crash course

Is is possible that we are going to learn all the hard lessons in less than six months of living here?

Car accident, car broken down, stitches at the hospital, and on and on.

I didn't have this many issues in five years in the US.

This conspicuous letter arrived today, and while this wasn't exactly what I wanted to find in the mailbox, I think I prefer this over the humiliating side-of-road encounter with the blue lights.

The letter just tells us that we were speeding on Friday night at 9:30 - going 69km in a 50km zone.  What it does not say is how much this is going to cost!

Really?

Monthly - almost - there are articles in the South China Morning Post relating the problems of pollution. Often, I read about anti-pollution drives, but there are definitely road blocks. Nonetheless, it seems many people in HK don't take pollution lightly.

Pollution is definitely something we have to deal with in HK, but Shanghai and Bejing rarely see the blue sky, and I heard Shanghai schools were closed yesterday due to the API (air pollution index).

But this week, an article in a nationalist newspaper in mainland China actually suggested that pollution had its benefits! Communism at its finest.

Forrest and I decided we needed to post this:

In America, we're used to our government, our industry and our media putting a spin on events to make the world seem a brighter, better place than it really is. But China is showing some impressive spin talent of its own, with a rationalization for pollution that is, quite literally, breathtaking.

Much of China has been suffering through choking smog in recent weeks, which has hampered daily activities and forced the closure of schools. In response, the government published a list of reasons documenting the benefits of smog. Yes, benefits.

A Time magazine translator indicated that Global Times offered up the following rationalizations for smog:

1. It unifies the Chinese people.
2. It makes China more equal.
3. It raises citizen awareness of the cost of China’s economic development.
4. It makes people funnier.
5. It makes people more knowledgeable (of things like meteorology and the English word haze).

That's some interesting rationalization. Following that line of thinking, hurricanes also unify people by forcing them to leave their isolated homes and gather in collectives. Tornadoes give people a sense of the power of nature. Wildfires place everyone on an equal footing by burning everyone's possessions to the ground. See? The problem isn't nature, the problem is you.

Oh, but the disinformation campaign wasn't done. The Global Times, a newspaper connected to the Communist Party's preferred publication the People's Daily, noted that smog has a defensive benefit. “Smog may affect people’s health and daily lives," the newspaper wrote, "but on the battlefield, it can serve as a defensive advantage in military operations." The article pointed to military operations in Kosovo and Saudi Arabia that used smoke as a means of obscuring the enemy's sight lines and fouling electronic equipment. This takes "we had to burn the village to save it" to a completely new level.

Assuming these comments are real — and the Chinese government historically has little patience for satire — it's a stunning attempt to deceive a populace about the true seriousness of a man-made environmental threat.

In future weeks, expect the Chinese government to endorse smoking (toughens your lungs!), junk food (purchasing larger items of clothing helps the textile industry!) and reality television (gives you a healthy distrust of your closest friends and family!).

Contact Jay Busbee at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or on Twitter at @jaybusbee.

Library Day

Taylor is a wiz with directions. She really knows her way around parts of this very confusing city, while I continue to get us lost on a weekly basis. 

After her immigration appointment on Monday, we finally arrived at Taylor's school and found her class had already left for the library. They use the public library two blocks away.  

The girl at the front desk greeted us as we walked in the door three and a half hours late for school, told us Taylor's class was gone, and then said, "I have no idea where the library is. Taylor, can you get to the library?" Taylor said, "Sure. Mom, do you want to walk with me, or do you need to catch the bus?" 

Really, everyone is okay with this.  I follow along, cross two intersections, kiss her goodbye, and hail a taxi (I was finished with buses for the day).

missing the bus

We caught the wrong bus from immigration, but we encountered the interesting aspects of HK, and I am always camera ready. 

The bamboo scaffolding is the norm because of it's strength, but I always do a double take when I see the men assembling the scaffolding. 

Precarious. 

The men don't seem to be secured in any way as they lash these poles together. 

Not for the faint of heart. 

immigration

In HK everyone, eleven years and older, is required to possess a HK ID card. Once a child turns eleven, the parent has thirty days to get the child's ID. 

Taylor just turned eleven last week, so we booked a morning appointment with immigration to make sure she didn't miss a full day of school. Perfect.

So, I took Taylor on Monday morning for a 10:15 am appiontment, and I arrived at 9:45, thanks to someone we know, who happened to be on the bus with us, and who happened to be getting off at Immigration Tower (he works in the building next door), and who graciously walked us to the very door of immigration. 

And, much like when Jeff, the boys, and I got our IDs, we were in and out in less than one hour (I find this massively busy arm of the governement to be incredibly efficient). Taylor and I walked in with our documents and were given a number; we watched for our number to be displayed on the screen, and we walked to the booth number that was displayed with our customer number. Easy.

But it stopped being easy at the escalator.  

We got outside to the bus stop near the tower, and we immediately saw bus 104!  Fabulous luck. We needed bus 104 because bus 104 stops right in front of the school.

But, within minutes, we were heading into the cross harbour tunnel, which takes us off HK Island (Taylor's school is on HK Island) and into Kowloon.  In the tunnel we became enlightened to our failure - we had failed to catch the bus on the correct side of the street. 

These roads in HK are unforgiving! We needed to get off the bus and get on the 104 going back through the tunnel onto HK Island. 

If we had caught the 104 bus from the opposite side of the street from Immigration Tower, we would have arrived at Taylor's school in about 15 minutes (11:00), but instead we arrived at 11:55.  It took us over an hour!  I love public transportation, but I am GREEN!

Christmas in HK

No, we are not spending Christmas in Hong Kong.  No, I brought no Christmas decorations from the states because I knew we would need them in the mountains - where we would be spending Christmas. 

But, everyone revolted when I said there was no need to put up a Christmas tree.  And, Jeff was the leader of the revolt. 

Seriously, we leave seven days before Christmas and we don't get back home until 10 days after Christmas (that math makes me crazy because I know we only spend 11 days in North Carolina, but the crazy time difference and the enormous amount of time on a plane cancels out some of those days). 

Yes, it now seems like Christmas in HK, and I'm glad there was a revolt.  The tree is beautiful and I bet we didn't spend $100 US in ornaments thanks to a little felt, thread, styrofoam, glitter, and twine. 

commute

I love this picture of Taylor riding at a stable in the New Territories. She always looks so comfortable and so peaceful on these animals, but it is anything but comfortable and peaceful to her out to this place. From school, she takes a taxi to the subway to another taxi, and that's just the ride getting to her lesson. On the way home, she gets a taxi to the subway to the city bus. But, this is what I find most everyone accepts as normal here.  I will never again complain about commutes again. 

On the other hand, I was able to walk from the market to pick out my Christmas tree directly from Washington state and have it delivered the same day to my house! 

Dim Sum?

 I'm positive this bamboo thing is for dim sum and not cupcakes!
Although I love dim sum, my guess is that it will be years before I will ever use this for its true purpose.

Unexpected

We have not been wanting for Thanksgiving invitations, so I have been busy locating supplies to cook some of our favorite dishes to take to celebrations in our new friends' homes.  But, as I have said many times, shopping is never quick and easy (or cheap if trying to make certain American dishes), unless I'm in need of chicken feet or noodles, and even that is at least a short bus ride away. And, speaking of chicken feet, I had my first chicken foot at lunch today!  It might have been tasty, but I just couldn't get past the look - no matter how much breading and sauce, it still looked like the skinny foot of a chicken. I digress.

When this week arrived, bringing with it Thanksgiving and Taylor's 11th birthday, I knew I needed help, and help arrived through a sweet new friend (with a car) in our complex. She showed me the place and I was able to get almost everything I needed for the fraction of the price of my local market. The $12 for the cake mix is less than $2 USD, and the $5 for the jello mix is less than $1 USD. 

But, I was so excited to be in the store, I didn't use good judgment. Shocking, I know.  Honestly, when I was in the store, I only read "Chocolate Sponge Cake Mix" and "Strawberry Jelly Powder." In my mind, I was sure there would be English directions somewhere.  I mean, really, until 1997 HK belonged to the British for the previous 156 years. 

Thankfully, my Cantonese tutor arrived the next day and was able to translate the necessary instructions (my scribble at the top as she was translating).  I didn't want to stretch my tutor with the grams and mililiters because I knew I could go to my new Irish cookbook and get the further "translation" needed. 

They

At some point in the near future I'm going to write a meaningful blog. 

I mean, I like posting "count your blebbings," but there is so much more to living in this place on the other side of the world from what I have ever known.  There is so, so much more to all of us than most people know, and this is something with which I struggle deep in my soul. 

I want to be known for who God made me to be, not what someone sees the few times a year he or she sees me, or what someone determines after a conversation about my kids or my house or my husband or my life. Because, really, I say some of the dumbest things when I talk about those topics. I can so often sound boastful. I can so often seem to have all the right answers, but I don't have the right answers, and I don't want to be boasful; I want to sound thankful and I want to be real.  

It's just a desire to be known.  I'll write it one day.

But, in the meantime, I recently read an amazing blog post at jenhatmaker.com and I really want to share it. I'm only posting the last half of her post because if just feels wrong posting the whole thing on MY blog, and I think people who have awesome blogs must really get annoyed by those of us who hijack their posts. Anyway, here it is (half of it).  The title of the post is The Mythical "they"

“They…”

It can be such a terrible word. They are all like that. They don’t get us. They are always _____. They are never _____. They are not our people. They are all the same. They all feel _____. They would never _____. The book is already written and them, and we can close it.
There is no they.
 
I’ve done this. Of course I have. I imagine I know exactly the type of women I’ll be dealing with when I walk into a conference based on the venue, and I am wrong exactly every time. Because there is no they. No group of people is any one thing. Ever.
 
An 84-year-old woman sat next to me on the front row once, and I thought, wow, she is in the wrong place. I’m about to talk about justice and poor people and she is just here because she has been coming to conferences for eleventy billion years. I bet she falls asleep.
 
When I came off the stage, with tears pouring down her face, she grabbed my hands and said, “Everyone thinks I’m just an old lady and should sit in my pew and go gently into the white light, but I still have good years left, by God. I go to the prison four times a week. Those are my people. You are the first person who doesn’t think I’m crazy.”
 
There is no they.
 
It is immature and lazy to imagine we know everything there is to know about someone before we know that someone. We don’t know their stories, their histories, their real live human feelings. We don’t know their favorite movies and best memories and what makes them afraid. It is unfair to take one fact, one thing they’ve said or we heard they said, or one thing they wrote, or someone else’s experience, or a group they identify with and make a character sketch. If people did that to us, the picture would be so woefully incomplete, we wouldn’t even recognize our own description.
 
Who is your they? Is it a group? Because guilt by association is the lowest form of assessment. No group is all the same. They may have one line item in common, one belief, one perspective or mission, but that camaraderie is not the sum total of a person’s character. She is other things besides that. Probably a bunch of stuff just like you. You’d be surprised.
 
Is your they an individual? Have you invented a barrier based on anything but sustained personal connection? Maybe you think you know how someone will react or respond, but you could be as wrong about them as they are about you.
 
I suspect we misjudge people 90% of the time. Experience tells me I can sit down over coffee with almost any perceived adversary and end up laughing until my ribs ache. We were born on the same day, we both quit reading the same book halfway through, we are both worried about parenting, we both love Jesus even if we don’t agree on all the dressings. Common ground abounds.
 
Yes, some people are genuinely toxic or unhealthy, but we should draw those conclusions from personal experience, not hearsay or assumptions. I see a strategy for fracturing humanity well in play: just keep people separated and let them reinforce invented boundaries in their imaginations. Because when people come together and really listen to each other, doing the hard work of human kindness, virtually every barrier is breached. The entire mechanism is a house of cards; we can topple the structure with courage and trust and real discussions and grace for each other.
 
The Mythical They is a lie, and we can do better than this. Will you be brave? Do you need to pick up the phone or send an email and ask someone to coffee? Perhaps it’s time to stop painting a group with a wide brush and get close enough to see what those folks are actually like; you will never regret giving someone a chance, but you might forever regret carrying a fake grudge to your deathbed. Let’s refuse to buy into this horrid game. Let’s give each other the benefit of the doubt, some actual time. We’ll listen and connect and try to understand each other like the People of Mercy we supposedly are.
 
It could just be the most beautiful, holy thing we do.

Blogger rules

I'm not sure about the rules on blogging, but I tend to think a new post is necessary when a topic changes. Therefore, if I have a few minutes to spare to sit down at the computer and write, then I need to have different posts for different topics - kind of like paragraphs. (I needed a good transition from the "outdoor life" post I did three minutes ago.)

This post is my first Thanksgiving post of the week. I really hope I have more to share this week, and I hope they are as good as this one. 
This "find" is our best so far.  Count  your "blebbings." We do. 

There is a great old man in the market who has a shop with some beautiful paintings. He sells paintings, takes custom orders, frames anything, and offers art classes for children and adults. He is at least 85 and probably weighs the same. He is eternally smiling and always treats me like a friend (and you know I don't have very many in this place just yet), so he is top on my list here.  His English is spotty, alas the "blebbings," but he has a sweet assistant who is a few notches above spotty, so we communicate just fine. I think they are both holding out hope for my Cantonese lessons.

Outdoor life

Those pebble-looking objects on the trail are the people who paid to inflict pain upon themselves. Jeff ran this half-marathon (22k) yesterday, while the rest of us angels went to church and learned about Jesus! 

I find this picture funny because his face has a faint smile, but his body looks like it's revolting. He might say it's because he was soaking wet with sweat, but his gait the rest of the day said otherwise. Grueling was the word he used. 
The saddest part is that he had to get home via subway and taxi (the race was in the New Territories), which took almost two hours. I can't imagine the person who had to sit in the taxi after him. 

Prior to Jeff leaving for his race on Sunday morning, Forrest came stumbling in from a twenty-four hour event called Stop the Traffik (and still went to learn about Jesus with the rest of us). He worked for 24 hours straight with a first-aid team to attend to injuries during this crazy 24 hour race at The Peak here on HK Island. I've attached a short explanation from the coordinator.  The kids that raced did so for a full 24 hours, taking breaks every two hours or so. Forrest said it was to give emphasis to the grueling life of those who are in this horrible modern day slave trade.

Running to Stop the Traffik was not just about the race.  Students raised funds through their schools to help support the efforts of Freedom Matters.  Freedom Matters, started by Phillip Holmes, with its dedicated team has freed hundreds of Nepalese children trafficked into slavery at circuses, brothels, and labor companies and provides these children with opportunities for education, employment or service.  
"Running to Stop the Traffik 2013 "(24 Hour Race) happened this weekend at Lugard Road to raise funds and raise awareness to fight the scourge of human trafficking in Nepal and East India.  HKIS was well represented again this year. These students' herculean efforts over the past 8 months paid off with a smoothly run event and awareness heightened about the human slave trade. Forrest Holcombe served on the first aid team throughout the event.  Our school fielded two teams.
The event kicked off under the sunny skies at the Peak. M started off with a grueling pace of 12:45 for the 3.4 km Lugard Rd lap.  Despite a few injuries, HKIS went on to battle it out with West Island School and Island schools for first place.  Throughout the night, fierce competition continued between the boy teams of HKIS and Island School.  HKIS girls team dominated the race with 77 laps run and one of the female runners had a fastest lap time, after 22 hours of racing, of 13:42!!!  HKIS runners all pushed themselves to the limits and won the event with a total of 170 laps run! Island School closely followed with 168 laps.  

On to the casual lover of the outdoors, Ellis and Claire. They like a nice afternoon in the woods with a dog and a few trees and rocks, and they're happy. 

Ellis had his first scout campout last weekend. Did they sleep in tents? No, under the stars because it's mid-November. He took a sleeping bag, a tiny bowl, a fork, spoon, and water. There's not even a jacket in the skinny backpack. 

Do you remember how skinny this child is? And, you can't even see the backpack. 

Double deckers

It's hard to describe the incredibly narrow roads in HK.  And, oh my gosh, they are NARROW. On the way home from dentist today I realized the top of the double decker bus is the best place to capture the narrowness.
This video is entirely too long (6 minutes), but I couldn't cut it because of Claire's cute comment near the end about the bus swallowing the cars. Note the rubberband bracelet maker that is now going along to the dentist with us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocw2AGJul0g

Mail

It's the little things in life that make a kid's day!  Last week it was gum and letters and this week it's rubber bands and more letters! My sweet friend decided that my girls couldn't come back to the states and not know about rubberband bracelets. Jill knows a good mother, in good conscience, is not going to let any other mother allow her daughters off that plane with empty wrists! 

We made two bracelets before bedtime! I'm pretty sure the boys will be sporting these before long!

Thank you, Jill, and thank you, Janet, for brightening our day. 

Pay up

It finally happened! After a solid two weeks of driving, I hit another car!  I'm doing all the things I think I should be doing - staying in my lane, driving slowly, staying on the left side of the road, but I just can't judge that turn to the left while I sit on the right side of the car.  

This lovely van pictured below was in front of me as I was beginning to turn left into a parking garage (taking Ellis to a dentist appointment); and I thought he was going to continue to move forward while I turned left into the parking garage, but I just couldn't clear that bumper. I hardly felt the hit. Do you see the right side of his back bumper? It's dented - by me. 

Just after I hit his van, I continued to pull into the parking garage, but only to the edge of the entrance, so that I could get out and talk with the owner of the van. But, as soon as he saw me moving in the direction of the garage, he started screaming at me in Cantonese (my windows were down because it's only November here and we have at least one more month before I can comfortably wear jeans). This is when I am thankful I can understand essentially nothing in Cantonese.  He left his car in the middle of the road (traffic was really heavy, but he didn't care) and walked over to my car. I told him, via hand motions, I was going to pull into the parking garage and park my car to get out of anyone's way. He started screaming again and pointing toward his van as if he had run in to similar trouble with other drivers like myself, but I just pulled away from him and parked my car. Ellis and I walked out toward the entrance to the parking garage where we saw a guard, so I asked for his help and he told me he didn't want to get involved and I should call the police. Nice. I kept walking toward the man in the van, who was clearly about to blow his top. He pointed to someone sitting in his van and this sweet looking woman smiled at me.

Miracle of miracles, this woman sitting in the back of the van (who was only with this lunatic because she had hired him for the day to move some items from one flat to another) SPOKE ENGLISH!  She looked at me and said, "He would like for me to translate for him." Great, I'm thinking, I got lots to translate to him, as well.  So I'm standing in the middle of the road with traffic going right by me and this man keeps telling me that I hit his car, as if I didn't know this.  The woman said we should call the police, but I just didn't see a call to the police going in my direction, so I offered to pay the man what he thought it might cost to repair his van. The woman translated and the man said $2000 HKD would fix his bumper, which is about $250 USD. 

I told this crazy man to pull his car into the parking area and I would get the money. So, after twenty minutes of holding up traffic, he got in his car and pulled it into the parking deck. I gave him the money  and then took a picture of his car. He asked me (through the lady) why I was taking the picture and I said I would might call the police later. I have no idea why I said that, but it made me feel somewhat better about handing a strange man $2000HKD. 

There was one bright spot to this experience - Ellis. As we walked up to his dentist appointment, he commented on the man's anger over this small dent in his van. He said, "Mom, we were just talking at school about people getting so upset over things that just don't really matter in life." Thank you Ellis. 

Mail

Look at this beautiful cookbook written by a sweet friend from Atlanta.  More important, look at those conversions in the second picture!  Thank you, Judith, I am so in need of conversions! Our oven uses celsius, and the measurements are almost always milliliters or grams, so I am constantly having to use a conversion table. No super memories, or even mediocre memories in my kitchen.

Do, re mi

A few days ago we were invited to an Italian restaurant in HK to enjoy The Sound of Music. Asian, Italian, Austrian, American fest. 

When we started the journey to the restaurant, we had four children, but ten minutes into the drive, Forrest decided it was not a good idea to put aside homework for Julie Andrews karaoke. Sensible, but we were already on our way.  So, what does he suggest? "Dad, let me out at the next bus stop and I'll get home."  So, we casually say, "Do you have your octopus card? Great!" Screeching breaks. "Hop out, quickly. See you later." Did I ask him to call when he made it home? No. We hardly slowed down enough for him to make it out the door without dragging him down.  The remaining three happy clams readjusted themselves to take advantage of the extra space left by a growing fifteen year old and off we went. 

They really miss their brother.

So, we make it to the restaurant to meet our friends (yep, we have some) at a table near a stage and a large screen. It wasn't long until we noticed lovely people dressed in Lederhosen and Dirndl. An instant smile.  This was going to be fun. We ordered our pasta and bread, the big screen opened, and that ever-so-familiar tune began. The whole movie! We were going to watch the whole movie! 

It wasn't long until the first song comes along and the music began and the sing-along began. The words appeared on the screen just like in karaoke. You know, the words change colors as you need to sing them. We were all singing so loudly.  Watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-xSy0RTzmU

This is a long movie, so an intermission was necessary. And, because the singers and their guests had the restaurant for the evening, they could make this intermission whatever they pleased. After a round of fun Sound of Music trivia, the MC asked all those wishing to reveal their costumes to come on stage. And, because these people decided it was okay to take the stage, I figure they must be okay with being on my blog. 

After intermission, we all realized it was 9 pm and we had a good 45 minutes to get back to Stanley, so we ordered a quick tiramisu (because we can't seem to leave a restaurant without it if it's on the menu) and got up to leave. And, as if this evening wasn't wonderful enough, a fun group of girls with white coifs (napkins) on their heads (they didn't have costumes so had to create in a pinch) sang us out the door.  "So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night, I hate to go and leave this pretty sight . . . " 

Oh, to always be so joyful!

Praising Progress

In the past three years I have probably read a dozen books on brain development, neuroplasticity, and memory.  I started reading these books to better understand learning differences, but I have learned far more than what I anticipated.
One interesting topic I came across in my reading is the idea of "praising versus encouraging." Okay, that's not what it's really called, but that's how I see it in my pea-brain. The research suggests children are better served if we encourage progress instead of praising acheivement. Does that make sense? It was a lightbulb moment for me. If I praise the progress, then the child learns that the actual work toward a goal is just as important as the goal. I did this all wrong for so long and I can see the results in one or two of my sweeties.  I thought I was ecouraging progress, but I was pushing progress with a few nice words here and there.  I praised the end result far more than I praised the work leading up to.  I mentioned the work and tried to be honest about the work, but the emphasis was on the wrong end, apparently. So, when the achievement came, it was all about praising the goal that was met. So, I'm changing it up around here (as if I'm not always changing it up around here).

To add movement to my information, I filmed Claire working on a cartwheel.  She and Taylor have just started taking gymnastics (this information will become rather clear when you see the video).  We are praising progress.
I want to be just as excited about the progress of this cartwheel as I am when she masters this.  Her stature at the beginning of each "cartwheel" leads you to believe you are going to get mastery. Surprise.

Here's the youtube link:
http://youtu.be/LceAqRsfnQw

I'm for hire

I should hire myself out for things like this. I can't speak Cantonese or Mandarin, but if I can just get them over the hump. 
This was in an email I received today. Technically, the child would get the class accomplished if the parent can "accompany" the child to the class. 

FREE LESSON

  " Tiny Tot gymnastics class"

(For 3 to 4 years old children accomplished with one parent/guardian)

Reading Champion

While Claire didn't win the student representative for grade 2, she did win the reading award for the lower primary today.  She read 2,225 minutes for the month of October, and won a gift card to a book store.  I think Taylor was just as excited for Claire as Claire was for herself. I really shouldn't be surprised by her win because everytime I turn around I find her in a corner reading. She reads on the bus, on the MTR, and any free moment that she's not in school or watching The Brady Bunch (which definitely comes before reading for her).

And, because Jeff is Jeff, we had to have an ice cream to celebrate.

And Taylor got an ice cream for completing five days of Cogmed! Another celebration of hard work.

 

Why can't we just stick to potatoes?

I love shrimp. I do.  But, this is just too much. 

Of course, this doesn't come close to the waffle chicken potato chips I saw in the grocery store in Burnsville this summer. Nasty. 

Driving

I am impulsive, no matter how much I try to deny that fact, it is what it is.  I don't want to be impulsive, and I am doing things to move toward a life of less impulsivity, but I'm not there yet. So, when I said I didn't want to drive in HK, and I probably wouldn't ever drive in HK, those were impulsive statements. I admit this.

So, now, I not only want to drive, I think I want a small little car of my own sitting in one of our parking spaces. This all occurred in a rather impulsive moment. I just thought to myself, "why not just give it a shot and be prepared if I ever need to drive." So, we got the car back on Friday, and I got behind the wheel on Saturday.  I didn't go past Stanley, which means I didn't go into the "real" city, but I did have to maneuver the horribly small roads with zero shoulder on HK Island. Yuck! I screamed alot and I think I gave the girls a fright as I drove them to gymnastics (they were happy as clams to get out of the car and head to class).

Forrest took a video for proof.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v19HOWdB6sI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql7A2lE8-eQ

Bus reading

You have to visualize this "ad" (two sets of pictures) side-by-side, with one sticker on each bus seat in front of me.  I'm sitting on the bus and looking at this - but not reading it for obvious reasons to those monolinguals like myself - when I realize that I  must photograph this for the blog so that I can remember this for the future (because that's the real reason for this blog). 

The dog with his paw up to his mouth (in the second frame) is a great addition. 

I'm aware of the junior high nature in finding this humorous. But I do know my mom and sister will be laughing along with me on this one, but only after my sister graphically tells me of the worst case she's seen in the hospital, at which point I won't be able to laugh anymore. 

uses for chopsticks

Brilliant! I'm not sure if this was a customer's ingenuity or standard procedure. 

Halloween

We weren't sure about Halloween in HK, but once October hit, the candy and costumes started appearing, so we knew we had a candy coming! The neighborhood hosted a party Saturday night, which is where the first picture was taken (Forrest and Ellis were busy).  And, on the night of Halloween, the kids can go door to door from 7 until 9 trick-or-treating.  We were given a pumpkin sign to put on our door, which indicates we are participating in the candy fest. 

I thought it would be fun to go back to as many Halloweens as the iphoto has stored.  

 2013 - Anne Bonny and the Egyptian princess

2012 - Lady Jane Grey and the Egyptian princess (the first time).  Ellis is on the other side of two other children in this picture, but I cropped him out because I'm pretty sure it's bad blogging etiquette to include photos of children who are not my own.

2011 - I know it might be obvious, but Forrest is a professional ping pong player.

2010

2009 - I think I'm getting these dates right. I'm also noticing that we often do repeats on costumes. 

2008 - Breaking the rule on "other children on the blog." First of all, Anna (between Forrest and Claire) and Jennifer (between Claire and Ellis) are like our daughters (and to this day still call us mom and dad), so they don't count, and, second of all, the other two girls were exchange students who, I am certain, wouldn't mind being on this blog. 

Because we tend to be in costume so much around this family, I think it's only appropriate for this post to also dig into the characters who didn't appear at Halloween.

2Forrest as a revolutionary- 2007

2007 - Ellis and Taylor in the Ten Plagues play

 2008 - Ellis and Forrest 

 2009 - Claire would put that hat and those black 4" heels on and tell me to call her Lizzy (Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennett).