Wednesday

Two things near and dear to my heart... Had a fun and VERY RELAXING day today. Emma Grace and I went on a walk in the morning and stopped by starbucks for an iced caramel macchiato. Then we came back for a nap (both of us) and then over to a friend's house for lunch. In the afternoon we both took ANOTHER nap then headed out for a walk and met another friend for lemonade-it's easier to go and do with Emma Grace while we are here because she gets bored with the very few toys I brought for her. So walking around and visiting friends with kids (and their toys) makes for a more enjoyable day for both of us. Camera batteries died after this picture but I will try to get more tomorrow!

Out of Town Update

Howdy! We are doing well and enjoying some time away from home and the normal routine. We are staying at some freinds' home who have a small fenced in back yard so today EG and I sat out on the grass for a while and played. True to form, Emma Grace tried to eat the grass and leaves. I think I mananged to keep most of it out of her mouth, but I can never really be sure. We've gotten to visit with some friends here and have eaten a lot of western food and some really yummy local food as well. Emma Grace and I made a run to starbucks yesterday and I had a caramel macchiato and she and I split a blueberry muffin-she loved it! We might head back tomorrow! The past two evenings Andy and I have watched the BBC series, Planet Earth, which is just fascinating! You should check it out! It's amazing what's on this earth. I hate when they show little baby animals being hunted though-that's the worst.
I also wanted to let you know that I am 3 for 2 on my napping goal. Meaning I've mananged to take 3 naps in 2 days! I am more indigenous than the locals! Hopefully I can remember to get the batteries out of the sound machine (thanks Tim-we love that thing!) tomorrow morning and put them in the camera so I can take some pictures for you to see what we are up to! Well, hope you are doing well!

Heading out of town

We are heading out of town for the week. The exciting news is that the city we are going to has some good western food, including Papa John's pizza and my personal favorite, a starbucks in walking distance from the place we are staying. They also have incredible local food as well-way better than where we live! We are staying at the apartment of some friends who are back in the US to have their first child so it works great for us. It's much easier to stay in a home with Emma Grace rather than a hotel! They even have a crib so we don't have to lug our pack n play there! Andy will be busy in the mornings so I am guessing EG and I will make a daily run to starcucks for my caramel macchiato and hang out with some friends in area.

In other news, I'm becoming more Asian everyday. Recently, I've picked up the East Asian habit of taking a nap in the afternoons-anywhere from 20 mins to a whole hour and a half! Somedays I fall asleep reading and just nap for a few minutes and then other days I actually get in bed for a real nap! East Asians are serious about their afternoon naps. It makes sense because they often work really long into the night. High School students get out of class about 6pm and often have tutoring and then homework-staying up til 2am-so a nap becomes a necessity as you can imagine. For me it's much less of a necessity and more of a luxury! Though sometimes taking care of a little baby makes me feel like I've stayed up til 2 am! Anyway, my goal this week is to try and catch a nap everyday while EG naps! I'll keep you posted on my progress of indigenization!

Around the house

Here are some Saturday photos for you to enjoy!

Emma Grace loves playing with the wipes. They are a preferred toy over many of the other more expensive ones! I usually let her take one or two out of the package before taking them away. There is no doubt she would pull out every one if I let her! As we were playing with a wipe, which took a good 5 minutes of our day, I made it into a hair bow for her! I can't wait til she is ready for real hair bows! How cute!

My mom commented that I always seem to keep Emma Grace clean....this picture is proof that what you usually see on our blog is not the whole story! Here she is after finishing some banana vanilla wafers for her snack.
Her newest talent is pointing. She like to point at everything! Her favorite things to point at are the pictures on the refrigerator. She gets really excited when she points to the one of herself and I tell her, "that's Emma Grace!" She usually starts bouncing around and laughing. I really do think she is pointing at things so that we will tell her what they are. She's growing and changing everyday!

The reasons I love Saturdays

Saturdays are my one of my favorite days of the week.

Here's why:

Andy is off so we get to spend lots of time together.

We like to sleep in on Saturadays. Let me clarify, that means we wake at the late late hour of 7 am when Emma Grace wakes us up talking in her bed. We get her out of bed and put her in bed with us to play and have her bottle. Fun family time!

We usually talk with Andy's parents on the webcam while having our morning coffee...still in pajamas

We try to go outside and do something fun later in the day...the park, out to lunch, etc.

Saturdays nights we get to catch up on the TV shows we are into. Right now those are American Idol and Lost.

Right now we are in the pre-webcam, making coffee, still in pajamas phase of the morning! Just thought I'd say hello and wish you all a happy Saturday!

Andy's Birthday

Happy 27th Birthday Andy! We started the day with some homemade cinnamon rolls. These things are really yummy...you should check out the recipe on allrecipes.com. It's called "clone of the cinnabon" Here's the funny thing. I accidently left out the sugar when I was making the dough. oops. The good news is that the filling and the cream cheese icing more than made up for the lack of sweetness in the dough. Next time I will remember the sugar though! Emma Grace had some cheerios for breakfast while we enjoyed the cinnamon rolls. Your time will come EG! Check out Andy in his new robe-a birthday gift from me. Andy bought me a really nice robe for our anniversary this year-I am really glad I have it here in the cold winter but I wasn't quite as happy when we were packing it to come over. it weighs about 20 lbs and took up half of a suitcase. Also, check out Andy's new hairdo. I like it. Kinda reminds me of my brother.

Later in the morning, the Kvernens, some local friends and I surprised Andy with a trip to the nearby xue lan milk factory. Sounds like a wierd birthday outing and it is....but Andy has been telling me for about a year now that he really wants to tour the milk factory that is about 5 minutes from our home so I made it happen! We're both really into knowing how things are made. That's why we own the series "Unwrapped."

So, a few weeks back I went with Xiao Li and set up a tour for us and our friends. (sorry I forgot the camera) It was interesting...the only problem is that the tour was in chinese so there was a bit that got lost for us foreigners. Oh well. I did learn the word for "milking" as in milking a cow. We also learned that the milk that gets delivered to our home every afternoon came out of the cow that morning! wow-that's fresh! After the tour we ate donuts (which we brought) and had fresh yogurt...we asked for chocolate milk but somehow that got lost in the language too and we ended up with yoghurt. Oh well...nothing like a big glazed donut and some blueberry yogurt to hit the spot! hehe.

Originally we planned to have a picnic at a nearby park for dinner and enjoy the awesome weather we've been having but it's turned off quite cold. So option B...we had a picnic at home (I made Andy's favorite Janet Holtz chicken salad on homemade croissants) and watched our current favorite-AMERICAN IDOL! We also had a homemade keylime pie. So all in all, a great day for Mr. Huffman. Thanks for the birthday wishes for him!

Ultimate Frisbee Bash

In honor of Andy's Birthday this week, we hosted an Ultimate Frisbee Bash on Saturday to celebrate with some of our foreigner freinds here. We rented the field in our local town and everyone headed out here for a morning of ultimate frisbee and some THRILLS FROM THE GRILL! We lugged the grill (a gift for his birthday a couple years back) out to the field along with all the fixins' for a great lunch! We had grilled chicken sandwiches and hot dogs along with chips, drinks, watermelon and cupcakes! It was a treat for everyone to have food from the grill, as we are one of the few families that owns a grill here.

It was a blast and the food was really yummy! The best part-NO INJURIES! You might remember we had a Broomball party for his birthday a couple years ago that was a lot of fun but ended with a dislocated shoulder and a broken tailbone!

Our town has a really nice soccer field. Here;s the crew getting ready to play.

Here are the Kvernens warming up for the game. Couples were on the same teams to protect marital harmony.

The spread...

Emma Grace also enjoyed some of the lunch spread. While I left to grab something and Andy was "watching" her she managed to get a hold of my bag of Lay's potato chips and eat a few before I caught her! Notice she has them spread all over the blanket. oops. I guess Andy was having too much fun at his party to notice his daughter chomping down on those salty greasy can-choke-a-person-who-has-no-teeth chips! HEHE. Just kidding. We all got a good laugh, I took a picture and then we took them away from her!
What a fun saturday morning! Happy Early Birthday Andy!