We're leaving tomorrow for our road trip to Ohio and Kentucky! We're really looking forward to the trip, not only for the sights, but for the people we're meeting along the way.
We're planning on getting up around 6:30ish and getting on the road around 8:00 and we'll hopefully be in Cleveland around 1:30pm...then we're hitting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! We'll spend one night in Cleveland and then we're off for Kentucky...mmmm Kentucky 'grape juice'.
We'll probably spend a few days exploring Lexington and Bowling Green. Josh wants to go to the Corvette plant and we're going to explore Cave City and well, look at some caves. He says we'll have a good time, so ok...we're going there.
Then next Friday we'll be meeting up with Connie, Krista, Sam, Drew, Kieren and Cullen, and Robin and Marty for dinner. I've been looking forward to meeting everyone for a while, and now after seeing all the pictures from the most recent bloggy bash, I'm looking forward to it even more!
We'll 'see' you on the flipside...miss me lots, people!
I'm hoping that while I'm away I'll get a call from Nic and I'll hear all about her travel plans! We wish them the best of luck and safe travel when they get little Z (who is simply breathtaking).
Friday, July 27, 2007
Thursday, July 26, 2007
June is out of review!
Woo! While it doesn't mean much for us...at least everyone who was logged in in June 2006 can take a huge sigh of relief as they are now out of review. Congrats! I'm still hoping for us to be out of review by the end of the year...
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Ohhh the excitement! ***UPDATE - AGAIN***
I'm a Top Momma!
What does that mean?
Well, after two months ofwhining, cajoling, and sulking patiently waiting my turn, I'm now on the front page of the Top Momma site!
What I need for you to do is to click here and vote for me...or you can just click here and guess which picture I posted...I'll bet you can't guess...*smirk*
So...what are you doing still reading? Go vote! Now...please?
Oh, and if you can get others to vote for me, that would be great too.
***Yes, Donna, just click on the above link(s) to your heart's content...
I also think I've *finally* solved the problem with people's computers freezing up when viewing my blog. I took off the Snap code and now the page seems to be running faster. If any of you are still having problems please leave me a comment.
Well, it seems that I'm off that site. Apparently I only lasted a day on it...which seems a bit wonky, but whatever. Thanks for voting for me...***
What does that mean?
Well, after two months of
What I need for you to do is to click here and vote for me...or you can just click here and guess which picture I posted...I'll bet you can't guess...*smirk*
So...what are you doing still reading? Go vote! Now...please?
Oh, and if you can get others to vote for me, that would be great too.
***Yes, Donna, just click on the above link(s) to your heart's content...
I also think I've *finally* solved the problem with people's computers freezing up when viewing my blog. I took off the Snap code and now the page seems to be running faster. If any of you are still having problems please leave me a comment.
Well, it seems that I'm off that site. Apparently I only lasted a day on it...which seems a bit wonky, but whatever. Thanks for voting for me...***
Monday, July 23, 2007
Bitchfest-on-the-Lake
A while back I decided to put together a picnic for the A-Team (Josh's nickname for our adoption friends) at Niagara-on-the-Lake. I'm not sure if I was the one that nicknamed it Bitchfest-on-the-Lake or not. Either way, it was held yesterday and we couldn't have had better weather!
Michelle and Mark, Nic and Tim, and Dolores and Shawn came to the picnic-y goodness with enough food to choke a horse...or at least the idiot who was running up and down the hill crashing into everyone as he ran.
We all arrived for noon and found a picnic table to sit at, but most of us ended up either sitting on the ground or on our chairs and left the food in the shade on the table. We talked for a good couple of hours about everything under the sun.
As we were finishing up lunch and dessert, Nic surprised all of us with a stunning watercolour that she made for each of us that was representative of us and our blogs. You'll have to check out Michelle and Dolores' blogs for the other pictures. Honestly though, this picture of it doesn't do it justice. Josh was literally speechless when he saw it...and for those of you that know him, that's a TOUGH thing to do. ;)
I know that a lot of you are DYING to know what I bought from New Zealand, so without further ado, here it is...
A while back I was perusing this blog and I saw the hat and I thought it was one of the cutest things I had seen in a long time. My first thought was 'oh my G-d, a pumpkin hat! I have to get that for Michelle and Mark's little pumpkin!' and then I weakened and got one for our "Little Maple". This is the one and only item I've purchased for our daughter so far.
The woman who makes these is quite talented and her price is reasonable (especially considering that it's coming all the way from New Zealand and she uses New Zealand wool). Right now she's taking a hiatus from making anymore for a while, but if you're interested in ordering one, leave a comment with your email, or send me an email...
By the way, for those of you that remember this post should be amused to know that the site still says that my package is on it's way to New Zealand...and I never heard back from Canada Post about my complaint email. I think I might send it again...
By the way, for those of you who were commenting on the last post, it was written by Spitgirl, not me. Sorry for any confusion. :)
Michelle and Mark, Nic and Tim, and Dolores and Shawn came to the picnic-y goodness with enough food to choke a horse...or at least the idiot who was running up and down the hill crashing into everyone as he ran.
We all arrived for noon and found a picnic table to sit at, but most of us ended up either sitting on the ground or on our chairs and left the food in the shade on the table. We talked for a good couple of hours about everything under the sun.
As we were finishing up lunch and dessert, Nic surprised all of us with a stunning watercolour that she made for each of us that was representative of us and our blogs. You'll have to check out Michelle and Dolores' blogs for the other pictures. Honestly though, this picture of it doesn't do it justice. Josh was literally speechless when he saw it...and for those of you that know him, that's a TOUGH thing to do. ;)
I know that a lot of you are DYING to know what I bought from New Zealand, so without further ado, here it is...
A while back I was perusing this blog and I saw the hat and I thought it was one of the cutest things I had seen in a long time. My first thought was 'oh my G-d, a pumpkin hat! I have to get that for Michelle and Mark's little pumpkin!' and then I weakened and got one for our "Little Maple". This is the one and only item I've purchased for our daughter so far.The woman who makes these is quite talented and her price is reasonable (especially considering that it's coming all the way from New Zealand and she uses New Zealand wool). Right now she's taking a hiatus from making anymore for a while, but if you're interested in ordering one, leave a comment with your email, or send me an email...
By the way, for those of you that remember this post should be amused to know that the site still says that my package is on it's way to New Zealand...and I never heard back from Canada Post about my complaint email. I think I might send it again...
By the way, for those of you who were commenting on the last post, it was written by Spitgirl, not me. Sorry for any confusion. :)
The land of desserts and tropical fruit
Spitgirl here. For those of you who haven't seen my posts in the past, I am a 2nd generation Chinese immigrant to the United States. Rhonda asked me to make the occasional cultural post, posting a little about my own memories of growing up in a Chinese family, as well as recording little phrases in Mandarin. We called this the "Little Maple Project," and although I've been really lax in the past couple of months due to grad school, preparing for a wedding, and training for my next belt test in my martial arts, I decided I'd make a brief post, mostly because I've become nostalgic in my old age.
I was checking out at the register in the lunch room at work today when I noticed a small box and a sign, "FREE TRIAL - Fresh Lychee. 1 cup, $2.95" Holy cows, I thought to myself. NO WAY. I've been back to Taiwan about a dozen times in my lifetime, and one of the greatest delights I had was the wonder of fresh lychees. I could sit for a half an hour and eat a bunch by myself - first, by shelling the thin peel off, then popping the entire fruit in my mouth, carefully eating the sweet, tender flesh and spitting out the large seed afterwards. The taste is perfectly sweet which comes in a burst of flavor.
For the longest time, we couldn't get lychee in California. Then came the canned variety - sticky sweet and oh so delightful - but not quite as good as the real fruit. And then, finally, about ten years ago, we were able to get the lychee fruit imported. Sheer bliss...
As a rather odd anecdote, since lychees are spherical and white, my dad explained carefully to my brother and me that the eyeballs in Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom were actually floating lychees in soup. We had gone to see the movie together, and he couldn't cover our eyes fast enough. For some reason, I clung to that explanation and wasn't really terrified by that scene at all. (He did manage to cover our eyes for the scene where the priest rips out the heart of the slave, though. I am eternally thankful he did.)
Thinking about this particular fruit also leads me to post about my favorite childhood dessert - xing4ren2do4fu (almond jello). I can't make it the way my mom used to make it - buying agar at the store, adding milk and almond paste... now there are boxes for these things. So here is my recent memory of how to make almond jello:
- Buy a box of almond jello mix from an Asian grocery food store. Prepare in a large glass lasagna pan and let it set overnight
- Cut into cubes and place in bowl
- Add canned fruit (the kind with maraschino cherries - that's important), including the juice from the can. You might want to add some water to bring down the sugar content, particularly for kids
- Serve chilled in small bowls, preferably with Chinese soup spoons.
I know, step 1 doesn't sound too glamorous, but the end dessert is sweet, chilled, and perfect for a warm summer night. As for the cherries... my siblings and I used to fight over how many cherries we would get in a bowl of this dessert. I guess you can use any kind of canned fruit, but mom would just buy the kind that had multiple types of fruit.
I was checking out at the register in the lunch room at work today when I noticed a small box and a sign, "FREE TRIAL - Fresh Lychee. 1 cup, $2.95" Holy cows, I thought to myself. NO WAY. I've been back to Taiwan about a dozen times in my lifetime, and one of the greatest delights I had was the wonder of fresh lychees. I could sit for a half an hour and eat a bunch by myself - first, by shelling the thin peel off, then popping the entire fruit in my mouth, carefully eating the sweet, tender flesh and spitting out the large seed afterwards. The taste is perfectly sweet which comes in a burst of flavor.
For the longest time, we couldn't get lychee in California. Then came the canned variety - sticky sweet and oh so delightful - but not quite as good as the real fruit. And then, finally, about ten years ago, we were able to get the lychee fruit imported. Sheer bliss...
As a rather odd anecdote, since lychees are spherical and white, my dad explained carefully to my brother and me that the eyeballs in Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom were actually floating lychees in soup. We had gone to see the movie together, and he couldn't cover our eyes fast enough. For some reason, I clung to that explanation and wasn't really terrified by that scene at all. (He did manage to cover our eyes for the scene where the priest rips out the heart of the slave, though. I am eternally thankful he did.)
Thinking about this particular fruit also leads me to post about my favorite childhood dessert - xing4ren2do4fu (almond jello). I can't make it the way my mom used to make it - buying agar at the store, adding milk and almond paste... now there are boxes for these things. So here is my recent memory of how to make almond jello:
- Buy a box of almond jello mix from an Asian grocery food store. Prepare in a large glass lasagna pan and let it set overnight
- Cut into cubes and place in bowl
- Add canned fruit (the kind with maraschino cherries - that's important), including the juice from the can. You might want to add some water to bring down the sugar content, particularly for kids
- Serve chilled in small bowls, preferably with Chinese soup spoons.
I know, step 1 doesn't sound too glamorous, but the end dessert is sweet, chilled, and perfect for a warm summer night. As for the cherries... my siblings and I used to fight over how many cherries we would get in a bowl of this dessert. I guess you can use any kind of canned fruit, but mom would just buy the kind that had multiple types of fruit.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
The little blog that could...***UPDATE***
Today the blog is a whole year old...wow! It all started with this post. I still find this whole community amazing...the people, the connections, everything.
Prior to blogging (and the process in general) we didn't exactly have a full social calendar, now it seems that we're constantly busy with other A-parents on a steady basis. We have truly met some of the most interesting and fascinating people through the process...and just think, Josh didn't want me to get involved in blogging. :P
I just want to thank everyone (17500+ to date) who clicks on here regularly (and even not-so-regularly) for the support, laughs, and let's be honest, shared frustrations over the past year.
So, to celebrate this auspicious occasion, I'm going to shake that lurker tree for all it's worth and see who else falls out. If you don't see your blog listed in my sidebar, leave me a comment and I'll add you on (though chances are, I read you in Bloglines anyways). Hey, just leave me a comment anyways...
***I think I added everyone to my blogroll who left me a comment...if you find that yours is still missing and you want it listed, post a comment.***
Prior to blogging (and the process in general) we didn't exactly have a full social calendar, now it seems that we're constantly busy with other A-parents on a steady basis. We have truly met some of the most interesting and fascinating people through the process...and just think, Josh didn't want me to get involved in blogging. :P
I just want to thank everyone (17500+ to date) who clicks on here regularly (and even not-so-regularly) for the support, laughs, and let's be honest, shared frustrations over the past year.
So, to celebrate this auspicious occasion, I'm going to shake that lurker tree for all it's worth and see who else falls out. If you don't see your blog listed in my sidebar, leave me a comment and I'll add you on (though chances are, I read you in Bloglines anyways). Hey, just leave me a comment anyways...
***I think I added everyone to my blogroll who left me a comment...if you find that yours is still missing and you want it listed, post a comment.***
Be careful...
...and read this. It's really pathetic that I have to keep posting stories like this and it makes me scared shitless for when we have "Little Maple" home.
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