Past UPDATE: Elli turned 2 & Fun with Aunt Jenny and Friends

Elliana's birthday! 

Our little Elli loves princesses and she loves helping me cook.  So I thought, why not let making the cupcakes be a special part of her birthday.  We had such a fun time making them and then we invited over Tyson and Diana and some of our favorite cousins: Alexis, Logan, and Sawyer.  

We all had a great time decorating and especially eating our purpled icing cupcakes with sprinkles.  Elli pulled out her hair ties so she looks quite disheveled but she is happy, and for a two year old, that's enough.

Sawyer didn't want icing on his- funny boy!    Alexis enjoyed her icing thouroughly.

Thanks for sharing our birthday fun guys!

Jenny came into town that night, and it was so fun to have her here.  She brought fun gifts from her and  my parents.  She was pretty excited about her new microwave and pretend food to cook and play with. She got some great books from Jenny too which have now started to be some of her favorites!

Jenny stayed for the week and was so awesome to help me with some packing and organizing since we were putting our house on the market.  We did get to do a few fun things though.  

Todd watched the girls for half the day and night so Jenny and I could spend some time downtown seeing the sites and monuments.  We ended the night at the International spy museum doing this cool interactive mission.  It was lots of fun: Patriotic singing as we walk toward Lincoln ring a bell Jenny?

Museums!

Video game exhibit

 Monuments! (The new Martin Luther King Monument)

Whitehouse!

                                                  

We also took Jenny to the Reston Zoo where we got to feed baby lambs, and big sheep. 

Next,  we went on a wagon tractor ride. Elli introduced Jenny to this Eland Antelope who really wanted their food pellets.

They both were laughing so much as the antelope was really going for those pellets and/or Jenny.

 Elli was pretty brave about putting her hand up to feed the animals.  Jenny not so much.

We saw the watusi from a distance this time, but on our last trip to the zoo, they came right up to the wagon too.  Watusi are pretty much huge wild cows and their horns can span 6-10 feet and actually regulate their body temperature in the heat.

 Ostrich pecking at the cup, beware of your fingers getting anywhere near his aggressive beak!

Feeding llamas- so fun!

And little Sienna just taking it all in.

It was so nice to spend some extra time with Jenny.  I felt very grateful that she would take time to come and visit us and even help out so much.  I love you Jenny! 

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While we are talking about the reston zoo, here are some pictures from our last visit to the reston zoo with our good friends Hailey and Eliza Cuddeback.  I'm a big fan of their mom too. :)  

It was Elli's actual birthday this day.

Forever Best friends- Elli just loved holding both of their hands. 

 Elli still talks about them periodically and says she want to go play with Ailey and Iza.

 And since I have no post really for these other pics- they seem to fit well enough here...

D.C. Zoo Visit : this huge gorilla was fascinating to watch because he was really active.  When he bounded across the who perserve area in seconds it was quite intimidating.

Love our D.C. Panda

K that's it for now!

Sweet Elli Singing and Elli Rocking out!

So, I just figured out how to put videos on here FINALLY!  Now I am super excited to share a few adorable ones of Elliana singing sweet songs, fun songs, and rocking out!  Take special note of how she kicks up one leg to really get into the guitar playing!  Every night before bed, we always sing songs with her and she usually sings along so well.  I love it so much and it is usually so sweet how she cuddles and often strokes MY hair as we sing together.  I wanted to video it, but she insisted on watching herself as I filmed her and sometimes you can definitely tell she is more interested in watching herself and her mouth move then actually singing.  Oh well-- this is the best you will get unless you come visit us here in Taiwan.

Pottery, BBQ, and My Birthday?

         Yingge is a little town near the outskirts of Taipei where they are famous for their pottery. It is a cute town full of personality, but one look at the store above (one of the many like this there) and I can understand why I was told not to bring a toddler.  I can see the image now: pretty purple bowl on eye level with 2 year old Elli; bowls above purple bowl all smashing and toppling to the ground as impulsive Elli runs off with now infamous purple bowl. 

         Back to reality-- thank goodness.  A group of women in my ward were all going there on Sept 21 (my b-day) and invited me along.   One of my friends, Erin, who has a helper everyday, said Elli could stay and play with her son Anders while we went there for the morning.  

Here are some of the things I fell in love with:

Block statues of martial arts/ taichi, and an engraving of chinese characters in the back

 

Little owls-- so adorable

These Chinese dragon puppets- I need to buy some someday soon

 I want to buy a tea set before we leave- these are way more expensive than I would get, 

but they were so awesome that I had to take pics

 My favorite:

 I took this picture because I loved the vase but right after taking the picture I got chased out of the shop by the owner.  Apparently, taking pics of the pottery is a no-no in some shops.  They are worried you will steal their designs and make the same piece yourself.  I think that was a logical fear with me, since my pottery skills are beyond compare.  Pretty sure I can make the vase below in a few hours, no problem, since I have the picture to copy it of course.  ;)

 Sienna was a great  pottery shopper.  She fell asleep too which was really considerate of her.

 Here are some of the women that went along with us and who have befriended me in our expat English speaking church ward.  They are all terrific ladies who I am really enjoying getting to know.

  Here is what I ended up buying: chopstick holders (to rest your chopsticks on during dinner), and chopsticks! The day we went was my birthday, so Brandy and Erin bought me that cool swirly bowl I was eyeing but wasn't sure if I wanted to buy yet.  I can be really indecisive.  They surprised me with it later!  So nice of them.  Next time we go, (now that I know what to expect and prepare for) I want to buy lots more!

That night: we went out to eat with a group of people in our community and from AIT, the "embassy" here.   My friend Sarah had organized it so we could all try this awesome BBQ place about a 15 min. walk from our house!!  I had a really good pulled pork bbq sandwhich in TAIWAN!  Awesome huh!  It was a great dinner and nice to go out on my birthday.

Note:  It would have been even nicer if Todd had decided to even mention to anyone there that it was my birthday.  Or if I didn't have to remind him that morning after we had both been up for a while that it was my birthday.  Or if he had thought, I know we already celebrated Heather's birthday in Virginia before we left, but I am sure Heather might like some flowers because you only turn 30 once- and since flowers are easy to get and fairly inexpensive here.  But he didn't.  I still had gotten to do some great things that day, which made things better, but when we got home and I sat on the couch and Todd said "let's clean up the house before we rest okay" I let him have it, kind of gently (but not really).

FYI to Husbands: Even if you celebrate your wife's birthday early, it doesn't mean that you can act like her actual birthday is just an ordinary day- especially if it is her 30th!

To Todd's credit, before we left VA, Todd and Kenny did throw a birthday bash for me and Nichole. They made it really fun with great BBQ (funny just realized that connection) and games with our good friends which was totally awesome.  We had it in our house that we had already moved our stuff out of, so everyone just brought camping chairs!  It was so fun. 

 Here are those pics since I haven't had a chance to post them yet: 

Birthday Girls

Masterminds

Friends!!!

Looking at these pictures makes me homesick a bit.  I will always be so grateful for such amazing friends in our lives.  I love you guys tons and miss you all a lot!

Play Place Palace

Yo Yo Kids

One of the first places we discovered when we moved here was this awesome play area in a ritzy Japanese mall named Mitsokoshi.  It is called Yo Yo kids and is full of unique play areas that I have never seen in the states.  I was sad that we wouldn't be near it anymore when we left for our permanent housing in an area much further away.  To my and especially Elli's delight, there was another similar type play place in the best version of a "Walmart" type store that Taiwan has to offer.  It does cost $3 US to play so we only do it for a special treat, but Elli loves it!!  I took a couple videos of the two places and a little of the girls.  

              As a tangent- Our helper Alile is in the second video (she is not the Taiwanese woman who took Sienna from me in the first one, although she was nice too.  Taiwanese women and men love to hold Sienna and play with Elli, and some of the time I let them.  :)  Alile (pronounced Ah-lay-lee) comes twice during the week in the morning and 8 hours on Saturday and is so great with the girls.  She watches them for me on Thursday mornings so I can go to my Chinese class and on Tuesday so I can go and do a few things that are really difficult to do with kids here in Taipei.  She mostly cooks and cleans on Saturdays or watches the girls after they are asleep so Todd and I can go out.  Since we have no car, and we live far from most people, getting a teen babysitter from our ward is almost impossible!  Elli has adjusted pretty well to Alile although when Alile and I are both around she often spurns Alile and says "No" to her about a million times.  Multiple timeouts are not uncommon during those times, although she is getting better.  Alile says Elli behaves really well when I am not around, which is really good, but frustrates me that she can't be like that when I am there!  Nevertheless, Alile makes our lives here a lot easier than it would have been, especially since Todd has been really busy with work.   I am very grateful.

Excursions and Fun Food and ADVICE

Things have been pretty busy for us in our new home here in the DaZhi part of Taipei.  Todd has been hard at work, and the girls and I have been trying to explore this new area and do some fun things along the way.  On Saturdays, we have been able to enjoy exploring things together! Be sure to check out my important advice at the end too.  

Excursion #1  On the first Saturday we moved into DaZhi, we decided to explore a butterfly walk that Elli and I had stumbled upon but been unable to hike without some Daddy help.  It had a placard at the beginning of the hike touting the beauties and the great butterflies you can see.   We enjoyed the trees and the greenery, but the water areas and parts of the path were not really well maintained, but well maintained for Taiwan so that's something!  And in fact, taiwan is a fairly clean city as far as big cities go.   We did get to see a great view of our area of Taipei at the top of hike.   Elli enjoyed watching the roaming homeless dogs which were plentiful; however, we only spotted one butterfly.  Guess we should figure out when butterfly season is in and dog season out!

Sienna slept pretty much the whole time!

There were a ton of stairs and so Elli was pretty tuckered out by the time we got to the top.

In the picture below, our apartment is directly behind Todd in the first line of buildings you can see.  The picture doesn't do it justice because we forgot our camera and had to take pics via iphone. 

On the way down, Elli only wanted Mommy so here I am holding both girls- no sweat! (Actually, I was sweating a lot by the end!)  This is in front of a temple on the way down.  

These types of Buddhist temples are everywhere and it amazes me how ornate so many of them are. 

Excursion #2  The next Saturday, we took an excursion to the north end of Taipei to a part of the city known as Bali ... nw Danshui.  Not Bali, Indonesia, but a very nice area nonetheless.  I will tell you what was not nice though-- the two and a half hours it took us to get there via metro rail, ferry, and walking.  We were actually going there to help with a service project with our ward to clean up the area, but we severely underestimated the time to get there.  By the time we got there, the service project was over, we were all hot and sweaty, and Elli was pretty tired.  She was a trooper though and did get a second wind (after a few tantrums of course).

It was a gorgeous area and they have a carnival type feel all along the water front.  They also had an awesome street with tons of vendors with interesting things to buy and eat.  Todd thought we were just going to a service project and didn't bring any extra spending money, silly boy.  He said he would bring the money for this outing, and I mistakenly assumed he would know by now that a woman must always be ready to shop, but he barely brought enough for us to get home.  We look forward to going again when we have a car to take us there more speedily and money to enjoy the street.   Just be grateful we didn't test out how to get to Bali with any of you visiting.

Even though we missed the service project, we did enjoy the service project lunch.  There are probably upwards of 2000 members of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints here in the Taipei area and almost 200 expats in the English speaking ward.  The turn out was fairly decent considering the location was far away.  The lunch was really good too and had so many courses that we were all stuffed by the end.

The stake president, President Liang, made sure that all the English ward members could sit together because we apparently were given less unique seafood dishes and more sweet and sour pork and the like.  Very considerate.

Our table didn't even touch this fish, since we were all so full by the other 7 courses of beef noodles, sweet pork, rice and soup, chicken, cabbage salad, mongolian beef, and shrimp.  We were there for over an hour and a half eating and we all had to get going.  As we were leaving, a woman from another table put our fish into a plastic bag to take home.  Many other tables were doing the same.  I was definitely okay with her taking it, since a whole fish in a bag with me for two hours on the way home did not sound pleasant at all.  And to be honest, I am still having a hard time finding a whole fish pleasant sounding to my palate in any circumstance.

Elli was sitting under the table for quite a while, which I realize wasn't the best, but she had had no nap and I was just happy that she seemed content down there.  I realized afterwards she was so content because she had found the roll-on sunscreen and had completely covered her face in it!  Well at least she didn't eat it-- I don't think.

Excursion #3-  This excursion I did solo.  I got a little lost on my way back from going to my Chinese class downtown and ended up in this nice big street market with tons of vendors.  I really enjoy these areas with all the unique foods and handicrafts on display.  On markets such as these, you can find diverse things from a sewing shop to an overly zealous umbrella salesman, to coagulated pig's blood for soups to live chickens in cages ready for the slaughter!  I had a great time especially because I was kidless and was able to look at everything without worrying what Elliana might be touching.  

CHICKEN FEET-  YUM!!!  These are a delicacy here.

Not sure what that hangy fat thing is- looks appetizing.

One IMPORTANT side note: I have 6 reasons why you should not buy and eat food from random street vendors if you don't know what you bought, even if you are really hungry.  

1. First off, in those situations, your body might have a certain sudden reaction to the street food, the speed of which might leave precious little time to find a restroom.  This could hit at any moment, such as shopping in a little toy store.

2. Second, because you are desperate to find a bathroom, you might have to mime the act of using a toilet to the toy store clerk because you can't find their restroom and because you don't have time to find the Chinese word for bathroom in your iphone (miming this is not a pretty picture).   This can be especially awkward if after your first miming attempt, the store clerk takes you to the section of training potties for toddlers.

3.Third, the bathroom that you finally make it to will probably be a sketchy, one-room bathroom where the trashcan is full of used toilet paper.  

4. Fourth, before you do your business, you might not notice that there is no toilet paper left in the bathroom.  This leads to some forced, and unpleasant, innovating.

5. Fifth, as you leave the store hastily, you might quickly purchase the toy you had your eye on before without looking closely at the price and calculating the cost in US dollars.

6.  Lastly, half a block away after leaving the store, you might realize you spent $23 on a random squeaky baby giraffe toy that looks like a dog chew toy.

Not that I know this by personal experience or anything...

With that last bit of advice- I will leave you to your thoughts of markets and butterfly hills and ocean views and... baby giraffe toys.