favorite friends

our favorite friends from shanghai, the breinholts were also in utah for a bit.  

where to start with the breinholts?  

these are quality people.  this will just tell you what kind of people they are: clarke and ken were in the accounting program together at byu.  when we were thinking about doing an MBA at CEIBS clarke thought he remembered hearing that ken was in shanghai and looked him up.  we skyped with them once or twice before we moved, and then they offered to let us stay in their apartment when we first arrived in shanghai.  they were in the states, so they left their key with another friend.  we stayed there for about 10 days while we got over jet lag and looked for an apartment.  it was seriously such a blessing to stay in their place.  instead of being in a cramped apartment, with no room and no toys, etc., worrying about how much money it was costing to stay in a hotel, we got to stay in a fully stocked apartment for free.  like i said, these are seriously quality people.  i mean, at the they hardly knew us, and yet offered their home like they were old friends.

in the last year we have become great friends.  honestly, they are like family, in fact, the other day oliver said that nathan was his cousin.  he practically could be.  they are only two months apart in age and are best little buddies.  and oliver loves ashley, kaylee, and emma like sisters.  they lived in the next building over from us in yanlord town, or i guess i should say that we lived in the next building over from them, since they are the ones that first introduced us to yanlord.

we were over at their house all the time this year, playdates, dinner dates, moaning-about-life-dates, i-need-a-break-from-the-kids-dates, date nights.  allison is a saint.  she had to listen to me complain all year about my life as an mba wife in shanghai.  she was always a listening ear and that meant so much to me.  and she has great taste in music (we both love musicals, and would sometimes listen to them while cooking dinner together). 

they would give us rides all the time (thank you MC!), coming from a lady who has to use taxis or a scooter, this is a SERIOUS kindness.  the list could go on and on, but let's just say this, we LOVE the breinholts and were so happy to have a little get together in orem.  especially since they moved to an awesome new home (yeah!  not just an apartment!) two days before they left for the states.  i am happy for them, but sad for us.  their new place is quite a ways for a lady with no driver, so we won't be getting as much quality breinholt time in the next year as we would like :(

funny thing is, for all the things we did with the breinholts in this last year, we didn't really have many pictures together, so we were glad for the excuse to take a picture together.

such beautimous hats!

hooray for the B's!

animal farm

we went with whit's kids and kelb and liam to the thanksgiving point animal farm.  it was a great day, not crowded, and not hot.  the kids had a great time feeding animals, riding a pony, milking a cow, and just being together.

oli wasn't too keen on the cow actually getting close to the food in his hand

it was funny to see the difference in all of the kids as they fed the animals.  liam was not afraid at all.

oli tried to milk the cow, but shockingly he wasn't too keen once he got close.

terrible criminals!

yeah for sissies!

stuff we've been doing

here is a smattering of fun things we have been up to since we got here.

kelby, jesse and liam were at mom and dad's for the first month that we were here.  this made for some fun and crazy times.  the kids sort of have a love/hate relationship.  they love each other, but they are both 2.  that should pretty much say it all.  liam is 9 months younger than oli, he will be two in september, and oli will be three in november.  their ages and age difference makes them need CONSTANT adult supervision because even if they are playing well together it can turn in to a whack, a bite, or a shove at any moment.  but they clearly love each other since each time they woke up from their naps they came looking for each other.  inspite of the insanity, we had lots of fun with them.

we went to the scera pool a couple of times.  the kids LOVE this.  i have a love/hate relationship with it.  i love watching oli enjoy the water (he is quite the water bug), but i hate how cold i get as soon as i am out of the water!  clearly i am doing the single mom thing because i have no pictures of us actually in the water, too busy running around after him. 

We have been enjoying plenty of cousin time on both sides of the family.  Obviously mine more since we have been staying with my family, but this week Clarke's family comes in to town for a huge shebang.

In typical Oliver style, we have been doing a lot of "dumping" or jumping as it were.  Oliver taught Liam the jump-off-the-chair-in-the-front-room game.  Liam needs a little assist on the dismount, but is hilarious in his fearlessness more like falling off the chair.  And of course, also in typical Oliver style, we have to jump in our undies.  Mind you, compared to at home, he has been clothed much more of the time here :)

We have enjoyed hanging out on the front porch a lot, mornings, afternoons, and evenings depending.  One morning Oli and Nonni did sidewalk chalk out front.  Oli thought it was groovy to have his whole body traced.  He was very good at laying still, and had Nonni do this 3 or 4 times. 

love that smile!

love that little laugh!

original oli art.

a true ar-teest at work.

mango smiles

this is actually from june, but as i am posting all of these other things i keep seeing pictures from our china-life and want to remember them too.  i could probably blog straight until i leave back for china and not get everything done that i want to.  so i will keep interspersing some china-life with our american vacation from our life in china :)

for a month or more before we left we were in mango heaven.  oliver LOVES mangoes, especially sucking the seed practically dry (just like his daddy).  i got these great shots of him eating the seed one day.  oli isn't great at smiling for pictures in general, and he is a very contrary boy when he wants to be, so i used it against him.  to get him to smile like this i would say, "oli, don't you smile at me.  don't you dare look at the camera and smile!" and what do you know?  mr. au contraire figured out how to give me these FABULOUS smiles!  too bad he figured out my trick and now won't really smile when i do that :( 

Let Freedom Ring, and Run, and Fall Asleep

First Sunday we were here was mellow.  Oli had been up Saturday night from around 10:30 pm to 1:00 am.  When he woke up at 10:00ish he seriously did not seem tired at all, so I figured rather than get frustrated trying to get him back to sleep I would just let him stay up for a bit.  Thankfully he slept in on Sunday morning until around 10:00 am to make up for it.  

The jet lag wasn't ideal, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  It took us just under a week to finally feel more back to normal and be on a totally regular sleeping pattern again.

Sunday was actually the 4th, but being here in Utah they have the magic power to switch it to Monday.  Somehow I allowed my sisters to convince me to run the 5k Freedom Run in Provo.  They were smart and trained for it.  I did nothing of the sort (don't let my racing jersey fool you.  it came with the registration).  The idea of running in China is pretty disgusting to me.  I just feel like I will be taking in even more of that awful air than I should.  Thankfully Dad decided to run it too.  So we just puttered at our own pace with a combo of walking and running.  I think we did it something like 29 mins.  Not to shabby for an old dude and a lady who couldn't care less about running :)

Also, let's just think about my trip planning again.  Having to wake up at 6:00 am two of the first three days of jet lag is just really not a great idea. 

 

We had originally planned on going to the parade, but then decided that no one wanted to camp out for a good spot, so we decided to bag it, and then after the race we just couldn't help ourselves so we went home and got the kids and headed back.  We found a great place at the very end of the parade route just past where my old school (Waterford/Meridian) used to be (it seems they are building new chapels on the site).  We even had a good amount of shade.  We didn't have any traffic or trouble finding a place to park.  It was a brilliant idea.

Like I said before, I haven't been home for the 4th in 6 years and I just love the 4th in Utah Valley.  Parades are so funny and so festive.  Oli thought it was pretty cool, but he was also in his "My body had no clue what time it is" phase.  Poor kid, once again looked sooooooo tired.  His favorite things were the policemen on motorcycles and the huge group of Star Wars people (still have no clue what this was about).

Oliver was hilarious.  He held this flag up in the air like this for quite a few minutes.  Just standing there, looking so tired and stoic.

 Yup, human lovey.... again.  Notice the hair twiddling.

I love this picture of Oli.  Popcicle on his face, so tired and so sweet.

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 Oli just had this concerned look most of the parade.  I love the furrowed brows and the way he sucks on his lip. 

 Ah ha!  A moment of animation!

After the parade we headed up the BYU Creamery.  I am not the biggest ice cream fan in the world (too cold!), but man alive, the Creamery ice cream is DELICIOUS!  I think my favorite flavor is Earnestly Chocolate.  This is somehow Oliver's "I'm excited to eat ice cream face."

 I am pretty sure he approved.  He scarfed his and half of mine.

I honestly have no clue what we did the rest of the day.  In the evening instead of putting him to bed early like I should have we went down to "Cul de Sac of Fire" in my parent's neighborhood.  It has had a great reputation in the past, but the original organizers were out of town this year, so other neighbors did it and it was terrible.  They had this huge gathering of kids, and the had some comedy troupe from UVU as the entertainment.  Not only was all of their material geared towards 20-somethings going to UVU, they went on for WAY too long.  Finally after saying the third or fourth questionable word (at least for an audience of 2-15 year olds gathered at their feet) someone finally went to the MC and said, "Enough!  Where are the fireworks."  We watched a few and went to bed.  

First Day in Utah Continued

Whit's Family originally was just coming down for Saturday Balloons, but we conned them in to staying the weekend.  This was a kind sacrifice on Whit's part, since the crazies were crazy, but we all had a lot of fun, especially the cousins.  

Saturday after the balloons we went to Mikey Dee's.  We used to do that as kids, and for some bizarre reason wanted to continue the tradition.  That food is seriously so amazingly fake!  And I just could not get over how huge people are here in the States.  No offense America, but you are FAT!  After living in China for a year, where the people are on a whole very petite, the obesity in America is all too obvious.  I had to stop myself from thinking, "You shouldn't be here!  You shouldn't be eating that!"  But hey, I guess if I was eating there too I didn't quiet have too high a pedestal to stand on.

After McDonalds, or "Uncle Donalds" as Oliver calls it, we went to the Park by my old high school.  The kids had fun playing, but poor Oliver, still just looked like such a tired little soul. 

Yup, still looking like he wants to be asleep.  Too bad it was only something like 8:30 am at this point!

Love this shot of Tisse-bug.  She is such a sweet girl, very generous and kind, and has the giggle of a fairy.

After picking up the Bountiful Baskets with Kelbs, Jess, and Liam, we went home for some sprinkler fun.  My Mom bought a little blow up pool that you hook the hose up to and it makes little fountains everywhere and the kids had fun in the freezing cold water.

I just love this lunch set up, it just feels so American to me.  No eggs and tomatoes, nothing sauteed (which I actually love about China), no strange rice and pumpkin soup (my Ayi told me it was best eaten in the hot weather), just plain old sandwich, on AMAZING whole wheat bread (oh how I have missed delicious whole grain bread!), homemade raspberry jam made from home-grown raspberries, blueberries by the handful (thanks Costco for that GINORMOUS BOX for something like $5.  in China I splurge on blueberries every once and a while, and for that tiny little carton it is something like $3).

Papa read some stories, here is a family favorite for sure, "Where the Wild Things Are."  I think they are doing some sort of "terrible" action right here.  On a side note, no thanks to the movie version of that book.  It made me sad that I had watched it.  This book held a great place in my heart from my childhood, my parents read it to us often, and they used it in teaching, and it really brought out the "magic" of childhood and imagination.  It made me sad to see it done with such a grown up view point.

After naps and/or quiet time we celebrated a late Father's Day.  The Peeps were kind enough to wait for me to celebrate.  We bought Dad a nifty automatic coin sorter from The Red Envelope.  Dad has always been good at amassing his loose change into rather large amounts.  He has a huge glass jar of chain downstairs that I am sure adds up to a significant amount.  He loved it, and the grandkids loved it too.


Avery made this awesome homemade flag to decorate the cake.  Watch for it to reappear in a future post.

We had delicious Italian Creme Cake a 'la chef Whit.  I loved watching Oliver eat the frosting off.  What is more kid-like than to lick to frosting off and leave the cake?

I love how I have done three blog posts and have seriously only covered my journey and my first day in America!  Oh well, that is me, either totally a non-blogger, or gung ho.  Mind you, it is a million times more convenient to blog here in the States, and we have been doing things that I want to document, and I just really realized that I like being able to look back at my life and see what we have done.  I really regret being such a lazy bum our last year in Florida, now those were experiences to blog about, come on, the beach is always bloggable material!  And now I can't really blog about them in retrospect, because it will probably just make me sad :(  RIP my life in Florida.

Happy 4th Jetlag Style

I randomly chose July 1st as my fly back date, but in retrospect that wasn't really the best choice.  Having death jet lag while trying to be festive and patriotic just wasn't really ideal :)

I hadn't been home for the 4th of July since the summer before we moved to China the first time, 6 years ago, and I LOVE the 4th in Provo.  I REALLY, REALLYwanted to go to the hot air balloons.  This is seriously how dedicated I was to going:  I went to bed at 12:00 am on Friday night after a 30 hour journey from China, and woke up at 6:15 am on Saturday to go to the balloons!  Seriously insane, but I am so happy that I did.  There is just something magical about them.  Oli liked them but the poor kid was so stinking tired and his body was telling him that it was night time, so he looked a little stoned most of the time.

Let's just start with a picture of what for sure looks like home, Timpanogos!  Love the mountains and the BLUE sky (fyi, China, this is what sky is supposed to look like).

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And this should have been in the last post, but I hadn't imported it yet.  Reuniting with Nonni and Papa was so fabulous.  I love my family.

The Balloons:

Reuniting with the nieces and nephews at the balloons. 

They were so excited to see Oli.  And Oli, is LOVING his cousins.  The other night when they were leaving he cried and wanted to go with them and said, "I yuv my cousins!"

Poor Oli, he did A LOT of yawning that morning and the next few days.  

I am pretty sure this face says, "I would rather be asleep."

Oli thought this Darth Vader balloon was the cats meow.  I guess being a boy he somehow just knows he should know about these things.  He has never seen Star Wars, but he knows about Darth Vader and Storm Troopers, and he thinks they are pretty cool.

Oli pointing at Darth.

Me trying to get Oli to smile about Darth.  Not happening.

We loved seeing the sun come up over the mountains.

Proof I was actually there!

There was this whole crew of Storm Troopers and even Darth himself there.  I am not totally sure what they were doing, they were part of the parade on the 4th too.  I thought Oli would think they were groovy, but he was terrified!  He did not want to get close to them.

Cousin Love!  I love that the only good shot we got with all of them is in front of the port-a-potties.  Awesome.

Even though it was death to wake up that early in the morning after only sleeping 6 hours I was so glad that we did.  We used to go to the balloons nearly every year when I was little, and I loved taking my own child to make the same memories.

Hooray for the Balloons!