10 year-olds, Wikipedia, and the unit of inquiry

in

Some interesting news today. We found out (via a school email) that Henry's next "unit of inquiry" at school is called "The Human Body". They will cover fun and exciting topics such as reproduction, conception, organs, and bodily hygiene (boys and girls separately). Jess is of the opinion that 10 year olds are more concerned with Legos and cartoons, and are probably too young to learn this stuff. I agree with her, but then I think that the learning paradigm for kids these days is different than what we are used to. 10 minutes on Wikipedia is probably all they need if they are really interested.

Oh well, we'll see how it goes.

The motorcycle has 'landed'!

in

Just got word that Ted and LuAnn have the motorcycle in the custody. Finally! After nearly 1 year of email, phone calls, stressing, and paperwork, it's finally on it's way to Iowa! I imagine it will sit next to my bus in Ted's barn, when they can spend the days talking to each other about their neglectful owner's passion for over-sized, under-powered eclectic foreign vehicles.

Thanks for all the effort Ted and LuAnn!

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Update: more pictures I 'borrowed' from Luann's Facebook page.

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Blog Comment Policy

in

Hi everyone - The level of spam on our blog has increased steadily on our blog. This spam typically takes the form of bots adding junk advertising "comments" to one of our (usually older) blog posts. Each of these posts generates an email to me. Currently I have 5,255 comment posts that are waiting in my queue.

To combat this problem, I have disabled the ability to leave a comment on a post that is older than 5 days.

Merry Christmas!!!

in

Sending our love to all of you!  We are having a wonderful vacation in beautiful Australia, but Christmas is not quite the same.  Mitchell and I are snow/cold weather kind of people, so this is a bit of a change.  We didn't realize how much we would miss it! :)  We enjoyed a lazy day here with a trip to the beach and naps in the afternoon.  Having ice cream in your swimming suit on Christmas Day was a pretty crazy experience for the kids!  We hope you and your family have a wonderful day full of your own adventures as well!! Lots of love, Mitchell, Jess, Henry, Adeline and Truman

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Taronga Zoo, The Rocks, The Ferry

in

We had an amazing day at the zoo followed by an evening at The Rocks.  We were a bit nervous heading over on the ferry because the sky was getting darker and darker and it was starting to rain.  We had our adventure hats on and were ready to visit the animals in the rain, but the sun came out and it was a gorgeous day.  I will let the pictures tell the story... [gallery link="file" orderby="title"]

Yay Nate and Laura are here!! :)

in

[gallery link="file" order="DESC" orderby="ID"] Helloo! Nate and Laura here, on our fourth day in Beijing. We’re having a ton of fun seeing the city, eating some great food, and spending quality time with Mitch, Jess, and the kiddos. We now see why Mitch and Jess love it here so much; there is so much to do, Mr. Ren and Xiao Guo are awesome, the school is great, and there are many other people in the same situation as them that have become great friends. So far, we’ve seen the Great Wall on what was the nicest day weather-wise in what sounds like a long time, in which we (meaning Mitch and Jess) navigated up the mountain on our own and took an abbreviated tour as the sun set quickly. We also went the Pearl Market where we wheeled and dealed with vendors to score on some shoes, purses, etc. Laura almost got beat up by a vendor for walking away from what this lady thought was a done deal on a purse-funny now, but not at the time.  Nate has also gotten a suit and seven shirts custom-made by John the tailor; the guy makes the perfect shirt! Lastly, today we got to eat lunch with Henry and Addi at their school and read to Addi’s class. It was so cool to be able to experience that with them!  That’s all for now, we assume that most people reading this will hear the finer details of the trip from us or the Coopers.

Signing off-

Nate & Laura

(A lot more pictures to follow...the internet was too slow to get them uploaded tonight)

Happy Halloween!!

in

First and foremost dear friends I apologize, it has been months since I last posted something.  I have 100 excuses and basically they all suck. :)  So I am going to start with the most recent and do my best to get caught up in the new few weeks.  I will just list them as I write them and won't back date them.  Be on the lookout for Adeline's birthday (and birthday last year, pathetic I am...I know) :), our trip to Japan, summer awesomeness, school updates, Henry's field trip to the Great Wall and lots more fun I'm sure.

Halloween this year was super fun, but with the ever present hilarious China twist. :)  We joined the Esmonds for a champagne brunch at the Westin hotel in Beijing.  The food was great, the decorations unique (yes they are real organs/spine etc in the pictures!!) and the company was awesome.  We were there for 3.5 hours enjoying delicious food and drinks.  The kids had a great area to play, get tattoos, make crafts and hang out.  They were all told by the parents that after having one plate of healthy food they could eat whatever they wanted.  They were blown away that we let them eat candy, cakes, cookies, milk shakes, popcorn etc all in one sitting.  My kids are already begging to go back.  It was definitely great, but it came with a price tag...most expensive meal we have ever had actually.  :)

One of the highlights at the brunch was that Adeline won the costume contest, as Pippi Longstocking!!  She was thrilled to say the least and was rewarded with a cooking class. Henry went as the cone zombie from Plants vs. Zombies and Truman as Yoda.

Another was Mitchell eating a larva...sooo gross!  Kudos to him for trying though. :)

While at lunch, Nikki and I started receiving texts from friends that we had been wrong about the date of trick or treat night.  We had been told on numerous occasions that it would happen on Monday night because that was Halloween.  Well, it was actually Sunday night.  Go figure. :)  Thankfully the kids were already dressed up from the brunch so we headed from the Westin straight to Cathy's house to enjoy appetizers, more drinks and great friends.  The dads took the kids out trick or treating and the moms stayed back at Cathy's (each with the own bowl of candy) and we enjoyed more great conversation and a bottle of wine.  We had to laugh when the kids got back and we checked out the candy.  They were each given shrimp flavored candy, halls cough drops and saltine crackers (not individually wrapped).  Hilarious, only in China!! :)

It is a big day in the Cooper household...Miss Adeline has lost a tooth - wihoo!

in

According to Addi she just "wiggled and wiggled, twisted and twisted and viola out it came.  Easy peasy."  Great job Adeline, you look so old!! :)

Mitchell later asked her what viola meant.  She was so matter of fact in her response. :)  "Well you know dad, like when there is a girl who isn't very pretty and she needs to go to the ball.  The Fairy God Mother comes with her wand and viola, she is ready to go now."  Spoken like a true princess I guess!!

Morning after blues...

in

So the morning after is notorious for remorse and regret.  Well, shopping in China is no different.  My $100 awesome "best quality top grain leather" Prada purse handle broke within 15 minutes of using it this morning.  Talk about heartache!!  I have NEVER paid that much for a purse and to not even have it last a day was awful.  Then I was so excited to wear my new Bvlgari aviator sunglasses, they were totally out of my comfort zone and I was excited.  Every single time Adeline looked at my she burst out laughing, seriously every time.  When she was finally able to get words out she asked me if I had stolen Grammi's sunglasses.  When I said no they were mine, she said well maybe you should give them to her.  What a punk!  Despite my fashion police of a daughter I am going to wear them anyway! :)

Some days are surreal...

in

So, I went with Nikki and Cathy today to the "Secret Handbag Shop" for a little (much needed) retail therapy.  We had a fabulous time drinking coffee, chatting, looking around for things we didn't need, buying more things we didn't need and getting really really excited to get back to the US for a lot of quality shopping time.  But, I realized tonight as I was looking through the things I purchased how crazy it is to live here some days.  It is incredibly easy to get a knock-off of anything (of course it is always "best quality" in true China style).  I came home today with a Prada purse, a Cartier watch, 3 pairs of Tod's Shoes, Bvlgari sunglasses, a pair of Dolce & Gabbana Shoes for Mitchell, Nikes for Henry, and 60 Nintendo DS games (on 2 cartridges).  So funny...I guess living in China does have its perks. :)

Easter

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While we tried our best to keep some of our family traditions in place for Easter this year, it was extremely difficult in a non-Christian country.  I think Mr. Ren asked 3 or 4 different times when our "US church celebration" took place.  He thinks all holidays are celebrated with family gatherings, laughing, talking, singing and dancing.  We always laugh when he says this and reassure him that his view is incorrect, but with 3 little kids we almost always find ourselves doing all of those things!! :)  Haha. Cathy and Brett (our friends from Des Moines in Beijing with John Deere) had an egg coloring kit, so we joined the Esmonds and headed to their house.  All 7 kids (Truman did not partake this year) had a blast and created 65 egg masterpieces!  After the kids were done with the egg adventure and the parents were done with their second bottle of wine, we headed out for dinner...all 14 of us.  Gotta love having drivers! :)  We had a great time and really enjoyed spending time with our "China family"!

Easter Sunday was filled with as much from "home" as was possible.  We started the morning with an egg and basket hunt in the house.  I would like to say that the baskets were creatively hidden in the garbage can and under a coat on the coat rack this year.  We only had one mishap when Mitchell forgot Adeline's basket was in the garbage can and he threw the coffee grounds away.  Oops!!  After that we had a delicious egg casserole breakfast, headed to church and rounded the day off with a movie and a bike ride.  The weather was great, the air was clean and the sky was blue!!  A great way to celebrate Jesus! :)

EC4 Assembly

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Once per year every class gets a chance to perform at an assembly attended by all of the lower elementary school (LES).  Last Friday was Adeline's class.  They have been building things with blocks (hospital, zoo, airport, school, etc) in their classroom for weeks now and they wanted to show off their talent for the assembly.  It was fantastic!  I was so impressed, they were able to draw the blueprint and figure out how to place huge moving boxes on the stage to create places.  It was unique, original and very creative!!  Great job EC4, we loved your show! :)  Click on the picture to view the whole thing. [gallery link="file" orderby="ID"]