Sunday, July 24
The Weddle Family came to our rescue—again—and invited us to
dinner!
In efforts to keep
the Sabbath Day, we had gotten take-out on Saturday to eat on Sunday, but it
was sooooo much nicer to go to their house and have a real Sunday dinner with a
wonderful family.
Thank you!
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| So many girls! They have triplet girls (17 yrs old) and a 14 yr old girl. It's so fun! |
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| Jerome (our Bishop) and Nancy Weddle |
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| Playing Candyland |
They taught us the “shoe game”, a game they played every FHE when their children were little.
Essentially, you just hide eachother’s shoes and try to find them, but the girls thought it was the best thing ever.
We played quite a few rounds!
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| Playing the "shoe game" |
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| Mabel found her shoe! |
Monday, July 25
We checked out of the Grand Victoria Hotel today!
Our favorite doorman was so
sweet with the girls and gave them even more candy as a farewell gift.
As we loaded into the elevator to go to the
parking garage, both Sterling and I totally got misty-eyed!
The staff was so, so good to us and our
girls.
Cora shouted, “Good-bye grandpa!”
as the elevator doors shut, just like we were in a movie.
I can honestly say that the employees at the
hotel did their job.
I mean, they made
us cry when we left!
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| Our hotel "grandpa" |
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| Everything should have a smile on it! |
We moved in and it just felt so good to have our
own place!
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| First meal in our new apartment (still take-out, though) |
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| Organizing toys with much seriousness |
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| I think Cora actually folded all of her clothes and put them away. |
Tuesday, July 26
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First real, home-cooked meal. I love the variety of vegetables here! The mushrooms are beautiful, super cheap, and unique. (You know you are an adult when mushrooms get your excited.)
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Playing the shoe game the Weddles taught us for our FHE the next day
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Cora wanted to use the paint plates I bought them for her lunch instead. Sure. Why not?
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Swim caps are, however, required.
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We found out today that I needed a fancy dress for
Sterling’s work dinner on Thursday. Hmmmm....
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Wednesday, July 27
Fortunately, my friend Jennie, was able to take me shopping tonight.
Turns out there aren’t a ton of formal dresses for reasonable prices here in Taiwan.
We hit three large Japanese department stores and I actually found one I love!
I borrowed shoes and was ready to go!
(And made a good friend while at it.)
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| Swimming at our apartment. It totally feels like a resort and I love it that it is just downstairs! |
Thursday, July 28
The dinner was even more formal than I expected and incredibly ceremonial, which
was fun to be a part of. I mean, people
where telling us where to stand and what to do.
We toasted (without drinking) ate a fancy 8+ course meal, and then watched
everybody get drunk and sing Chinese karaoke.
Good times!
When we got home, it was only 9 pm, so we did a quick
costume change and went out for ice cream and checked out a stationary
store for our post date date. Thanks
again to Nancy and Molly Weddle for babysitting!
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| After Sterling's work dinner |
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| Our post date date at Baire's Ice Cream |
Friday, July 29
My friend Jennie took me to experience Costco. Whoa. Here’s a photo. For anyone that thinks we are spending $30 a
week on food, having dresses tailor-made, and picking mangoes from the trees, I
just need to just clarify: TAIWAN IS NOT
CHEAP. I mean, if you are buying sweet potato
leaves and pork knuckle for every meal, you would save a lot… The food is delicious, though so it's worth it!
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| I didn't take this photo, but this photo I found online is pretty accurate of the Neihu Costo. Lines to get samples were seriously 15 minutes long and there are 3 floors of crammed underground parking that were totally full when we left. Eek! |
For Family Date Night we went to Baire’s Argentinian Ice
Cream about two blocks from our house.
Sterling and I had gone there the night before for our real date night,
but it was so good we had to go back!
We’ve become friends with the owners, who have a 9-month old girl that
is usually in the shop. Cora and Mabel
went crazy playing with the games there and pulled out Twister on the
restaurant floor.
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| Someone brought in their dog and Cora confiscated it and took it for walks around the shop. |
One of my favorite things about our neighborhood is that
there is a weekly flea market in the circle right by the Taipei American
School. Every Friday, Saturday, and
Sunday people just sell whatever. Cora
and Mabel scored some barrettes and free headbands because they are just so
darn cute. Cora also got a dress,
because she probably needs another dress… :)
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Tienmu Flea Market
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| Lookin' good! |
Saturday, July 30
We spent 6 hours at the beach!
Our friends, the Weddles invited us to meet
up with them there after they went paragliding.
It was about an hour away on the steepest, curviest mountain roads you
can imagine.
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| This does not even do it justice. |
Okay, these aren’t as steep
as the ones we went on Sunday, but Cora and I ended up totally carsick by the
time we got to our destination.
Totally
worth it, though!
Edith loved the waves
and walked into one wave after another, just belly-laughing until she got a
mouthful of water.
Cora and Mabel were
in heaven, too!
It ended up being a beach resort with a kid pool (with slides!) a few meters from the actual beach. We spent time at both the pool and the beach
and went on this huge inflatable slip-n-slide thing. It was awesome! So, it is required in most public pools to
wear a swim cap. When you buy a women’s
swimsuit here, it often comes with a matching cap. Love it!
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| The play area/water park thing we ended up at on the beach! |
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| I think she was just pretending she was asleep! |
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| Yes, that's an inflatable unicorn in the water. |
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| I wish I would have gotten a better photo, but there was a Greek-inspired wedding chapel next to the big inflatable water slide. Just making sure there is something for everyone. |
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| Driving home from the beach |
On the way home, Sterling swerved to the side of the road
(rather abruptly!) when he saw a fruit stand selling peaches the size of three
normal peaches put together. We also got
plums that were sweet.
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| Eating the most delicious peaches from a roadside fruit stand |
Sunday, July 31
Today at church Cora met a new friend, Lila, who is 4. Right now she’s the only girl Cora’s age in
our ward, but we’ve heard more families will be moving in. We are having their family over on Thursday,
so that will be fun!
After church we
made dinner for a family in our ward who just had their third child. As a family, we went up the mountain to where
they live and visited with them for awhile.
(This is the same family who came swimming at our hotel pool.) Her birth story this week included a wild taxi ride down the mountain, forgetting passports, money and all documentation, and a locked birthing center in the middle of the night! In short, she had the baby within 20 minutes after getting to the birthing center and her husband was able to go to several ATMs to get the money for the delivery. Haha. Then the beds were so bad, so went home after a few hours. She is one tough woman.
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| At our friends, the Looslis', house. The dad, Phil, stuck her up in a high cabinet and she thought it was pretty awesome! |
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| The view of Taipei from the mountain! |
Monday, Aug. 1
I just realized that Cora and Mabel start school in, like, 3
weeks! Then I had that mom moment when I
realize that Cora is never going to be with me at home all day, every day
again. So, then I go into guilty mom
mode and think of all the things I should be doing with her to make the most of
these last few weeks.
This morning I kicked into high gear and decided to take
everyone on a little “field trip” to a Taiwanese stationary store to get some
stickers and stuff to make a project with.
That sounds like a thing a “fun mom” would do, right? But first we had to go to the grocery store,
and mind you, it’s like 90+ degrees with 100% humidity. They did pretty good and I only lost track of
them once. Mabel hates the stroller and
insists on running around instead of sitting.
I stuffed groceries under the stroller and made sure we got the main
things we came for, peanut butter and bread.
(That’s about 90% of Mabel’s diet these days.) And because I’m a “fun mom”, we got blue popsicles
that were “soda flavor” (???). Still not
sure what that means. We found a good place outside and let the popsicles
essentially melt all over our arms and legs until we were all sticky
messes.
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| Melting popsicles outside the grocery store |
Feeling ambitious and slightly
crazy, we made our way to the stationary store called “New Life Books.” It sounds like a Christian bookstore, but
it’s not. There is NO way in the world I
could fit a double stroller in this store, so I put Edie in the ErgoBaby,
parked our stroller filled with groceries in the blazing sun next to two
dozen scooters and prayed that no one would take our stuff. The second Cora and Mabel were loose in the
store, they started tossing stickers and washi tape, notebooks, and post-its
into baskets. I couldn’t keep up with
them to put back everything they pulled down.
I realized pretty quickly that this probably wasn’t the best idea. Oh, well.
Here we were.
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| Before the chaos started at the stationary store. Look at that selection of washi tape! |
Eventually, we got
up to the counter and I was trying to sort through the 2-3 things I said they
could get and the 100 other things that they thought we should buy. As I’m fumbling around making two piles on
the counter and trying to communicate that I’m not buying half of the stuff, I
look around and can’t find Mabel.
Bleh. So then I start shouting “Mei
mei” (little sister) and doing a hand sign that many people here use to show they
don’t have something. Then I proceeded to
not so calmly scream her name and run around the store. I thought that she may have dashed
outside. Fortunately, she was just in
the basement of the store, but it STRESSED. ME. OUT.
Then we went home. End of
story. (Haha.)
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| Washi tape creations! Totally worth the adventure to get the tape, right? |
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| Sterling taught the girls about the Wall of Jericho for FHE tonight. They made trumpets out of construction paper and marched around being all cute! (Then we went for ice cream for the 3rd time this week.) |
Tuesday, Aug. 2
We've now been in our new place one week. We love it, but we still don’t have our air or boat shipments, so we are still essentially living out of our suitcases. They say that our boat shipment will come next Monday, but they can’t find our air shipment. (Whaaaat??) His company has provided beds, couches, a coffee table, and a little kitchen kit with pots, pans, dishes, and such, so we can at least cook a little and sleep comfortably! It is amazing what you can do, but that said, we are going to be SO excited when we get our stuff! The things I’ve missed the most? Edie’s highchair and our steam mop. (Imagine having 3 kids and not being able to really clean your floors for a week. Yeah. It’s kind of gross.
Today we just went to the apartment playroom and hung out. Then I wanted to go to this kid-friendly restaurant that supposedly has a sand pit and play area. It is called "Hello Jazz". I love the names of things here. We packed up and walked there to find it closed. Hmmmm. We will try again another day. Today the curtain people are coming to change the curtains in the girls room. :)
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| In the playroom at our apartment complex. Cora dressed herself and is totally rocking the sock and sandal thing. Doesn't she look like some Swedish hipster with her hair braided and everything? |
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| This girl! |
Just found out that they DO know where our air shipment is. Woot! All of our stuff should get here Monday.
Love you all! Until next week.
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