Brian in China

So Brian has sent a few pictures from China. He visited the Great Wall today (they are about 12 hours ahead of us- or 13 or 11). Here are some pictures.

This first picture is of the stairs up to the wall. Brian said that there were lots of stairs even before they got to this point.

This next one is of the wall itself. He thought it was about 20 feet high and maybe 15 feet wide. It is 4000 miles long and took 2000 years to build. (I thought that was pretty interesting).
Here are some vendors selling souvenirs. Brian says they are very aggressive. If you made eye contact, they would come right up and hold onto your shoulder or get right in front of you to try to sell you some stuff.

He said they went out tonight (again weird with the time change as it is morning here). And there were vendors selling snacks. He forgot his camera tonight, but he said the others were going to share pictures. The snacks they were selling were fried things on sticks. Those fried things were snakes on sticks, cockroaches on sticks, scorpions on sticks, and lots of interesting things. I wish I remembered more of them.

I will try to post more of the pictures Brian sends. I am so glad he is having a good time. We really miss him- especially on Father's Day. I don't think I mentioned, but he is in China with his MBA class. They are going to be there all week. We will miss him, but I think he will have a great time.

It's a .....

So, we had our 20 week ultrasound this week. All the kids and Brian attended. Matthew really wanted a boy, and both Brian and I were thinking it was a boy (but we were happy either way). And Kara and Lindsay wanted a girl (and to name her Sparkley- a very beautiful name... for a cat).

So, the ultrasound tech asked us if we wanted to know gender and we said yes. So, she said it was a girl, and we could see that. Matthew was so sad. He asked her to check it again (so she did)- it was still a girl. He was so sad. He asked a few times if she could be wrong. He even asked if there were any other differences beside the obvious anatomical, and we said no.

The girls on the other hand are thrilled. Brian and I are thrilled (and would be either way). And, last but not least, poor Sethy has no idea what's coming and what changes are going to take place.

Two Significant Events

Every year Matthew looks forward to the Father's and Son's campout. Kara also has her birthday coming up on Saturday. So, we had those two parties this weekend.

So, I wanted to do Kara's birthday party and keep it pretty simple, but I definately didn't want to have even a couple of friends over for any type of a party seeing as our whole house is full of boxes, and I didn't want to deal with more mess. Anyway, so I was checking out inexpensive birthday parties, and McDonalds won. Kara's choice was take two friends to Build-a-Bear, or invite whoever she wanted to McDonalds. Build-a-Bear won out for about 10 minutes, and then she decided McDonalds would be more fun because we'd get dinner and get to play at the play land.

It was a great deal. All the kids got Happy Meals (with extra toys and stickers and stuff), ice cream, cake, and playing on the play land. And they cleaned up everything. We just took the gifts and left. All that for 9 kids, and my meal for $55. It was kind of crazy, but the girls all had a great time.

Matthew and Brian didn't come because they went on the Father's and Son's campout with our ward. They had such a great time. Matthew caught a fish. They had some bacon they used for bait (because it was what they had). Matthew walked up to the lake, found a spot. He told Brian that this was the spot where there was going to be a fish. Cast his hook, and caught a fish. Brian only helped put the bacon on the hook.

They also played football with people from the ward, roasted marshmallows, stayed up late, and had a great time. Matthew had a great day that day. At school he had his Mexican Fiesta (they had a unit on Mexico) as well. I am glad it turned out well. He always looks forward to the Father's and Son's campout every year.

The girls and I came home from the birthday party and watched one movie of Dora. The girls could have stayed up later, but I needed to get to bed (after all it was 10pm, and I didn't get a nap because I got to help out at Matthew school fiesta- fiesta instead of a siesta).

Saturday morning, we watched Hotel for Dogs. It was a cute movie. The girls really liked it. Seth even would come up and watch for a couple of minutes every now and then and say "Doggy" or "Dojjy" (he says both-it is cute). It was such a fun day. I look forward to those girl's times too.

I decided to finally post a couple of pictures. No, my camera hasn't been broken, I just haven't taken any pictures. Brian has taken a couple on his camera (the kids took a couple as well). Here are some cute ones of the kids. Here is one of Lulu. This is one of her eating her yummy pudding. Gotta make sure you get every last drop of the delicious stuff.

Here is Kara. On Sunday nights, for FHE we often enjoy pudding as our treat.

Here is cute little Sethy. Lately he has been eating with his right foot up on the table. Matthew doesn't quite understand how it is so cute for Seth to do that, but it isn't OK for him to. I guess growing up is hard.

Here is Matt. I think he got something in his eye this day. I don't remember what it was- maybe someone or something poked him. Anyway, this is just a cute shot. I think Kara took it. He is holding his butterfly/other bug or even possible a fish net.

So, last week, we sort of had a break from packing. We just have the kitchen, and bedding stuff left. I think it should go OK this week. I am a little nervous about fitting all our stuff in the truck. We might need to get an extra trailer or borrow someone's truck. I guess we'll see how things go this week.

Wednesday is the big day, so anyone who is up for helping come along. We'll provide the stuff to move and the pizza.