suitcases, a roof & some sweepin

our couch was replaced with suitcases!

oops this one didn't have enough in it for my adventure

i went to my friend's family's house for some good food and fun- i liked daddy pushing me around on this bike

and me and YiRan had a good time playing in the water

(sorry not a face shot- maybe we'll get one later from his mommy)

& i've been practicing my sweeping and mopping skills these days

here is a little peak

here, mommy and daddy made it smaller for me

& i thought about taking a break but it was too tempting

a wonderful time at some special friends

i love this dog, it was so nice to me! I even learned how to say it's name, "Doo Doo"
They gave me a pig tail to eat. Mommy asked, "Ugh, can he eat it?" They said, "Yeah, it's good." But, i really didn't know what to do with it.

I just played with it for awhile kinda confused.

I mean what would you do with a cooked pigs tail?

This is a picture of all our delicious food. This family cooks our absolute favorite local home cooked food. We are gonna miss this food so much!

For some entertainment (after Doo Doo got tired of me and my squeaky shoes) I played with these fruity balls for like an hour- they sure were entertaining!

this is a very full me, mommy and daddy

and these are my friends that cooked us such a fabulous meal

Happy 3rd Birthday Hosanna!

This is Hosanna! Some of our pics are not too great but we know that some of you out there really love Hosanna and want to see her bday bash, so here you go! It is such a miracle that she is a happy 3 year old! WE are sooo thankful to know her!

this is about the most excited i got :)

I got front row seating!

and i ate a little banana pudding and cake but mostly i was into CHIPS!

here is me eating some CHIPS! and um...i was a little hot :)

it is either hot or cold where we live so today it decided to be hot :)

and this is Hosanna opening what i got her- a pretty dress- actually mommy picked it out but we can't wait to see how pretty she'll look in it!

We love you Hosanna! And we will miss you!

what do i do other than eat? i eat some more!

yummy Popsicles

this is my friend Whinney- she cooked dinner for us and it was sooo good! of course she didn't make me wait like everybody else to eat! she loves me!

& after dinner we played and played!

southern food, mud & majiang

the first picture is me eating lots of yummy southern food: broccoli casserole, biscuits, corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, fried chicken, pinto beans & strawberry shortcake- a super duper foreign lady had us over for dinner!

these pics are of a very muddy, messy jo- it rained for 6 days, then the sun came out and we decided to go play in the dirt but then the puddles were too irresistible

so this is what i ended up with for the last part of my play time- just a diaper and some muddy socks and shoes

this is my friend from the Light Store

he is 4 months older than me

our families had dinner together and he was teaching me how to play majiang

enjoying the NEW indoor playground on yet another rainy day

Big News: We have a NEW indoor playground! Yippee! Just opened this week so of course, I had to go check it out (since it rained everyday! )

they have this huge sandbox (never before in my town! amazing!)

and real sand toys, which i've never seen, but i enjoyed very much

& of course a slide that i enjoyed (with the help of my friend JOY)
& this fun swing!

me and JOY after a long hard day!

a short video of me having some giggle fun :)

not a very adventurous picture for an adventurous day

this post will mostly be words, sorry...but i thought i should document this kind of day for all those out there who want a cultural taste and for memory sake- so...one of my friends' mom and dad invited us to join some festivities their family was having in their home village. i like to hang out with this friend (he is in a recent post in my tent) and so we thought this could be a "good family" trip...so, daddy packs me on his back and he carries all my stuff too, we walk a half mile to meet our friends. Then, we play at their apartment for a half hour, then we catch a taxi across town (i did great at this point on daddy's back) but then we got across town and there was maybe 200 pounds of food sitting on the sidewalk that we hung out with (me on daddy's back in the rain) for one hour, then finally the food pick up guy came, we walked just 10 minutes to the public transportation bus to the village. at this point i finally got to get off daddy's back and play standing on the dirty bus ride for 1 hour.

Then we arrive, YES we think, in the village- but we just hang out at this little shop. We are there for maybe 1 1/2 hours and i'm getting very hungry and tired. Luckily, it is cultural to feed children so the shop owner fed me some lunch and daddy chased me a lot running up and down the village road in the rain. After 1 1/2 hours the vehicle finally picked us up to go to my friend's family's house- But, instead of going straight to their home, we stopped at some shack where they worked on the vehicle for over 1 hour. OK, at this point I am really tired...I have missed my whole nap and this is Alot of waiting for me! So, while the car is getting worked on, a village lady invited me over to wash clothes by hand with her. I didn't really understand what she was doing but it was fun playing in the water and I also chased a horse and carriage for about 10 minutes and then i just ran up and down the village main road and played inside the car...OK, so now it has been over 5 hours of just sitting and waiting and well, running around on roads for me...and half of this time i have screamed a bit too...well, we finally hit the "off-roading" section of the trip- we were glad we had some vehicle maintenance done at this time (and now we have 9 people in a 5 seating vehicle)- for a good 10 minutes i scream and finally fall asleep (at the time my nap normally ends)- we go through a small waterfall and up up up a steep slope and it is really muddy, so muddy in fact a big truck is STUCk in the mud preventing us from going All the way to the house so mommy and daddy have to carry me the rest of the way, except the mud is too bad so we have to climb through some rice fields and then there was a creek- our friends jumped across, daddy tried to stand in the middle (while a friend held me sleeping) to help mommy across but the baby inside wouldn't allow her to make it and seeing that even if we made it all the way to our friend's house after 6 plus hours, leaving the next day would be almost impossible because it was calling for more rain and we'd have to hike back down over the creek on our own and possibly all the way down through the steep parts and waterfall...unless we took a motorcycle but that would be a bit dangerous on this terrain with me, no helmet and pregnant mommy sooooo....as i slept we went back down the rice field, back into the vehicle, back down the "off-road" through the waterfall to the public transport bus to the taxi to our house...we put in a full day for not a lot of result, huh? Well, again, this is just so you know all my excitement i did experience but failed to capture on camera and for my memory sake. Love to all who took time to read this!