China

China. May 2010. China was fantastic! I loved it. Every minute of it. The yucky toilets, the bumpy noisy bus rides, the adventures of trying to cross a street, the wierd and wonderful food, the adorable children and elderly and all the amazing sites. Oh ya and I can't leave out the undescribable shopping.

We travelled from Beijing in the north to a coastal city of Dalian. There we visited family, ate yummy real chinese food, went out with a local in his junket to see seaweed, clams and oysters in mid-crop season, hiked a mountain, splashed our way through freezing tide rising ocean to a hidden cave, explored local seaweed factories and fishing villages, stayed in a mansion and had custom made cashmere coats, suits and dresses made.
Off to the south to Nanning. Here we explored the night market to see the really wierd food and caught a long bus ride to Bama. Deep in the lush, hot, humid countryside surrounded by limestone mountains, we explored Bama area. Here we met locals, went to a christian baptism in the river, explored massive caves, saw a local putting a live cobra into a huge bottle of vodka in mid flare, met a lovely young local girl named Cecelia, ate local food, plucked a chicken, swam 2km through a historic cave, drove way up into the mountains squished with a chinese family, drank 'long life' water from the mountains of the centurians, got stuck in a traffic jam because the president was leaving from the same airport as us and got to the airport 10 min before the flight left (but we still made it because it was a tiny little plane and everyone on the flight had been stuck in the traffic jam).


Flight east to Guilin in southern central china. Hot tourist spot and completely different atmosphere than anywhere so far. People everywhere and things were so much more expensive. You even had to pay to take pictures of people. Here we had massages, shopped for art, took a motor boat for a 5hr ride down river to admire the amazing limestone cliffs and mountains of the area to Yangshou. Rented motorbikes for two days and rode around through the local villages, talked to locals and gave away treats and gifts to the kids, scaled a huge mountain for magnificent views, watched a farmer ploughing his rice patty barefoot with his water buffalo up close, and took a bus ride with a crazy driver that was willing to drive at any speed and straight into oncoming traffic horns blaring to get us back in time.


Shenzhen was next and here we met with the gentlemen from China that we do business with. We ate the finest food I have ever tasted, toured the China cultural village and saw a couple of chinese shows complete with dancers, acrobats, chinese dragons, fire spinning, trick horse riding, moving stages and fire works - it was amazing! We went shopping for cool electronics and cheap clothes, bags and accessories, shopped for art at the largest oil painting market in the world, saw the factory where our cameras are made, went for massages again and had several business meetings.

Beijing was our last stop. Here we shopped. Oh, and one day was spent hiking the most amazing great wall of China!! It was spectacular and a tough 5 hr hike complete with a rickety old zip line at the end to get to the bottom of the mountain. Totally china style. We did manage to make it to Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City but mostly we spent the remainder of our time in China dealing on pearls, electronics, bags, and clothes - and all kinds of wonderous things. We spent one of the last evenings at the spa where we enjoyed several hours of massage, free food and drinks and the best pedicure ever! Then we packed up the four extra suitcases that were purchased there (one each) plus our giant backpacks that had arrived half empty and climbed on the flight for the 3 min. flight home (just joking it was about 24hrs but because of the time change) we arrived 3 min. after we left. Ha ha.

I highly recommend china to anyone who wants to go on an adventure. It is not for the weak stomached or those very afraid of dirty everything (but this is Chase and he still had fun:)) - but the best shopping in the world, the most amazing culture and sites, and friendly people if you make the effort to communicate with them. I am already planning a trip back!

My house is burried!

A winter storm hit last Saturday and I think there was an extra large snow cloud right over our house!


Finally got the walk up to the door cleared.


Don't walk under that one.


There was so much snow on the roof!



I was stiff and tired after this job, that is for sure!!!

The fun part after all the work:)


I almost got lost in that big fluffy drift- so fun!

LAS VEGAS

So much for heading south to get warm!!! Chase and I had a business trip to Vegas last week for a conference and we were hoping for warmer weather but it poured the whole time we were there. They got more rain in the five days that we were there than all of last year! There was some flooding but we didn't get caught in any flash floods so that was good.


We had a very busy week and I can't believe how many miles that we walked - I wished that I had been wearing my GPS so I knew the number! We saw a couple great shows - inluding Cirque du Soleil - O - which I highly recommend to anyone - the ticket price is worth it! IT is the one that is on, over, in and above water - SOOO COOOL! We also got to ride over the strip and downtown in a helicopter and had dinner with a famous millionaire (from a TV show) that we didn't even know was famous - we was a friend of the people who we went for dinner with. Mostly we were super busy at the conference and in meetings with people for our business Trail'n Security Cameras and tried to squeeze in a couple fun things and some shopping. I can't believe how many - way to expensive to even walk into shops(most empty) - that there are there!

We were especially excited to come home and barely make it home - the only way we did was through lot's of praying and Chase's impressive snowplowing, wheel spinning, drift jumping driving to get down our road. This morning I shoveled about five foot drifts of snow off our whole roof and then jumped off the roof into them because the snow was up to the edge of the roof after I had pushed it all off - some fun for all that work! HA - glad to be home and see my sweeties - they had so much fun with Grammy this week! They had worked hard all week on a 'welcome home mom and dad' Party complete with invitations, hats and a pinata!

Cool Cats and HORSHIES!!

Cayden especially loves wearing sunglasses (of any sort) - he has the type of personality that finds something he likes and does it over and over. Kiah is like me - a follower and does anything that he does if I laugh at it:) Such cool cats!

Cayen's favourite word is 'COW' it was his third word (after mamma and dad)and he still loves it, but now it is for a different reason. He loves to point at animals out the window and yell, with a shaking pointed finger because he is so excited 'CAAOW'. Kiah has been trying diligently to help him with other animals and tells him gently - 'No Cayden, that's a horse, sheep, buffalo, deer, bale, etc.'. Yet he still yells 'CAAOW' when ever he sees pretty much anything out the window of the car.

The other night Kiah came to Chase awfully concerned. 'Dad, I try and tell Cayden that there are other animals but all he keeps saying is cow'- and Chase tried his best to assure her that he would learn how to distunguish the other animals. A few days later we are driving along and the same business of 'CAAOW' occurs, which causes Kiah great frustration and anxiety- until Kiah falls asleep, then we drive by a horse and Cayden yells HORSHIE! then he sees some sheep and he yells - SEEP!- until Kiah wakes up and then every animal then becomes a 'cow' again:) He is so mischievous, and totally does all he can to be an anoying little brother (all ready;))!!!

Then he comes in the other night riding Kiah's Barbie horses yelling HORSHIE, HORSHIE and Kiah was SO excited that she LET him ride her horses:) SO FUNNY!

I love my kids.

Triathlon

This week I have been in a slump. Feeling great because I have been reading my new 'triathlon bible' and running book and I even made out my training plan and my race schedule for this seaseon - and the big 1/2 IRONMAN is on the schedule - I can't believe it!!! - but still feeling in a slump - sad because it is so cold outside and I can't stand running when it is so cold, sad because I re-adjusted all my bike settings hoping it would relieve some of my butt pain while biking but no luck, and sad because my new training plan has way more swimming in it than last year and I am not sure how I am going to fit it in (still a while before blackstrap thaws). On a happy note I had a great swim workout last night (I swim at a neighbors house who have an endless pool in exchange for swimming lessons once a week - and the rest I try to fit into open water)and the pool was a whole 4 degrees C colder than normal so I was forced to get moving fast and I guess it woke me up for the rest of the workout. Anyhow, I feel like I should be more excited and moving and motivated, but I am tired, feeling lazy and feeling a little overwhelmed with work to get done. Any tips!??