Monday, May 18, 2009

News & news

I just have to state how much I love reading The Asia Times online. It makes me grateful that I have access to a journal that makes me feel intelligent rather than speaking down to me like I'm in 5th grade. (No offense to 5th graders, but you'll feel the same way when you're 30 years old.) At the same time I happen to agree profoundly with everything this particular journalist has to say in his article. I'm afraid I feel rather strongly about the Obama administration and some things they appear to be doing to our country, and I find myself slightly afraid for the future stability of the USofA. But I'm glad to know other people feel the same way.

THE TIMES

In other, unrelated news, I now have a genius one year old who is starting to repeat every word we say and has now added to her repertoire the following:

cracker
cake
cookie
(notice how the first are all foods? yeah, that's my girl.)
baby
grandma (sounds like "bama")
grandpa (sounds like "bapa"
stroller (sounds like "RORO!" this one is always shouted.)
juice
walk
poo
owie
cup
down
shoe
this
that
outside
blanket
apple
book
nite-nite

Stay tuned for more exciting toddler developments.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

stuck

i've been feeling somewhat downtrodden in the blogging department lately. i mean, i live in Utah, of all places, and my life just seems downright...ordinary. let's see, this week we saw 'Star Trek' (it's AWESOME, you must go immediately), took kids to pet animals at Thanksgiving Point, ate burgers & fries at "Five Guys" (also AWESOME and you must go immediately), went on walks, read books, wore socks & still froze our booties off at night...really riveting stuff, i know. i love seeing my friends that i've missed, i love having good diapers for my baby, i love having family close by...but i'm still missing our exotic life and our good friends in malaysia. i miss the wet market (man, that place smells like a sewer but there are some GOOD deals to be made), i miss the food, i miss being warm, i miss hanging with anne all day while we swap recipes/share local deals we've found at stores/swap child-rearing advice, i miss singing with my girls from church, i miss our ENORMOUS house and our awesome house-help, heck, i even miss the geckos. what do i have that i can blog about now??? taking a walk to the grandparent's house?? so maybe it will just be a while before i feel like our life is really interesting and we actually have something to write about. (no one wants to hear people complain about their stress about money, house, insurance, job, car, etc...and that's sort of my life right now...that sounds really interesting, huh?) :)

HOWEVER, that have been a few funny things that we've witnessed as we help the kids adjust to the new life, climate, food & culture. my favorite one so far has been with john and the television. we never had one in malaysia and he really only watched movies on our laptop, so he was excited to find we could watch cartoons on grandma & grandpa's one television in the house! i left him in there one morning while i fed emily some breakfast and he came out to me complaining, "mommy, i don't have any cartoons." i came in to help him turn the channel and just started laughing when i realized it was still in the middle of the show, but i had to explain to him what commercials are! he still doesn't get it and that complaint is regularly elicited from his mouth. "mommy, i don't have any cartoons!"

heh-heh, silly boy, how i love you. ok, so that wasn't really interesting. if i can't get out of this funk i think i may have to stop blogging all together. this is just too depressing. anyone else have this problem? something that you use to get yourself out of a blogging funk? suggestions would be appreciated by the management. thank you for your support.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

There & Back

So we made our journey from Malaysia less than a week ago and somehow we survived the ordeal. It took 2 overnight flights, a day's rest at a dayroom in the Tokyo Narita Airport, some grumpy tantrums, some uncomfortable sleeping positions and some majorly cold weather.

Packing up. (I didn't take any pictures of the empty house, or of our last day with friends because it was too depressing. I try not to think about it so I don't start crying.)


Our dayroom...


...at Tokyo Narita! Such a cool airport, makes me want to visit Tokyo. (Notice the shorts, sandals & t-shirts...it will be a while before we see that combination again.)


One of the many shuttles we took over the course of 3 flights.


Our little ones were such a troopers.


Although the jet-lag did us in at our final destination.


Aaaaaand THIS is what greeted us the morning after our arrival. Nothing says welcome home like fog in May.


My little ones look SO different in jackets/pants/tights/socks/shoes that aren't sandals/etc.


But hanging with the cousins makes everything right with the world.


I would write more about the transition of an international move, leaving friends, finding old friends, remembering how much I hate having cold feet when I go to bed or being cold when I get out of the shower or needing to wear a jacket in my house because it's so COLD (sensing a pattern here?) but I am still in somewhat of a fog and can hardly seem to create a coherent sentence. I'm not even going to proofread my post for errors or complete nonsensical sentences (say that 5 times fast). Hopefully I'll feel back to my bloggy self soon.

*Well wishes for the day: Wherever you are, may you always have warm feet.*

readers