Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree
And its Monday again…time just flies by. I am getting older very fast. The weekend was a good one. Went by too fast, that’s for sure. I don’t even remember what we did Friday night. It was raining, typhoon was headed our way. I picked up Ashley and we walked back in the rain. She really enjoyed it – had fun splashing through the puddles and singing in the rain.
Saturday morning, we had one of Ashley’s friends, Claire, over to play. The girls had a lot of fun playing and Ashley really enjoyed having someone over to play with. They were so cute together, playing PlayDoh, eating lunch and talking. I’d ask one of them about school – who’s your favorite teacher, what’s your favorite activity – and of course, they both had the SAME answers everytime. Too cute!
Saturday afternoon, I had a ‘Scrapbooking Class’ (yes, Faith, they have Creative Memories over here!). Hopefully, this will inspire me enough to finish working on Ashley’s babybook, which is still in the beginning stages (and she’s 3.5 years old!). There was a woman from the parentpages playgroup network that was having a scrapbooking class and I signed up to go. She also sells scrapbook supplies from Creative Memories (yes, in Chinese) so I figured I could buy some supplies I needed to. It was at her house and Anthony told me how to say it along with writing it out in Chinese for the cab driver. Lucky for me, he knows how to write some things since the taxi driver didn’t understand the address I told him. But with Anthony’s written address, he took me straight there. I had a good time, all of the women there, besides me and Dorota (the woman giving the class), were Taiwanese and spoke very little English. It was interesting and fun. Anthony then came and picked me up from their house and we went over to Toys R Us, which is in their neighborhood. We shopped around, letting Ashley show us what she wants “Santa” to bring her. We also found a really cheap fake Christmas tree and some ornaments and lights. We picked up a little baby doll stroller for Liz, which she absolutely LOVES. She keeps pushing it around all over the apartment and gets upset if Ashley plays with it. Too funny!
After we got home, we set up the tree and decorated it. We had a lot of fun and it’s nice to have a little bit of Christmas in the apartment. It’s strange though – whenever I walk into the living room, I’m surprised at the Christmas tree there – like it’s out of place, not supposed to be there. It’s just so warm here and there isn’t a lot of the “Christmas spirit” that you see everywhere back home. I’m missing all our Christmas decorations and all the ornaments that we’ve collected as a family – it’s always been a tradition to get ornaments every year and now we don’t have them, it is sad. We had thought that we would be home for Christmas when we packed all our stuff up, so we left it all in our garage back home and now we wish we had shipped some of it. Our Christmas stockings and some ornaments mainly. Oh well, guess I’ll scour the city of Taipei and see what I can find from here!
Sunday, we didn’t do a whole lot. In fact, I can’t even remember what we did in the morning/early afternoon. I know we drove out later in the day, we went over to the Taiwan Handicraft Mart, to pick up some gifts for family back home and then after that, we went to a place called “Grandma Nittis” which I’ve read about on others blogs and seen on one of the tourist maps. They have a lot of “western” style food – burgers, sandwiches, Mexican food, breakfast, brunch, etc. It was pretty good and Liz loved being it because there was a resident dog and cat. Now, I know that would be illegal in the States – having animals in your restaurant, but here, in Taiwan, it’s quite a common occurrence – at least these two looked well taken care of and weren’t street animals hoping to find a meal. The food was pretty good, not exactly like back home, but close enough. They also have a little book area and games to play. There were quite a few foreigners in the restaurant, it seems a popular hang out for the teaching community here.
Today, I had my Chinese cooking class with Angie (http://kitchen.j321.com/cooking-class.htm) at Jodie’s kitchen. We learned a few REALLY simple dishes. One which I will try this week is garlic shrimp. The kids were with us, so as usual, lots of interrupting during the lesson, but it’s a good way to learn about the different vegetables and produce here.
Liz didn’t really take a nap today, just a short one in the morning, she was pretty cranky the rest of the day and kept crying every time I laid her down. It looks like she’s getting 6 teeth in right now – 4 on top and 2 on the bottom – so I’m sure that’s not helping her mood. Ashley was great going to school and had a good time today at school. Tomorrow is her outing day and they are going to DaAn park, so hopefully, she’ll be happy to go to school tomorrow too!
Saturday morning, we had one of Ashley’s friends, Claire, over to play. The girls had a lot of fun playing and Ashley really enjoyed having someone over to play with. They were so cute together, playing PlayDoh, eating lunch and talking. I’d ask one of them about school – who’s your favorite teacher, what’s your favorite activity – and of course, they both had the SAME answers everytime. Too cute!
Saturday afternoon, I had a ‘Scrapbooking Class’ (yes, Faith, they have Creative Memories over here!). Hopefully, this will inspire me enough to finish working on Ashley’s babybook, which is still in the beginning stages (and she’s 3.5 years old!). There was a woman from the parentpages playgroup network that was having a scrapbooking class and I signed up to go. She also sells scrapbook supplies from Creative Memories (yes, in Chinese) so I figured I could buy some supplies I needed to. It was at her house and Anthony told me how to say it along with writing it out in Chinese for the cab driver. Lucky for me, he knows how to write some things since the taxi driver didn’t understand the address I told him. But with Anthony’s written address, he took me straight there. I had a good time, all of the women there, besides me and Dorota (the woman giving the class), were Taiwanese and spoke very little English. It was interesting and fun. Anthony then came and picked me up from their house and we went over to Toys R Us, which is in their neighborhood. We shopped around, letting Ashley show us what she wants “Santa” to bring her. We also found a really cheap fake Christmas tree and some ornaments and lights. We picked up a little baby doll stroller for Liz, which she absolutely LOVES. She keeps pushing it around all over the apartment and gets upset if Ashley plays with it. Too funny!
After we got home, we set up the tree and decorated it. We had a lot of fun and it’s nice to have a little bit of Christmas in the apartment. It’s strange though – whenever I walk into the living room, I’m surprised at the Christmas tree there – like it’s out of place, not supposed to be there. It’s just so warm here and there isn’t a lot of the “Christmas spirit” that you see everywhere back home. I’m missing all our Christmas decorations and all the ornaments that we’ve collected as a family – it’s always been a tradition to get ornaments every year and now we don’t have them, it is sad. We had thought that we would be home for Christmas when we packed all our stuff up, so we left it all in our garage back home and now we wish we had shipped some of it. Our Christmas stockings and some ornaments mainly. Oh well, guess I’ll scour the city of Taipei and see what I can find from here!
Sunday, we didn’t do a whole lot. In fact, I can’t even remember what we did in the morning/early afternoon. I know we drove out later in the day, we went over to the Taiwan Handicraft Mart, to pick up some gifts for family back home and then after that, we went to a place called “Grandma Nittis” which I’ve read about on others blogs and seen on one of the tourist maps. They have a lot of “western” style food – burgers, sandwiches, Mexican food, breakfast, brunch, etc. It was pretty good and Liz loved being it because there was a resident dog and cat. Now, I know that would be illegal in the States – having animals in your restaurant, but here, in Taiwan, it’s quite a common occurrence – at least these two looked well taken care of and weren’t street animals hoping to find a meal. The food was pretty good, not exactly like back home, but close enough. They also have a little book area and games to play. There were quite a few foreigners in the restaurant, it seems a popular hang out for the teaching community here.
Today, I had my Chinese cooking class with Angie (http://kitchen.j321.com/cooking-class.htm) at Jodie’s kitchen. We learned a few REALLY simple dishes. One which I will try this week is garlic shrimp. The kids were with us, so as usual, lots of interrupting during the lesson, but it’s a good way to learn about the different vegetables and produce here.
Liz didn’t really take a nap today, just a short one in the morning, she was pretty cranky the rest of the day and kept crying every time I laid her down. It looks like she’s getting 6 teeth in right now – 4 on top and 2 on the bottom – so I’m sure that’s not helping her mood. Ashley was great going to school and had a good time today at school. Tomorrow is her outing day and they are going to DaAn park, so hopefully, she’ll be happy to go to school tomorrow too!
posted by The Armstrongs at
12/06/2004
