Just one of the ways I keep busy...

Last Saturday, we had a wedding in our church and I had the extreme honor of decorating for it. It was a ton of fun and I thought that you all might like the see the pictures. The only think I didn't do (decorating wise) was 1. The arrangement at the top of the harbor (Thanks Mom Bracken! It looks incredible.) and 2. Take these wonderful pictures (Thanks JoAnna... You are awesome!) So, here, have a little look-see.

Ethan

As most of you know, Ethan had his pins removed on Tuesday. It was a pretty quick procedure (about 15 minutes) and he did really well. We got to come home on Wednesday and he is all over the place. He isn't suppose to walk on it for two weeks, but he sure is doing everything that he can without actually walking. And he is wearing pants again! He is so excited! I thought that some of you might want to see a picture of what the metal contraption looked like (since I never could figure out how to really explain it.), so here's a picture:

Thank you so much for your prayers for Ethan and for me! We are now counting down the days until he gets the stitches out and can take a bath (4 days) and the days until we go to the beach (10 days).

Say what?

The other night, a funny thing happened at church. A good friend (she is Chinese) was talking to me and she said, "If my brother comes Saturday, can he sleep with you and Abbey and Ethan?" The funny look on my face made her rethink her words and start yelling, "SIT, SIT, can he SIT with you?" And then we both laughed and blushed for about five minutes. After that, I told her that he was welcome to SIT with me, but as for the other, well, we aren't that kind of church!

WARNING... THIS POST IS FOR THE LADIES

Just a quick note to you all... Ethan had an X-ray today and everything looks great with his leg, so... Tomorrow, Tuesday morning in Taiwan, He will have surgery to remove the pins! Now, on with the post.

Friday, I saw a woman wearing a shirt with this slogan across the front "Burn the Breast." What in the world does that mean? Does she mean to say, "Hey, I'm hot?" Even I am stumped by the Chinglish. And that reminds me of another lady I once saw. I was walking behind this lady and her hot pink and brown leopard spotted pants caught my attention. She was also tottering on very high heels and had teased the life out of her hair. But the biggest surprise was when she turned around. Her shirt said "Wild Thing" and she was 70 if she was a day. Why on why do I not have my camera when things like this pop up! It would have been a classic photo!

Transformers... real or not

Ethan is totally in to Transformers. He knows their names and knows which one he wants next. He has actually sent me to the Internet to research a certain Transformer because he wanted to know if he was a good guy or a bad guy. Which, by the way, there are millions of site containing the folklore of Transformers. So, the other day when Chris saw a car with a huge Transformer's symbol sticker on its back window, he pointed it out to Ethan. "Hey Ethan, look at that car. It has a Transformers symbol on its window!" To which Ethan replied with a voice full of awe, "IS that a real Transformer?!" After we dashed his hopes and told him no, he quickly moved on to wanting a Transformer sticker for our car. Well, baby, if our car were a transformer, it would transform into a grandpa machine instead of a fighting machine.

Tape that doesn't stick and biases that do

Sometimes, I look at my family and realize that even though we all have US passports, I am the only real American in the bunch. With Chris having grown up over here and my kids in the process of growing up over here (if Ethan can slow down enough to give himself a chance to grow up!), they are somewhat influenced by the world around them. This really came home to me yesterday. Ethan has these four metal post that junt out of his leg and connect to the metal contraption on the outside. Every other day, we need to change the bandages around the post. And the special tape that we got (special because it is suppose to be made to stick to skin) does not want to stick. In my frustration with the tape, I told the kids, "This tape is from some place not good." Abbey replied, "Maybe, maybe it is from China!" Now, while all of my Taiwanese readers laugh, let me explain this to the Americans scratching their heads. Everyone in Taiwan checks to see where things are made. And if the item is plagued with a "made in China" sticker, it is declared to be of horrible quality and assumed to have some strange chemical placed there for the sole purpose of harming the consumers. Some people will not even buy trash bags that are made in China. And my darling daughter, at the tender age of 6, is already aware of product bias. Oh well, I guess with the lead paint scare, the milk scare, the flip-flop scare, and the Red Bull scare, it pays to be informed!

How poodle became a bad word...

A few weeks ago, while we were still in the States, I took the kids to Wendy's to eat. On their kids meal bags, they were featuring different dogs and cats. Abbey and Ethan wanted to know the names of the different kinds of dogs. Things were going great until we got to "poodle". As soon as I told them what it was called, they both began giggling hysterically. I will admit that it took me a few moments to get the joke. Don't worry. If you haven't gotten it yet, you will in a minute. After that, Abbey would ask me, "Mama, what was the black dog on the Wendy's bag called?" I would answer "poodle" and she would look over at Ethan and say, "It was a POOO-dle!" and of course, they would giggle themselves to death. And that is how poodle became a bathroom word and thus banned in our house.