What have we been up to?

We have been back in the US for almost 2 months now. It is hard to believe how fast the time has flown. We have been enjoying ourselves despite missing Taiwan and our friends among other things. So what have we been doing?

We bought Lizzy a bike and she loves to ride it. This isn't the best picture of her, but do you notice how BLUE the sky is?

We have been reconnecting with old friends!!! We have missed you!

The cousins came to visit and we went to the aquarium

Lizzy was so tired at night she did this:

We reconnected with our friends the Ni's and had fun speaking out limited Chinese

We still play at the park all the time. We had one right out our back door at our temp housing:

We have been playing with Grandma and Grandpa

and last, but not least we have been doing a few things around town like the zoo

Go ahead, try and stop me

For the last couple of weeks, I have turned around to find James here

here

here

and here

I can't keep the kid from climbing on anything inside or outside. Some days I will hear him talking and sure enough he is on top of something and just not sure how to get down. Gotta love it!

Our own Little Mermaid

Since we have returned from Taiwan, we have been sorting through the stuff in our house. One item that we found much to Lizzy's joy was a copy of the movie, The Little Mermaid. Lizzy knows who all the Disney princesses are, but has never actually seen the movies. She has now watched the little mermaid at least 100 times in the last 5 days (OK I am exaggerating). Lizzy also loves to sing so this is what we get to listen to all day and night and even in restaurants (shhh! please keep your voice down)

Our Journey home and where we are going...

Did you know that my kids are the best travelers in the world? It helps that we have dragged them around a lot. One of Lizzy's favorite forms of transportation is airplanes. On February 8th, we gathered our 6 boxes, 6 suitcases, 2 strollers, 2 car seats, and 5 carry-on bags and headed to the Taipei airport for a plane bound found Korea and then Seattle. Adam's project with Boeing was complete. We loved our 2 1/2 years in Taiwan, but were also excited to return home to family, friends and conveniences.


My kids enjoyed the business class accommodations. At one point Liz was sleeping so soundly that even James jumping on her did not wake her.

You can see the video here: James Climbing on his sleepy sister

Here we are getting ready to go through customs at the Seattle Airport. We were only stopped by 6 security guards asking us what was in all the boxes. Everything made it except for one box and one suitcase. We thought that was pretty good considering we had to switch planes in Korea and only ha 30 minutes to do it.

What is in store for our family now? We are moving into corporate housing in Bothell for the next month near our house so Adam can do some training on the 787 project. March 15th we are slated to move to Charleston South Carolina for 6 months or more. We hear that it is beautiful and people love it there. Should be a great experience and a fun adventure. Right now we are loving being near family and friends and reconnecting. The kids can't get enough of the grandparents!

Last night in Taiwan

Our last night in Taiwan, Feb 7th, our friends threw us a going away party. It was sweet and sad. It was great to be around the people that we have loved to be with for the last 2 1/2 years, but hard to say goodbye. Lizzy had a lot of fun playing with her friends, but after she had hugged the last one goodbye and they went out the door she broke down crying and told me that she didn't want to go to America. It made me super sad to see her so sad. It was hard for me to say goodbye to our friends as well and hopefully our paths will cross again. Here are some of the people that we love (for those of you not pictured sorry we didn't get a picture)

James, Adam, Liz, Kay, Nicole, Jaydn, & Cody

Erin and Kay

Lucas and Lizzy

Ben making his fried rice

Lucas, Aly and Lizzy

Sadie and James

Adam and Shaun

Kay and Lori

James, Adam, Ben and Sally

Levi, Camille and Sydney

Sidney, Bishop, Levi, Carrie, Quinn. Second Row Reid, Kay, Liz, James, Adam. Front: Aidan

Bali, Indonesia

We decided to take one last vacation before leaving Taiwan to move back to the US. We chose to go to Bali as we had heard lots of great things about it and we could get a direct flight. Lizzy fell in love with the resort when we arrived and we were greeted by dancers. Every time she saw them she would ask them to dance for her and they would comply and give her a flower.


We loved the resort to and planted ourselves in a "pod" on the beach everyday.



We relaxed, buried each other in the sand, built sand castles, swam in the ocean, people watched, and bartered for souvenirs. It was a great beach for kids as the water was really calm, fairly shallow and the sand was soft. Once a day the tide would go out. We took advantage of it and walked out to see starfish, sea enenemies and other sea life.

We also enjoyed the pool. Liz loved jumping into the water and swimming to her "house" which was located under a bridge. James also loved the water and could not wait to get into it everyday. He loved the kiddie pool where he didn't need to be in his floatie all the time. A 10 minute walk from the resort was a little town in the Nusa Dua area that had shopping and a lot of restaurants and cheap massages. Adam and I took turns after dinner while the other one took the kids back to the hotel to go to bed.

(our favorite part of this picture is the guy in the background stripping down to his speedo)

Our fourth day in Bali we rented a car and driver to take us around the island. It was beautiful. It was very green and lush. We checked out Ubud which is famous for painting, stopped at the most beautiful rice terraces I have ever seen (Tegalalong), checked out a place where they grew every type of spice, and had lunch overlooking a volcano. Our plan for the afternoon was to see a temple and other stuff, but the heavens decided to open and it poured and poured. It was raining so hard that you could see newly formed rivers running down the hills and some of the roads became flooded. Needless to say, we skipped the temple and just saw a handicraft center where they gave demonstrations on how to make these beautiful pictures with wax and showed us how they used a loom to weave their own cloth.

Besides that, the only other time we left the resort was to see a turtle farm and go on a glass bottom boat.

We loved our trip. It was so relaxing and we had so much fun with our kids. When can we go back?

To see a full set of photos from the trip click here: Bali Slideshow

James Starts Solids

James turns 6 months old this week. It is hard to believe that my baby is getting so big! This past week he decided he wanted to eat almost every 2 hours which is too often for me so we started solids. His first feeding of rice cereal was as expected--just not sure what to think! He now eats rice cereal and bananas and love it. Sometimes we even have to make him a second bowel, now what to feed him next? James also can sit-up all by himself. I swear he went from being wobbly to a solid sitter in 3 days. He loves seeing what is going on around him and has already figured out how to spin himself around in the exersaucer. He also can roll over. He did learn to roll from front to back first, but now he will only roll back to front and then get mad after a minute or so. I tell him to roll over, but he doesn't. He loves Lizzy and will laugh for her more than anyone. He will give out smiles to anyone who talks to him though. We are lucky that he is such a good baby! P.S. I know you are all waiting to hear about our trip to China. I promise, it is coming soon!!! I just have to find time to blog...