1. Outside one of the grocery stores I frequent is a place called The French Baker-I bought a long baguette of French bread recently and Ashley was with me. When the lady behind the counter handed me our bread Ashley said "mommy can I carry the tall bread" I laughed at her-it was tall but not quite as tall as she is.
2. On a recent drive to the boys school I saw goats along the exit ramp where we got off to go to school. On the ride home on the expressway we passed a jeepney with the back packed full of pineapples. I have also seen them full of bananas and coconuts. However when we have seen pigs on the expressway, they are actually transported in trucks-and are so huge that I would call them hogs, but the trucks say-"Pig Trucks"
3. Umbrellas are used here A LOT! Except by those of us who are fortunate enough to have drivers who drop us off at the door. Obviously they are used often during the rainy season as sometimes when a typhoon is close we will get 4-5 inches of rain in a 24 hour period. Umbrellas are also used to keep the heat and sun off of people. It is amusing to me that here everyone wants their skin to be lighter (you can buy creams, lotions, etc, have your skin bleached, all kinds of crazy things and in the US (at least before skin cancer became so common every wanted to be browner). Honestly, I got out of our van one day (with the driver standing there to close the door for me) and one of the many mall security guards held an umbrella over my head and walked me to the covered area where it was shaded. I will say that it was a sunny bright day but I told Greg that I felt like Scarlett with her hoop skirts missing!
4. Poking holes in sandwiches-for some reason Greg started poking holes in the kids sandwiches "to say how much I love you" and this is now a regular part of weekend lunchtime. Often their is great debate over who poked the holes and finger size comparison and threats of poking more holes if you don't get to the table quickly, etc.
One day when Ashley was home from school she was coloring at the table and I was sitting with her making Greg's lunches for the rest of the week. She brought up poking holes and I let her poke holes in all of Greg's sandwiches for the week-she thought it was extremely funny and told on herself that night when Greg got home from work. She also wrote her first note to Daddy on his napkin for his lunchbag. I help her spell I love you Daddy. She enjoyed getting to do that for him and he loved finding the surprise!
5. I forgot to include a funny story from the day Ashley had her school pictures made-One of the school directors, Teacher Cheri-who attends the same church we do-was down on her knees fixing Ashley's mortarboard hat. Teacher Cheri is Filipino. She told Ashley that she liked her freckles. She asked Ashley how she would look with polka dots on her face but then she said "but I'm already brown!" I was sitting there trying not to laugh as I overheard this. Then Teacher Cheri said maybe I should draw pink polka dots-like your skin on my brown skin. It reminded me of Ryan's hilarious comment back at the beginning of school about being the only "pink-y skinned person" in his class. Though we don't let the kids use this expression for fear they would offend someone it still makes me laugh every time I think about it.
6. Ashley's class has been studying animals and they made a panda bear face one day as their art project. I laughed when she showed me hers at the end of the day. Her teacher was telling me that the Chinese word for panda is-this is spelled phonetically, because I have no clue how you really spell it-"da shung mow" translating large bear cat. Not something she would have learned in preschool in Greenville-though I realize that I need to teach her the pledge to the American flag because that is something she won't learn in preschool here. Her panda looked a little different than her teacher's because she glued the black patches above the panda's mouth so he looked like he had a mustache. She is very abstract with her artwork.
7. Sort of-on the subject of China-We have had a PF Chang's restaurant open here recently. We were going to take the kids to eat there one Sunday after church but went somewhere else because the wait was an hour and a half. Greg and I had a lunchdate there one Friday while Ashley was at school and it was GREAT! We both tried new things-Schezuan shrimp and lemon chicken and of course had fried rice. We brought the leftovers home and shared to see what the kids would think of it. The boys both liked the chicken and Ashley said it was ok. Scott could have eaten a whole bowl of fried rice.
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