I finally got my snow!

Monday morning I wake up to the beautiful sight of snow falling from the sky!! I thought what a beautiful way to start the week. Mondays can be so hard to get out of bed but not this Monday. I was so excited I could not get outside fast enough.

Anna really seemed to enjoy our time outside except for being cold.

Anna got to do her first snow angel. She really enjoyed doing it until she tried to get up by herself and kept getting snow in her face from her gloves. It was really funny because the more she tried to wipe it off the more she kept putting on because it was stuck to her glove. (Am I a terrible mother for thinking my daughters agony was funny?) Anna's favorite part of playing in the snow was playing with another little girls sand toys. She loved filling up the bucket with snow, dumping it out and then "cutting" it with a shovel.

This next section is inappropriate for children, please turn your eyes . . .

People wonder how bad the smoking is in China - see even the snowmen smoke

REALLY Snow @ the Beach

Now I can say that I have really seen snow on the beach. Anna looked at it and really wanted to go down and play. I thought that cold wet sandy snow did not sound like fun at all. So instead we splashed in the slushy puddles and just looked at the snowy beach.

Olympics coming to Qingdao

The day we arrived home from our trip to the states our helper told us that the Olympic center was open to the public. So after Anna laid down for a nap we took a nice walk along the beach and saw where the Olympic sailing will be held this summer. It is very simple but pretty. It has a very nice view of Qingdao's skyline. Walking around I could only imagine what it is going to be like this summer, very crowded with no where to move except into the ocean.

We were not too sure what these buildings are for but we each had our guess. We are guessing that the one in the air is for judges or cameramen. The one on the ground I think is like a lobby for the contestants. But whatever they are for I thought they looked pretty cool. Jeremy thinks they look old and retro and should have come up with a better design.



But it is kinda cool that we live so close (about a 5 minute walk). In the following blog I took some pictures of where our house is compared to the sailing center.

Our Home by the Olympics

In these two pictures I am standing at the Olympic center where the sailing will occur here in Qingdao. In the top picture you can see a building on the left that Jeremy and I guessed would be for the judges. If you look far to the right you see a bunch of apartment buildings with red roofs. That is the complex where most of our staff lives. We don't live there but we live literally right behind those buildings. (There buildings are taller than ours so you can't see them =( )

You can see now how close we are to where the Olympics will be held.

Kid's Kingdom

Every Thursday my mother & father babysit for my brother's three children. This past Thursday my sister from PA was also in town to visit, so we had 6 kids running around the house. To give the kids something to do other than drive the adults crazy and tear down the house, we took them to a near by play yard.

The place was really pretty nice (but coming from China I think that I would think anything America has is pretty nice). The kids enjoyed jumping into the ball pits (yes, there was more than one).

Being the most mischievous and adventuresome, my sister's son was willing to do anything and everything. I think he was trying to find the one thing that he was not supposed to be doing.

The moms weren't too sure about a sandbox inside, but all the kids enjoyed it for awhile.

All the kids really enjoyed themselves and did not want to leave. But of all the kids, can you guess who had the most fun? My one-year-old nephew!