Count Down!!!!!

Our time is coming to an end here in China. At least for this school year. We will be back here next year but will be applying to other schools. We have had a great experience here in China but are hoping to see a different part of the world. I'm sitting here with a room full of 12 year olds at school playing games thinking that I can't believe that in less then one week we will be back in Utah. YEAH!!!!!!!! This year has really gone by fast. It has been a good year filled with lots of events that sadly we haven't posted. Unfortunately we lost our camera a few months ago in Macau and decided to just wait until we get back to Utah to buy one so we have been pictureless except for the ones that we were able to get from friends. I'll be posting pictures of Rachels prom later tonight along with other pictures.

Last Saturday Gavin and I went to a furniture market with a group of friends. They have tons of antiques and copies of antiques. We saw lots of beautiful things but got very overwhelmed. We needed to come back and process what we saw before we buy. We did buy some really cool chinese drums. That was our big purchase. It was more a learning experience if anything. We met a young man there who will arrange all the shipping for us, even back to the US. We just need a place to ship it to. Without a home it wouldn't do us any good to buy furniture to ship back. I'll make sure to take a camera next time although some shops don't allow you to take pictures. I guess they are afraid that we might copy their designs.

China does have some really neat things but it will be nice to get back to a normal life for a while. I can't wait to get in my big suburban and drive to Costco and fill up the back with food that I like. I get really tired of having to go shopping daily and carrying it back to our home. Gets really old after awhile.

Our first stop when we get back? TACO BELL!!!!!!! I know that's not the best Mexican food but that's what my kids requested. Believe me Taco Bell will do.

Macau

Gavin and I finally ran away from the kids for a night and went to Macau with our friends Debbie and Frank Galicia. We booked rooms at the Venecian in Macau and ran away. We were so excited and our expectations were surpassed when we walked into the room and saw the luxury that lay ahead of us. We felt like royalty. I couldn't resist myself and had to run and jump on the bed.
The room had a sunken sitting room and a marble bathroom fit for a king.
We left Shekou early Friday morning and took an hour ferry across the bay to Macau. We were famished by the time we checked in and found our way to the food court in the mall within the Venetian. Gavin loves to take "candid" shots and seems to especially enjoy catching me shoving food in my mouth but I didn't mind here. They had a Fatburger in the food court and I was going to enjoy every bite of my juicy fatburger and onion rings. I hadn't had a hamburger in months and I really enjoyed it.
Of course later we had to get the ever famous Portuguese Egg Tarts and again Gavin had to catch a shot with me shoving it in my mouth. These little tarts are heavenly and I really don't care if I look like a total porker in these pictures. I ENJOYED IT!!!!!!!

We spent part of our time exploring Macau and discovered some fun interesting places.
Gavin and Frank had to show their manliness here as they pretend to be holding up the walls of this Roman Coliseum.

Within the Venetian they have a canal where you can take Gondola ride with a real live person who serenaded us. The guy we had was named Geronimo and he was from Sardinia. He had an awesome voice. After our Gondola ride we went to Cirque De Soleil. We knew what to expect because we had seen some of their shows before on DVD but the Galicia's thought it was a little strange but it still was a great show.

We explored the southern part of the island and found a little Portuguese Village. Not quite what you would expect to find in a Chinese country.
It felt like we were in Toontown because it was so tiny.

We hiked around the southern part of Macau through the mountains trying to find this place. We had heard it was the best Portuguese food on Macau. After several hours of hiking we finally made it to Hac Sa Bay at Fernandos.

On our journey to Fernandos we stopped at this little temple. There was a family paying tribute to their ancestors. They burn items which in this case looked like some wrapping paper and a box. Then they splashed some sort of alcohol on the ground. They believe that they can send things to their ancestors that have passed and maybe they were trying to send them some alcohol. I did notice that the lady didn't empty out the entire bottle. Maybe she was keeping some for herself. It was rather interesting though.

Jonny's braces and other stuff

Rachel had an art project where she danced in paint. This is the result of her work. Apparently the art piece is really cool but I have yet to see it. Our Ayi spent hours trying to scrub the paint out of Rachel's clothes until I finally told her not to bother, it wasn't going to come out.

Jonny got braces put on last week. The first few days he could only eat mashed potatoes and smoothies. Poor guy. It'll all pay off though. He chose to get porcelain braces and you can hardly tell they are there. His first basketball game after getting his braces resulted in a fat lip when he got elbowed by another player.

Vika's Birthday

This was Vika's 5th birthday. We had a small little party with just the family. She was quite the happy little girl.
I had taken Vika to get her nails done the day before. She loves pink. Can you tell?
Nicole decorated the cake for Vika. We had to make do with what we could get here in China. Of course we can get cake mixes and frosting but nothing to really decorate it with, not even birthday candles. I need to make sure to bring back my cake decorating things and candles next year.

Long Night!!!!

It's going to be a long night tonight. It is the end of the Lunar celebration for Chinese New Year and the fireworks started at sundown and will continue all night long until the sun rises. These aren't just your little firecrackers you buy for the 4th of July they are the big sky filling booming loud fireworks. They are literally being lit off right behind our house. With the tall buildings around the noise echos off them and it makes it double, triple loud. We all ran up to our roof earlier tonight to see them but now it's 11:00 at night and I'm ready to sleep but can't. Combine that with all the people partying and music playing down in Sea World Plaza, the car alarms going off because of the fireworks and it is going to be a really long night.

The Chinese legend is that the fireworks scare the monsters away. Legend is that a monster used to come down every year during the New Year to a village at night and would kill people. They created fireworks to scare the monster away and light them off all night long during this time. I would think that it would be creating monsters because of all the people not getting any sleep. I'll need to make sure to bring ear plugs back with us next year.

I used to love watching fireworks but not all night long right over our house.

Our beautiful daughter!!!!

Rachel has a friend who is really good at taking pictures and photoshopping them. They had a lot of fun with this pictures one day.

On the Way Back to Ho Chi Min

This is a memorial commemorating the day the Vietnamese kicked out the French. There was a castle at the top of this hill but nearly all of it was destroyed except for one tower. Behind the memorial you can see some of the gun turrets the French used to keep the Vietnamese out.

This is the remaining tower from the French castle.

Inside the Temple (next to the French Castle) was the Shiva Linga, which is a hindu symbol. This has been here for over 900 years.

We're RICH!!!

Yea, that's right...we're rich; filthy rich, in fact. I went to the ATM and withdrew a million and gave it to my wife to go shopping. I told her to go buy something nice (as long as it doesn't exceed $62, because that's what 1,000,000 dong is worth, $62).

We left our hotel to go to Ho Chi Min City and stopped at this temple that was built in the 11th century. When the French occupied this territory they also built a small castle near here. When the Vietnamese kicked out the French they destroyed most of the castle except for one tower.

Here is our whole gang next to the temple...the Galicias, Rundells, Reddens and Lewis.

Here is just our gang.

Our Last Day at Mui Ne Beach, Vietnam

We rented this jet ski for $45 for 45 minutes. It was a blast because it was really choppy and the waves were huge. I thought I was going to dump it the first time I took it out, but I made it out not problem.

We buried Vika's legs and made her into a mermaid.

This was our last night on the beach. The kite boarding was incredible. There were hundreds of people kite boarding and I think the lessons are shorter then they would be in the US. We saw a Russian guy do it in 2 days, but it seemed dangerous because the wind was very strong.

Our Day at the Dunes

Rachel is doing a perfect dive roll from the top of the white dunes.

Here are Jonny and Vika sliding down the dunes on a plastic sled.

This is cobra and scorpion wine....yea, cobra and scorpion. Look closely, there is a cobra in the bottle with the tail of a scorpion in it's mouth and this is wine. It costs about $5, so I bought a couple of bottles to bring back for disections in my science class. This is cheaper then getting stuff sent over from the US.

This is a true working mom. She is rocking this baby in the hammock while she is the person on the other side of this window cooking us our lunch. She's cooking our lunch with one hand and her other hand is on the hammock rocking it.

Our Day at the Dunes

We went to a local touring agency and booked a guided jeep trip to the red and white sand dunes for $144 for 20 people for 4 hours. They picked us up at the hotel at 8 am and went to a local fishing village.

As usual, Vika was popular with the locals. Still haven't figure out what they think is so funny about a blond baby, but Vika gets a lot of attention, so she likes it. They thought it was hilarious that her stomach was sticking out under her shirt and they kept touching her stomach.

The white sand dunes are very hot so we had to wear a lot of sunblock. Here are Rachel, Jonny, Vika and Nikki getting ready to slide down the dunes. You could pay extra to have a pony run up and down the sand dunes for you, but we chose to do it ourselves; better exercise.

Here is Noah Galicia walking along the top of one of the dunes looking like he just got out of a plane wreck in the Sahara Desert.