got a private audience with Queen Elizabeth I. It was my first time meeting her and I was very excited.

The Nashville Faire's main claim to fame is that it is the only Renaissance Faire in the US to be held on the grounds of an actual Castle!

The Castle was built by a Mr. Dan Freeman and is actually his personal home!

Every year he sponsors the Ren Faire and he allows tours of part of his castle home and grounds.

It was actually more of just letting us wonder around than a tour. Which was so nice, so fun, and so relaxing. Also, the inside had air conditioning. Thank you Mr. Freeman!

In the Great Room of his Castle there was this 800 year old Sword on display. It was excavated from Jerusalem and is from one of the Crusades. Mr. Freeman is one of four owners this sword has had, the first being the Knight who lost it on his Crusade.

Also in The Great Room is this authentic replica chandelier that lowers so each candle can be lit and then raises again to light the room. I didn't ask if the wax drips or not.

This is an actual Irish Elk head and antlers. The Irish Elk was the largest deer that ever lived and has been extinct for 7,700 years.

Each arch in the castle is hand made and authentic to the time period.

After we wandered around the castle and grounds we made our way back to the Festival grounds. We were given a much welcomed break from the heat with a 15 minute rain shower that gave us a second wind to stay till closing.

Bonnie Rose was such a good sport and loved seeing all the people dressed up. Even though she was so tired and so hot she was always in a good mood and had a smile for everyone.

There are so many fun things to do at the Fair that I think I could go every weekend for the whole month and still not see all the shows or eat all the treats or play all the games.

It was Pirate Weekend at the Faire so William is dressed up like a Pirate and here with Captain Red Beard.

During of one of Baby Girl's hottest moments when she didn't want to be held or be in her stroller any more and wasn't in the mood to hold hands, she discovered that I had a rope tired around my waist and thought that was great fun.

She was not only content to stay near Mama holding on the rope but she thought it was the greatest fun to run and pull me around where ever she went.

We were a happy little Ren Fair Family. Next time I'll have Baby Girl dressed up in her little costume I'm putting together for her.

Paulina's Famous Stuffed Peppers : A Food Post

2011-06-13T13:20:00.029-05:00

Since William works all day outside and my mom works all day on her computer it's only fair that I cook dinner for every one. I'm really enjoying having an American sized kitchen with counter space and an oven and a stove with more than two burners. Even though I enjoy baking more, I'm enjoying planning and figuring out new dinners to make.

Me, Paulina and Lukas, Classmates in Shanghai

In the Summer heat I like to make food that isn't hot and doesn't take much cooking. So this summer I've been making Paulina's Famous Stuffed Chili Peppers.
Paulina was a dear friend of mine in Shanghai. We took Chinese together and she was such a great cook. She would bring sandwiches to class and our classmates would buy them from her. I think of her and how much she taught me every time I make this meal.

First I start with these ingredients:

Anaheim Chili Peppers (2 or 3 per person)
Lime Juice (or real limes)
Tuna (one can per person)
Boiled Eggs (one per person)
Red or Yellow Onion
Mayonnaise
Salt and Pepper
I like to put a green apple in it, but I didn't have one today.

You'll also need a pair of tongs or long wooden chopsticks.

First I chop the Onion and put lime juice on it... to taste. I usually put enough on the just barely cover the onion.

I let the Lime and Onion sit while I do the Chili Peppers. The lime will soak into the onion and make it taste amazing.

Then I cook the Chili Peppers on an open flame to blacken the skin

Paulina used to use her fingers to turn them over, but that was too much for me. In China I used a pair of wooden chopsticks so if they got burned it didn't matter. In the States I use metal tongs.

Get the skin nice and back... all over

Once they are completely back take them off the fire and put them in a container with a lid. I use a Glad Wear box.

Put the lid on right away. I cover the peppers and leave them in there while I cook the rest. The key is to leave them covered in the container to let the sweat so the skin gets nice a loose.

After I cook up all my peppers I set the covered container aside and mix up my tuna salad. That gives them extra time to sweat.

I do everything "to taste". So just kind of "eyeball" how much of everything you think you like. We don't like a lot of Mayonnaise so I don't use more than a spoonful or two.

Put whatever else you think will be good in tuna salad. I usually dig around in the pantry to see what I can find. I like to put apples in it when I have them and Paulina says she likes to chop up almonds.

After the Tuna salad is mixed it's time to peal peppers. I do this at the sink so I can have a small stream of cool water to rinse my fingers off since the skins tend to stick to them.

Just take one pepper at a time and pinch the skin lightly between your fingers and it comes right off.

I hold the pepper with one hand and pinch the skin off with the other (but I had to take the picture with one hand.)

You can rinse the peppers after all the skin is off to get it clean of all the black specks. Cool water will cool off the pepper right away if it's too hot to handle. Warm water will keep the pepper slightly warm.

I use just cool water.

Once all the peppers are pealed slice them open on one side. Sometimes a pepper with tear while it's cooking or being pealed. That's ok, just use the tear to start the slice.

I also pinch the seed cluster out at the top of the pepper.

Then with a spoon scoop the tuna salad into the pepper. I usually pile it high to make sure everyone gets enough to eat.

And it's ready to eat!

These Chili Peppers are not spicy, though sometimes one will be.

That or I accidentally bought a jalapeno last time.

We usually serve it with my mom's Homemade Ginger Ale and either chips and salsa or Carrot Soup.

This is the perfect Summer dinner and one of our favorites. Even Baby Girl likes it. I enjoy making so much that chances are if you come to visit us this summer I'll probably make it for you.

Growing Things

2011-06-12T13:05:00.028-05:00

William keeps very buy all day long working on the farm. Somehow between building fences, shoveling goat poo, cutting down trees, fixing the tractor and a bunch of other stuff I don't even know about, he managed to build us two garden boxes!

Having a garden was something we really wanted to do this year since it was so impossible for us to do it in Shanghai.

We have alot of trouble with our seedlings this year for some reason but my mom did manage to get some stuff to come up. We have three tomato plants, two zucchini plants and a pumpkin as well as some peppers and a small forest of basil.

Look how fast it's all growing!

Besides all the wonderful vegetables we are looking forward to, I found some vine guide thingys in the shape of animals and I've really enjoyed watching them grow.

My Rabbit vine is already so tall!

My Doggie vine had a rough start and I thought we'd lost it but then it came back.

And my Kitty vine took a while to come up but then all of a sudden all these leaves popped up.

Baby Girl is really enjoying watching everything grow too and loves helping water and take care of the plants. She's such a good little farmer girl.

The Dotson-Brown Band

2011-06-11T23:50:00.002-05:00

On Thursday night Uncle Joe's band was playing at Loretta Lynn's Ranch. Baby Girl loves music but she especially loves Uncle Joe's music.

She got all dressed up to dance at Joe's concert.

She loves to dance with her Daddy.

Or even by her self. She just loves to dance.

During the show Uncle Joe gave Bonnie Rose a signed drum stick. She was so happy and held on to it the rest of the night, dancing with it and swinging it around. She was a very happy girl.

A Perfect Saturday

2011-06-11T12:35:00.000-05:00

I love Saturdays. Bonnie Rose loves them too. Today when she woke up I told her it was Saturday and Daddy was playing video games with Nana and she smiled and said "DaDa" She loves to watch us play video games.

This Saturday morning I woke up to the smell of Coffee and Bacon. I love waking up to Bacon. And then, just as I was settling down to start playing "Fat Princess" with William the phone rang.

"Hello. This is Lukas from Switzerland calling for my friend Michelle."

We ended up talking on Skype so we could see each other... and more importantly our babies.

We know Lukas and Heidi from Shanghai. They were some of our closest friends, especially after we both had babies there. Lukas, Heidi and Emil were our family in Shanghai. They celebrated every Holiday with us, including Thanksgiving.

It was so nice to see how much Emil had grown and to see their new life beneath the mountains of Switzerland. But more importantly it was wonderful to talk to such amazing friends and to be reminded that no matter how far away we are from them they will always be our family.

We love them and miss them very much and we look forward to visiting with them for years to come. Thank you for calling us Lukas and Heidi. We love you.

Now for another piece of bacon and that game of Fat Princess.

Ice Cream, Vines, Goats and Sunset: It must be Summer 142/365

2011-06-07T21:10:00.000-05:00

I only like to eat ice cream if I'm hot. Sitting on the porch at dusk, watching the plants grow and the sun set is the perfect time for an ice cream treat.

Speaking of plants growing. I'm pretty excited about this vine we have growing in my rabbit shaped vine guide thingy. I swear you can see it growing. It grows about 6 or 7 inches every day. Soon I'm going to have a lovely rabbit shaped vine with pretty purple flowers.

Baby Girl likes to watch the vines grow too. This is my cat shaped vine guide thingy. These seedlings popped up over night.

Baby Girl's favorite part of the day is also dusk when she gets to walk out with the goats to the back pastures and watch them eat. She's guarding their water bucket here and making sure they are all drinking plenty of water.

William calls this time of day "The Golden Hour" I really do love it. The more I'm here the more I fall in love with living in this area.

The beauty of the nature all around us is so peaceful and perfect.

"Fezzes are Cool" 141/365

2011-06-07T12:11:00.000-05:00

Baby Girl loves hats. She likes to wear them and she likes other people to wear them. Her current favorite hat is actually my Giant Cupcake pan. She likes to wear it and dance around the kitchen and help with the dishes. We call it her Fez. Fezzes are Cool.

Questing 140/365

2011-06-06T09:39:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a day of quests.(That's nerd talk for ... doing stuff)

After a wonderfully lazy day of playing computer games, taking naps and watching bad TV we all decided to walk out to the back fields and look for William's iPod that had somehow disappeared. That quest was a great success when I found it laying on the ground in some weeds about half a mile from the house.

Since we were all hot and sweaty after that we decided we needed some ice cream. So we went on a quest for ice cream.

Except we started at the wrong end of the store and ended up with a few extra things...

Like Pop Tarts!
I was horrified when William told me he'd never had Pop Tarts. That's like saying you've never watched Saturday morning cartoons... which he didn't, or that you've never had a twinky! So I made him buy some because you can't live in America without trying these wonderful little treats sometime.

And yes, William, you have to toast them.

Music in the Square 139/365

2011-06-04T23:09:00.000-05:00

The first Music in the Square of the Summer season was tonight. Baby Girl clapped...

And danced to the fun music.

Old Friends 138/365

2011-06-03T23:00:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago we found this snake skin in the back yard. Horace the snake left it for us to admire, as he does every year about this time.

Horace has been living in my mom's yard for a few years now, and every year he gets bigger. He keeps the rodent and large bug population down and keeps the cats entertained as they try to catch him.

We were starting to worry a little bit this year when we hadn't seen him around the yard. We thought maybe one of the cats finally got him. But today we were very happy to see Horace out sunning himself and chasing a large beetle.

He's very fast and very beautiful and we're happy to have him around.

Water Baby 137/365

2011-06-03T16:28:00.000-05:00

With temperatures now in the 90s (32C) I thought it was time to pull out the kiddy pool. Baby Girl and I spent our day sitting outside in the pool.

I'm so thankful to live in a place where we can do this outside (with no neighbors to see us) and in a place where the water is safe for baby to drink. She LOVES drinking the pool water. I'm so happy not to have to stress about the safety of the tap water here.

Other Summer activities include spending the whole day naked or in her diaper and trying on everyone's shoes...

And then there's post bath time family tag through the house and then cuddle time.

Life with Baby is never dull.

Growing Braver and Stronger 136/365

2011-06-01T21:15:00.000-05:00

Look how big our Baby Girl is getting. She's growing up so fast and getting more talkative, more opinionated, more perfect and more beautiful every day.

For the last couple of days I've been trying get her to not be afraid of one of my old dolls. We send about an hour every day playing in her closet and I hold the doll while she stands and stares at it. Every day she gets brave enough to stand a little closer or touch a toe of it. Today she seemed to decided it wasn't so scary after all and after sharing her bottle with the "mei mei" (Chinese for "little sister"... she calls all other babies and little kids this) she picked up the doll and gave it a kiss. She tried to carry it around but it's still a little big for her. She's such a sweet Angel.

Summer is Upon US 135/365

2011-06-01T00:00:00.000-05:00

Memorial Day always marked the beginning of Summer when I was a child. School was out and it camping was in order for the 3 day weekend.

Just like old times, this Memorial Day brought the temperatures in the 90s (over 32C) for the rest of the week.

Today was so hot that even Baby Girl couldn't stand it and asked to go back in the house. She didn't ask to go out again till after dark when it had cooled off significantly.

I guess it's time to find some indoor activities for the hottest parts of the day and maybe time to buy a little kiddy pool.

On the up side though, William made ice cream again tonight. It looks like we'll be able to look forward to lots of homemade ice cream this summer so send along your favorite recipes. We'll be happy to try them out.

Surrounded by Love 134/365

2011-05-30T22:24:00.000-05:00

This three day holiday thing is quite fantastic. We didn't do much of anything... except eat, but it was wonderful to just hang out and talk and even nap. Before everyone showed up we made a good plan for all our meals so that when everyone got here we knew exactly what we were going to feed them. That cut out the "what should we have for dinner" question and it was great for making sure we had enough food for everyone to get stuffed (a MUST in family gatherings and good hosting).

In between meals every one played outside and enjoyed sitting around drinking ginger ale. William and my mom made homemade ice cream and baby and I took long naps. Everyone slept as late as they wanted, it was nice to not have to wake up early. It was perfect.

Last night we talked about renting a movie or playing a game, but then we decided to just sit around and talk and watch the boys play video games. Which was much more fun anyway since me and mom hate board games.

Of course Dad stuck with tradition and fell asleep before 9pm. It was just like old times. (he did also work outside all day and had some horrid allergies, so it's understandable)

Today, after sleeping in and eating a late breakfast (a MUST for holidays and vacations) everyone headed home.

Uncle Stevie was a huge favorite with Baby Girl. She always smiled and laughed when he was around.

She's a pretty big fan of Auntie Annie though too. Rosie loved getting her nails painted, watching Annie put on her make up, and even helping Annie pack. I know Baby Girl will miss them both.

She was very excited to see Papa and would say "PAPA" every time she heard him laugh and then go off to look for him. She finds him very entertaining and I think she loves having someone around that likes being outside almost as much as she does.

It was a very nice weekend, even if it was just a couple days. We laughed, we ate, we all gained five pounds and now it's back to work, school and real life.

Thank you for coming everyone! We will miss you and we look forward to seeing you again soon. Happy Summer!

A few of my favorite things 133/365

2011-05-29T22:14:00.000-05:00

Happy Memorial Day weekend. May you have a restful weekend filled with family, fun, laughter and ice cream.

Family Fun 132/365

2011-05-29T10:26:00.009-05:00

This is the first Memorial Day we've celebrated in 3 years. There is no Memorial Day in China and we'd almost completely forgotten about the holiday.

Then Stevie and Annie told us that they were coming down for the weekend.

Steak, BBQing, Family, and sitting outside drinking homemade ginger ale. I think I love Memorial Day.

New Toy 131/365

2011-05-28T22:19:00.001-05:00

When we lived in Shanghai William and I both had really nice bicycles. I was really sad when we had to sell them but William promised we would get new ones again someday... even if we did live in America.

Most people in China have bicycles as their main form of transformation. Some people are lucky enough to have electric bikes or scooters. You can fit a lot of people on a scooter, a whole family really.

A few weeks ago my parents bought a new bike to help William get around on the 70 acres better.

It's not quite what William had in mind when we said we'd get new bikes, but we can and do fit the whole family on it.

Baby Girl loves going for a ride. She asks to be taken out on the bike every day. If she's really tired she will even take a nap on it.
She doesn't like to fall asleep in her car seat, like most babies do, but she'll fall asleep riding on the ATV. She's such a good little farmer girl.

Growing big and strong 130/365

2011-05-27T22:25:00.001-05:00

Remember those baby goats that were born back in February? Well they are growing so big so fast!
Here's a video of them playing with their mamas on one of the fallen trees.