intermission

I pause the regularly-scheduled programming to bring you this important message: I will post about Beijing! Tomorrow.

Today is Trash and Laundry Day! So I have to do the Motherly duties and get that done.

I would rather be blogging.

injured left eyes and a haircut

I know, I know these certainly aren't pictures of our trip to China. Taking a little break for tonight for our FHE and weekend updates.

Carter's first day of Nursery was yesterday. He may have a slight sour taste in his mouth as a result of a nasty fall into the door as he bolted for it after we dropped him off. Ryan and I are both in the Primary so we had to get to our various locations.

I had a couple phone calls today from members in my ward asking about Carter's head! I guess that since people were in the Library, right next door to the Nursery, they heard a loud crack followed by screaming. One account was told to me, "It sounded like a sledgehammer hitting the door!" and echoed through the hallway. Needless to say, he still has an incredible headache and bump; but he's fine! Thank goodness for wonderful Nursery leaders, they loved on him and kept him safe and secure while we were in our callings. I felt bad that I couldn't pay more attention to my sobbing child because I was distracted with my calling. Nice shiner, eh? (oh yeah, and then he tripped and fell again at Ryanna's school this morning, causing a purply-tinted ring around his eye!) Poor little dude.

Go C.T.R. POWER! Dawson is now in the CTR 5 class and absolutely loves his new CTR ring. He even took it to school today and actually came home with it. I'm going to see how many days in a row he can keep it on without losing it.

He's doing great at school, he's getting better at his writing and is such a smartie. As you can see, he also has a injured left eye! He went to his friend's birthday party and was attacked by the pinata or the bat hitting the pinata or something. It was a good swollen eye for a couple days, but he consoled with a HUGE bag of candy! Whew! As long as there's sugar...that can cure any ailment.

Ryanna got her haircut and loves it. She is paying a lot more attention to fashion and is growing her bangs out because "it's not cool to have bangs anymore." (she's only in first grade, what's up with that?!) She loves the Gifted and Talented program and is also in Chess Club after school on Mondays. She's one of three first graders that participates in it.

I asked her when she got home today what she had learned in Chess Club. She casually responded, "Oh, just ranks and files."

Oooookay, looks like she's going to be teaching me how to play! I'm so proud of her, she's such a neat kid. She can read like nobody's business, she's always knocking my socks off!!

the great wall of china--with my own eyes!

Beijing!

The city that I've crossed off my "Things-To-See-Before-I-Die-But-Probably-Won't" List! The day after Christmas, we climbed onto an airplane and flew a couple hours north to visit Beijing. HUGE city with lots of people. I felt so safe in our taxi, even though he was a speed demon. There was a couple times that I noticed the speedometer got in between the 120-125 kilometers per hour markings....gulp! It was fun, but squished. Poor Aimee! She was in between Ryan and I in the backseat, good thing we all love each other. Right, Aim?

We drove for another hour or so toward the mountains and then out of no where you see something that your eyes don't even believe. You see something ancient. Something that resembles

The Great Wall of China!

I didn't even realize that tears were streaming down my cheeks as we rounded the bend and appears this amazing landmark.
Cool facts about it:
-stretches over approx. 4,000 miles across mountains, deserts, and plateaus.
-the workforce that built it was mainly from three groups: soldiers, common people and criminals. Thousands of people died during and after construction.
-took decades to build. After the emergence of unified China in the Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.) the wall was a collective entity; but around 1700 years later it was enhanced and enlarged.
-it safeguarded trade routes such as the Silk Road.

The stretch of wall that we visited was Badaling and took a sky gondola. Oh gulp. My stomach was in my throat the entire ride up and down. I HATE heights!


We were attacked by vendors that wanted to sell you Great Wall stuff. There was a particularly persist ant older Chinese dude that kept bugging us to buy stuff. We kept saying, "Mayo Chen!" (no money) and "No!" and "Get Away!!" and kept avoiding him. Well, WE WOMEN kept saying that. Ryan, being the very polite and kind person he is, kept smiling and saying, "No, but thank you anyway." and he wouldn't try to run away like we were. This old guy wanted to sell a hat really badly. At one point, I saw out of the corner of my eye that this old guy had physically REMOVED Ryan's beanie that he had on his head and plopped this Russian-looking Chinese Star hat on his head! It was then the old guy exclaimed in broken english and as raspy as you can imagine, "You are beautiful!" Just the way he said it threw us into complete hysterics. Mom HAD to buy the hat for Ryan and he was a good sport, he wore it through his objections. I think it actually looked good on him. Lucky Chinese Star indeed!

Then we found the entrance! And onto the Great Wall we stepped!!

You can even see the old barracks where the troops were stationed on various parts of the wall.

I love this picture of Ryan. He's looking into the vast space of China and he's thinking something very smart and very profound, I'm sure of it.

We got lucky with the weather. We heard it was going to be very cold, with the wind blowing and with it being December. The sun was shining most of the time and the smog lifted. We were able to see the different levels of the mountains silhouetted against the sky. The wall goes on forever and disappears in the distance.

(Can you tell that I'm sleep-deprived, partying too hard and way too jet lagged to look normal?)

Mom and Aimee were peeeeeking!
Peekaboo! Kinda.




Ya, Aimee! Commit no nuisance!

My gorgeous mother that speaks mandarin and can lead us all by herself in Beijing!

I loved sharing this awesome experience with the ones I love!