Where in the World are the Richardsons?: Turkey Day Weekend

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Turkey Day Weekend

No turkey?
No pie?
No football?
Thanksgiving dinner on Friday at Outback Steakhouse?
A lousy holiday you might ask?

Quite the contrary – we boarded the overnight train last Thursday night for Beijing and had a fantastic holiday weekend. We spent the weekend seeing the historical sites in China’s capital – including Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, The Hutongs, and The Great Wall.

Here are some pics from our day at The Great Wall:

2 comments:

Jen Mall said...: I LOVE the sweet picture of your family of four!!! I so wish I could love on her a little! I miss ya'll!; November 30, 2007 at 1:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Hey there sweet ones. I loved your photos. You seem to be enjoying each experience that you have there. My love and best wishes to you all. Mary; December 2, 2007 at 4:14 AM

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And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter... My hope is your story will be about changing...about learning to love a child...about learning to love others more than we love ourselves... We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?... And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.

-Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts

Juliet's Quotes (Seeing China through the eyes of a 5 Year Old)

“You have to sit up front and you CANNOT talk to me.” – Instructing Annie the other day when she had to ride the school bus with Juliet because she had a meeting at the school.
"Huh, yea, we have rice every day." - responding to Annie's foolish question, "Did you have rice with your hotdog today?"
"Well, you didn't tell her you were my mom, so I think she thought you were the cleaner ... you know ... of our house." - when talking with Annie after she had met one of Juliet's new friends at school.
"It's hotter than Hell here, Gigi!" - when explaining the extreme heat and humidity of Shanghai to her grandmother (we don't know where she hears these things...)
"We just need to end all this nonsense and stop going out at night." - referring to our latest shopping excursion (see "Searching for a Princess Bike")
"What's a bidet?" - questioning the other toilet-looking contraption in the bathroom
"Ahhh that feels good" - said in a deep rumbling voice as she was referring to our massage chair the landlord left for us.
"Man, it's like these people have never seen a girl before" - referring to the hundreds of people gawking at her during an IKEA outing.
"This guy drives really slow" - referring to our driver, Mr. Chen, after 3 minutes in the car with him on day one.

By the Numbers

3 - number of stays in a Chinese children's hospital
2 - Number of Typhoons we've weathered
1 - Number of lightning strikes in our front yard
41 - Number of stoplights between our house and Scott's office
10 - Number of thermostats in our house - one for about every 380 square feet
3 - Number of English words our driver speaks (Hello, OK, Bye-Bye)
8 - Gallons of sweat secreted by the three of us during the first five minutes of arriving in steamy Shanghai
96 - Number of keys we have to our home