China trip Day #2

The Bund river front. We were able to take a boat ride to view the

I love this picture because it represents the hustle and bustle of Shanghai. The taxi's we road there were the fastest, craziest drivers we've ever been with. And they honk all the time. There seems to be no rules as far as following the lane lines. 3 lanes were constantly made into 4 lanes by traffic.

The fans that I paid too much for. I did do good at some of my bartering, other times I think I paid way too much. It was like monopoly money at times. Quite funny.



This is also one of my favorite pictures of the trip. I really wanted to capture the people of China. I saw a couple Grandmas having so much fun with their grandchildren. I imagined a much more stoic crowd in that generation I guess. This was so cute.

The Jade Buddha. The temple was interesting to say the least. I will finish with those pictures another time. Time for bed.

China trip

I have so much I want to say about China. I actually was able to journal each of my days in Shanghai because we had internet access. Unfortunately the Chinese government screens what websites you can get on... so I was not able to get onto my blogs. I was really bummed because I thought it would be great to post my pictures and comments as we went. Here is the first day and a little of my feelings. If you read my private family blog I will probably be posting similar things on that since I print that blog in our family book each year.




We started out by having a taxi come pick us up at our home in the US at 4:15am. Oh boy! Of course the $30 cab ended up being $60 after a short detour. Oh well. We flew to Vancouver, CA and hung out for 4 hours. The airport was beautiful. Then we were off to our destination of Shanghai. The plane ride to China was almost 12 hours nonstop from Canada. It flew by! We had so much fun together. Slept for only 2 or 3 hours, even with an ambien. Maybe the excitement got us. We had 3 good meals, watched a few movies and tv shows available on the seat in front of us, read some of my book and before we knew it we were here!

We took a private van that our tour guides from Brody’s MBA school had set up. On the bus we met the nicest couple, Alicia & Darrel, from Chicago. We unpacked and went for our adventure to the fabric market of Shanghai to buy Brody some new suits. The hotel wrote down where we wanted to go in Chinese and we showed that to our taxi driver. There we met a 22 year old girl that I saw each day while in Shanghai. She told me all about the customs, traditions. She took us to a restaurant in the back roads of Shanghai. No Americans around! Everyone rides bikes, rusty ones. Men pulling huge loads of scrap metal or other goods on trailers. Kids on small motorcycles with their parents in the middle of the street. Clothes drying from all the high rise apartment buildings. At dinner no one spoke English obviously. We found one picture that remotely looked like noodles and ordered that. A bunch of deep fried crispy noodles came out with shrimp that we didn't dare eat. But it was our first night! We were on a adventure. Through the subsequent days in China we weren't as "excited" about our rare Chinese food finds.

Best friends

I have to post these now that I have finally completed my editing of everything in Nevada. Yeah! We miss our "cousins" tremendously. You know when you have found a great friend when you can fight like sisters and still love each other in an instance. I hope Alliyah and Eliza will always be friends. We will just have to fly out there every summer to visit. :)

Lydia, Sariah, Eliza, Levi, Breeann, Kassey

I have a special place in my heart for this girl. Really can I have a 10 year old best buddy? She is it. She was my babysitter at age 9 that I could call up in a moments notice to come help me, she folded and put away my clothes every week, she loved my kids like she was their sibling, she joked around and made me and Brody laugh all the time. She is sarcastic and so sweet. Sariah I miss you more than you know!

what a cute 6 year old. She wanted Alliyah to go to her birthday party before we moved so she had it 3 weeks early.

Going to be baptized on Saturday. What a handsome, funny little boy. There is no one quite like Mr. Levi.

Hi Drama Teen. Yes, you heard me. I love this girl, but does she like to tease. Her mom and I were talking the other day and I think we were interrupted about every 3 minutes on whether I had her birthday present ready to send her. She was just giving me a hard time because I sewed them all bags with their names on it and she knows I haven't gotten around to doing hers yet. She might get it for Christmas :)

And last, but not least, Miss Kassey. She always has a joke to tell me.

Love you all!

Ty, Melissa and kids

Well better late than never. These were taken back in May. I miss you guys! This is one of the sweetest ladies I have ever known. Very good friend. Ty was just saying the other day how he remembered you brought him cool popsicles when he had his tonsils out this year. For the record Melissa got these a while ago and told me she has already framed them in her house.


Briggs was not wanting to smile as you can tell in this first picture. We got him though! I think the first picture looks like a serious model.

New website up this summer

I will have a new website this Summer. I'm having a girl design my new blog. It should be done in August. I have a lot of pictures to post but have been gone and leaving again, so maybe in August I will get some of them up. I hope you all are having a fun summer!

Samantha & Lulu

These cute girls are dear to my heart. Samantha is Alliyah's best friend from her preschool and kindergarten class. They love each other so much. Samantha taught Alliyah how to tie her shoes. Samantha was just heart broken when Alliyah moved from her. I know we will always keep in touch. They write emails every once in a while which is cute. Her mom is one of the sweetest ladies I know too. Thanks for being our friends!