Our First Outing in Beijing

Our family has been in Beijing for one week now. It has been a crazy week learning the ropes and most of all where to find everything but we are getting the hang of things. At least we are over the jetlag. On Saturday we took our first trip into downtown Beijing which is about 20 minutes away. We visited the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. It was really neat to see however the whole time we were surrounded by people taking pictures of us and wanting to touch the kids (especially Zach). Mike kept saying "this is what the animals in the zoo feel like." It was wild! Close to the square is a street market called Wangfujing where we sampled some of China's yummy treats like, scorpion, sea horse, star fish, snake, silk worm, grub, etc., etc. Our kids were so brave, check out our photos and stay tuned...

Cousins

Cute Cousins!! In July my sisters-in-law Shellie and Christan, as well as myself had baby boys. The three cousins were born within 12 days of each other. They are all so dang cute!!! This is Zach and Drew (Mike's brother's baby). They are 6 month old in this picture.

So many visitors, So much Fun!!!!

We have been so lucky the past three weeks, we have had Mike's parents visit, my parents visit and finally Mike's brother Brian ans his wife. We have done tons of sight seeing and just enjoyed being with family. We visited the Natural History Museum bug room with Joan and Kirk and Kenny's family. Garret and Joan held the giant hissing cockroach. Yuck! We also stopped at the National Cathedral, and went swimming at Kirk and Joan's hotel. With my parent we visitied great falls on the Potomac River, and visited Mt. Vernon. We had so much fun, love you all. Thanks for coming to see us!!!

Caught you Blinking

Don't you just hate those pictures that catch you in the middle of a blink? I seem to get them a lot. Come on Bri, keep your eyes open!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!!!!

Mike and I celebrated our birthdays this month. On the 4th Mike turned 34 and on the 8th I turned 30!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US> For Mike's special day we had a dance party and for mine we went to dinner. One year older and wiser too!!

How to eat fried worms!!

Trent LOVES LOVES LOVES worms. The other day he dumped out his fishing worms and played with them for an hour. What's funny is that we have this exact picture of him playing with worms on the kitchen floor when he was 3. Unfortunately he is naked in the other picture so I can't post it but it is very clear that weather Trent is 3 or 7 he is a worm man. Before we cleaned them up the boys dared me to lick one like the story How to Eat fried Worms. I did with no problem, I like the taste of dirt. I then dared Garret to do the same and he delivered.

Construction

For Christmas Trent got a K-Nex marble tour that you put together yourself. When I picked it out I knew that Mike would love to help put it together, I did not know that it had 4000 pieces.
It took him 4 days and about 10 hours to get it built. It was a lot of work but it is really neat to watch. Nice building Daddy!!