Pandas

What is black, white and cute all over? Pandas of course!

We recently had the chance to see these cute animals. We have probably 200+ pictures of them so I just chose a few so you wouldn't grow bored.  When we were first there they were just eating their lunch, but just after they were pretty active.

Jared and me with some Pandas

Now this was a fun panda to watch, we even have some video of him (or her...we don't know which).  We watched him begin to climb up this swing then onto one of the branches. Once he finally got onto the branch he didn't know what to do or thought it was uncomfortable, but we saw him on his journey back down which was filled mostly with us being amazed at how strong this animal is. We got scared a few times he would fall, he didn't until the very end.

A sleeping panda. If I were  to do this I would have major back and neck problems.

It's Christmas time in the City!

Christmas is upon us! Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I am still wrapping presents, as I am sure many of you are also doing. We have some big plans for our Christmas here. Christmas Eve we will have a mexican fiesta with tacos and fajitas. Jared has put together a lessons and carols for us, I am looking forward to that! Then Christmas morning we will all get together for a big breakfast and open our secret santa gifts.

We try to make it feel like Christmas by playing some good music, we have also been celebrating advent together these past four weeks. However, in our city and even out here where we live the environment is not filled with lights, decorations, or the excitement you can feel from others at this time of year.

Yesterday, Jared and I had a date night in the city and found a few spots that were lit up with Christmas Cheer! Here are some of the pictures.

And today it snowed! (This took 3 days to finish so the top part was written before 2 days before Christmas, now it is 2 days after Christmas!)I know for many of you it was a white Christmas, but well ours came 2 days too late! We are staying in tonight to stay safe and warm from the below freezing weather.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Muffins!

Recently we have had some Christmas parties. Christmas parties are always fun and over here it is a great time to tell about the true meaning of Christmas. We just love it, but are so busy because of it. So it has literally been since Thanksgiving since I have posted...very sorry. It's just a busy time for everyone no matter where on this planet you live!

At these parties we received many many new funny gifts. I received a lot of good luck bracelets, Jared received a hilarious coffee cup...I must take pictures and post about that one! But we also received a lot of fruit, I mean a lot! We received more than 10 pounds of bananas, probably over 15 pounds. Anyway, there they are sitting on the floor, still in the bag, of our kitchen. We have eaten 8 of them but there are 15 still left and they are now to the point where I don't like to eat them anymore! yuck! So, this afternoon while procrastinating preparing my oral language speech to give in the morning I began making banana muffins!

Sorry for the sideways-ness of the picture, but they are muffins who cares!

This is wonderful because we are now out of the granola bars and pop tarts we brought with us here and this makes a super easy breakfast! I have only made one batch but I should soon have around 60 muffins I can enjoy.  I think this is a much better choice than nasty mushy bananas.

Turkey and some friends!

Happy Thanksgiving.....a week late!

I finally got some pictures from some of our friends who celebrated Thanksgiving on this side of the world with us so I can give you a great update.  A lot of friends and family ask how we celebrate while we are over here so I thought I would give everyone a glimpse into our Holiday festivities.

Wednesday night the girls got together to prepare some of our deserts and make preparations for the side dishes that would be made the next day.  I made an apple pie and pumpkin pie.....from scratch! Pie crust can be a pretty difficult thing to make but I had some great help from the other girls and they were done in no time at all! They turned out flakey and delicious.

We had quite a feast of mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, dressing, gravy, rolls, green bean casserole, corn casserole, deviled eggs, and of course turkey!  For dessert there were my pies of course plus chocolate pie, and wonderful pumpkin bars.  I am getting hungry again just thinking about the delicious food we ate that day...and the next.

We can easily get all the ingredients...for a pretty penny. What takes the cake here though is the turkey. I have never talked to a person here that has ever eaten a turkey before! Needless to say turkeys are rare to find and you have to plan pretty far in advance to reserve one at a specialty store or western hotel. We got our turkey for the low price of $117!  When I talked to my mom on the phone she said she got her turkey for free, and I am pretty sure ours was 1/2 the size!

After the big meal we watched Elf and Home Alone to get us in the Christmas Spirit. We played some games Mofia and Mexican Train (all the way from 12 down to 0).  It was quite late when we finally got home.

Since our mornings are your evenings we watched the A&M vs. t.u. game on Friday morning.  We stayed up late and had to get up a bit early to watch the game but I think it was well worth it. The best game of the season, even if we didn't win. I am proud of our Ags they put up a great fight! Plus we just ran out of time!

I hope your Thanksgiving Day was a wonderful one where ever you were. Now on to Christmas!

Now that's a pair of Asian shoes!

Well, as you may have known or inferred from the title, this blog is not about literal shoes but a play on our name. However, that all changes today.  I was filled with great joy today when my friend called me and asked me to meet her at the library. I love seeing this friend but I could tell by her message there was going to be something special about this meeting.  She told me she had traveled home the previous weekend and while she was there she bought me some shoes....Asian Shoes! Now I really have a pair of Asian Shoes. I was so thrilled about it I knew I just had to tell the blogging world about this day.

So here I am with these cool new shoes. They are a little small but wearable.  So, I haven't updated since our trip to Macau and HK. A lot has been going on but nothing to write about here! :) We had a busy, but great week and now we are getting ready for Thanksgiving, then Christmas is right around the corner!  There will be plenty to post about soon so I will try to post as much as I can.

Macau & Hong Kong

Oh boy, I have no idea where to begin. Well, lets just see where this takes us!

Jared and I recently returned from a trip to Macau and Hong Kong. We went to see some good friends and at the same time got to see some really cool places. I will start us off in Macau. What do you know about Macau? Anything? How about that they are the gambling capital of the world....we are talking way more money than Vegas is spent in this place. Really, my heart just breaks for the people there just throwing their money away, because that is all they are doing. The tourists there are not interested in entertainment, shows, and good food. They are strictly there to gamble. It is quiet at the tables and slot machines, almost too quiet!

The casinos do try to offer entertainment and glamorous buildings, like the Venetian, and so we took them up on that. We went to see a Cirque Du Soleil performance. If you have the chance to see a show take that chance. I am still not quite sure what the plot was but it was entertaining and amazing to see the accrobats!

We also got to see some great landmarks around Macau here are some pictures:

We also took some time to go over to Hong Kong...I mean we were so close that we just couldn't pass up the opportunity!

 In Hong Kong, we went to eat at a restaurant called "Modern Toilet". The whole restaurant has a bathroom theme. You sit on a toilet seat for your chair, eat your food out of a miniature (clean) toilet bowl or bathtub. Let me say again...CLEAN!  We also ate ice cream in the shape of well... you can see the picture.

It was quite an entertaining experience and gave us some hilarious photo opportunities, a plus was that the food was actually pretty tasty.

We also took a tram up to the top of Victoria Peak and saw some amazing views from the top. I hope that at some other time we can make it back there to go up during the daytime also.  After that we grabbed a late dinner at Outback! Mmmmm steak! We don't get to eat that too often here and the beef just isn't as good.

In the morning we went to see Noah's Ark. Different organizations in Hong Kong got together to make a reconstruction of the Ark to the exact dimensions. It was pretty neat to see but definitely focused more towards the children who were there. It was ok though...I still got to see the Ark!

We ventured back to Macau with our friends and headed back to our home. It was a great trip, we literally did as much as we could in the few days we were there and enjoyed every minute of it. Now we are trying to get back to our normal routines and gain back some much needed rest. Sorry this is a little long but I hope you fell well updated on our travels.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is anticipated by children and adults all around the world. Ok, well here maybe just by the expats. Last year we had a great time dressing up, going out to eat, carving watermelons (yes that is correct), eating candy and having a dance party!

This Halloween we went for something a bit different. We were so blessed to be visited by some friends from another city who brought their kids so we headed downtown for a meal and bowling! The place we went has awesome burgers and pizzas...mmmm what a treat!

This year I hand sewed costumes for Jared and I, and thanks to a suggestion from a friend we decided to be pirates!

Here we are at the restaurant being pirates. Jared got the red and black fabric for us from the market and I  sewed his black shorts and our vests. The red we just tied on and we work Jared's white shirts. It took a while to do since we don't have a sewing machine here and it was my first attempt at sewing in a REALLY long time, but it turned out great!  I had been checking out homemade pirate costume ideas on the internet for a while and most of them say...cut up your sweatpants, or make a vest out of a black shirt you have...well you know what, I just can't do that here. If I cut up my sweatpants I can't go to walmart and buy a new pair or go buy a cheap plain black t-shirt... so sewing it was!  I feel very accomplished. Some other friends took pictures of us too so hopefully we an exchange them soon and I can get some better pictures of us and the other friends who were there. We were a wild group! Here are a few others:

Here is Jen P. with Jared. All of the girls dressed up as the guys here. She was lucky enough to be Jared.  I helped to sneak his clothes to her.

We even had Superman and Clark Kent show up at our party!