A tale of two Sundays

Our last trip to Minnesota reminded us how yucky Minnesota winters can be. We finally got to enjoy one wonderful afternoon in the snow on Valentine's day. Kate was quite the trooper and went down the hill with me right away. Come to think of it, I guess I didn't give her much choice, but she seemed to think it was a good idea anyway.Keanu watched us a half a dozen times before he finally agreed to try with me and soon he was keen to go down the hill all by himself. He loved it and still asks where the snow is now.

While Keanu was sliding, Kate was busy toddling along the sidewalk in her boots that were 2-sizes too big! Whenever she sees this video, she always says "ah-boom" in preparation for her fall on camera. That's actually more fun than the video!

And then we returned to Taiwan...

We froze for the first couple of days and then last Sunday was a gorgeous day that called us out to the park with friends. Keanu and Kate both LOVED the toys that Kelly and Ian brought to the park and didn't play with.

Like the scooter...

And the matching bike helmet that Keanu wore while playing basketball with their fishing net (a.k.a.LaCrosse basketball)...

Two great Sundays, but hard to believe they're only a week apart!

Life on the 'farm'

OK, so I'm finally getting a chance to get some pictures up here from our trip to America.

Although Grandma and Grandpa aren't actively farming anymore and the only animals they have are a couple of cats (who had kittens while we were there), Keanu still had a great time enjoying the great outdoors of their Minnesota farm. In these pictures you'll see how much the corn grew in 3 weeks and how Keanu helped with some of the chores. Several times a day he decided he had to feed the cats and water the flowers. One day Del Monte was harvesting the neighbor's peas, so we got a small bucket of fresh peas off the truck and Keanu helped wash all of the peas. (It only took an hour!) He also helped with the dandelion population by disseminating the seeds for future generations.

Finding his way out of the corn field - he was scared! (July 3)

Playing football by the corn field. (July 21)

Feeding the kitties

Baby kitties

Watering the flowers

Washing peas

Picking dandelions

Culture Shock

Every time I return to America after being in Taiwan for a long period of time, I notice something interesting or unnecessary about American life. The first time it was the miles of different kinds of orange juice to pick from in the grocery store. Really, how can there be a need for 8 million different kinds of OJ? Another time I remember thinking about how much space is wasted for things like sprawling suburban elementary schools which build horizontally so they don't need to put in an elevator or parking lots that are 4 times the size of the store. How many times have you gone to your local supermarket and seen it more than half full?

Every time I've returned to America, I've noticed how big Americans are getting. Just spend a little time people watching and I'm sure you'll agree. Maybe more people need to park in the last row and carry their groceries all the way to their gas-guzzling SUV rather than using their cart to push them to the third parking space from the door.

On a related note, I usually enjoy a fair amount of shopping, err, I mean buying, while in America. As I sit here this morning thinking about unpacking I need to be doing, I can't help but think about some of the purchases I made. Now, I didn't buy a lot for myself, but what I did buy surprised me. More often than not, I found myself coming out of the dressing room for a smaller size. I don't think I've shrunk since getting married and having a baby, but according to the clothes I'm buying, I have. I just don't understand this vanity sizing. I'm not extra small, but if that's the size clothes I'm buying, what do the women who really are considerably smaller than me wear? I still have a problem buying clothes that fit properly in Taiwan because theclothes are too small and I know Taiwanese women who can't buy clothes in America because the people are too small. Somewhere, there must be a happy medium, like what I used to wear.

A trip to the mall

So far we've only had a few little adventures here with Grandma and Grandpa. On Monday we decided to go along as they did some errands and shopping and it's a good thing we did, too, because we ran into lots of people! After making a few necessary purchases at Target, I was HUNGRY, (already - my dad said "but it's only 4:30!) so we went to the food court to eat some early dinner. Soon enough my mom convinced my cousin Roxanne to join us and Keanu enjoyed having another pretty girl to look at and play with.

Keanu was also enthralled with the horses on the merry-go-round, so we decided to give it a try. He enjoyed sitting on the horse until it started to move... then he was much more happy to hang on to Mommy for dear life! Something that was much more to his speed was a trip to the kids' playland while visiting with another cousin, Andrew. He enjoyed burning off some steam and jumping off the thermometer (seen here).

We were about to leave (by way of DQ because Keanu's little sibling was hungry again) when we ran into my friend Arianne and her parents who were also filling a craving for Dairy Queen treats. It's a good thing we were able to sit down and visit for a while because Keanu must have also been hungry since he ate half of my BBQ, and he doesn't usually like meat! We'll be able to go up and spend some time with Arianne next week so there'll be more info about that trip later.