Down by the river...

It feels so great to be outdoors where the nature surrounds us. Not to say that we don't enjoy living the city life, yet the desire for fresh air, daily hikes, and water adventures sure make us homesick.

A lot has happened since I wrote my last blog post. Family visits, road trips and being in locations with no internet will do that to ya. But as I sit here in New York feeling quite rested knowing I'll be in one spot for at least two weeks, I'll catch up a bit.

Pennsylvania was deadly hot for the first couple days we were there....deadly like almost 100 degrees with humidity so thick you could cut it. If we weren't out on shopping trips or driving to memorable food hotspots you would find us near water. Oh heavenly, cool, and refreshing water. One particularly warm day we all decided to head down to the river and kayak/canoe. What a fun day! It was not until then that I fully realized my skin's deficiency of Vitamin D. I will definitely have to work on getting a base tan before we take on Florida's rays in July...

Here's the whole gang. The kayak (a.k.a the "banana") was my mom's latest Mother's day present. What a well loved and worthwhile gift!

Instead of being called the Evans, we should be called the "Pasteys". We got so many pale jokes from my siblings you wouldn't even imagine (they are all so tan!). At least our skin tone is favored in China ;).

We tried to take this picture like five times. We couldn't get the camera to take fast enough before I had already swung back to the tree. All was fun with that swing until a spider the size of a ping-pong ball decided to join me...

It's the river now, but in only one day our next destination is the lake! From pool to river to lake, oh what fun.

I'm gonna roll home...

Chick-fil-A, slurpies, Auntie Anne's pretzels, ice cream, etc....a.k.a. my diet since I've been home. It's just too bad that all of the food I miss the most is the kind that clogs your arteries. As I drive through town, I just keep thinking "Ooohhhh! We need to stop and grab that!" If I keep this up, my company might have to pay for an extra seat on the airplane...just to fit me in. I wish I didn't have such an excuse that I use to justify these eating habits. Maybe then, I would be able to have a little bit more control.

"But eating ice-cream straight out of the tub is such a memory!"

"It's a hot day...we just HAVE to stop and get a slurpie and pretzel!"

"I know I just ate, but we are passing a Chick-fil-A...I really miss the fries!"

I know it is only my third day in America, but I am going to need to pace myself with all of these dearly missed foods. If not, I will surely be rolling home.

Officially Mrs. Evans!

When you get married and move your life half-way around the world within the span of a week's time, there are many details that are seemingly forgotten...at least for a little while. It's all about priority. We asked ourselves: "Do we have our luggage? Do we have our plane tickets & passports? Do we have each other?" If yes to all four, then everything else could be put on pause. It's to bad that the pause of officially changing my name to "Lauren Evans" would be a good 24 months long.

Now back in America and after a brief trip to the Social Security office, I am officially Lauren Renee Evans! Now all I have is my passport, driver's license, and credit cards to go.

And we're back...

After two years away from the "Motherland", every moment has had its thrills since we've been back. I wish we had a camera to capture the 50 ft distance that my mom and I ran to meet each other at the baggage claim. It was definitely a youtube worthy moment. We saw each other from a distance, screamed and then ran. Precious...simply precious. I was already chewing on my first Auntie Anne's pretzel when I saw her, but heck, that thing was flung to the ground when we collided and continued the excited screaming/hugging/jumping combination. As we met up with the rest of the crew (well most of them), the excitement continued! For the next 45 minutes driving back home, we talked "Chase family style" the whole way back. Basically...all fighting to get a word in edgewise, louder and faster than the last person. I am surprised we didn't fog the windows up with all that chatter!

After arriving into America, there are some things that I noticed almost instantly upon landing. As our first stop into America was at the LAX airport, I couldn't help but notice how many blondes there were walking around! What a sight to see! Almost instantly, I felt like I needed to put some life back into my hair, check my make up and fix my rumpled clothes. In China, every foreigner is basically gawked at just for the sake of being different. I must say, it was kind of nice taking a break from a culture where self-image is top priority. While now I feel like the struggle for vanity has set in again, it will be refreshing to just.....blend in.

Another thing...I feel like I am on audio overload! Now that I can actually understand everything that is being said around me, for the sake of comprehension I feel obligated to try and listen to all of it! I kind of miss my ability to zone out all the passing conversations. All I know is something needs to be done. I can't live my whole summer just eavesdropping. On the flip side, I have to remember that people can understand me too! I have already caught my tongue a few times as I have made small comments about clothing choices or complained about some situation.

There is so much more to be said, but I will end here for now. Looking forward to updating you with our next post!

"I keep losing my pencils!"

I couldn't possibly seem to realize how one of my students never had a pencil when needed. Watching him always in the pursuit of looking for one, I began to wonder what had happened to those pencils. I was sure that before every week started, he had a fully stocked caddy with everything that he could possibly need. Yet week after week, we would stock him up from scratch. That is of course, until I helped him clean out his "Writer's Toolkit" today. "Oh, let me just help you organize your papers (turning it upside down)......oh my....(as about 30 pencils comes spewing out)....what do we have here?" We both look at each other in shock. And then we lost it. We both just sat there laughing and laughing...now disturbing the whole class. It was uncontrollable. Now everyone was dying of laughter. I guess at this time of the year, anything that used to be annoying is just plain funny. Interesting how bonding moments come about.

From May 26, 2011

It takes a garage sale...

to finally meet your neighbors.

The other day our team was having their annual garage sale for any staff who were leaving. We decided to hop on the bandwagon, and saw it as an opportunity to get rid of some of our....well...precious junk. We soon realized the curse of having lots of storage space. It's like having a big purse - the bigger it is, the more stuff you fill it with. That is until you decide to purge.

What we didn't realize was that our next door neighbor would soon catch wind of our little garage sale. All of a sudden, we see her mosey on in still wearing her pajamas to have a look. That little "have a look" turned into 30 minutes of her bargaining with me and laughing over how fun it was! It was so surreal to be on the end of things...this time the market was in my house! She was so delighted when she left that minutes later we were invited into her house to sit and have some juice with her husband. What a sweet couple, and what a memory! I wonder where this new friendship will take us.

So thrilled to get rid of all this extra stuff. This sure did help to put things into perspective of how much we don't need.

Modern Toilet

So you know those taboo things that should never go together like toilet talk and food? Well, someone dared to break the rules and create a food chain filled with toilet seats, urinals, squatty potties (Chinese toilets) and yes...even swirly chocolate ice cream. Even though I was told that it was decorated "with taste", I had my doubts when a friend took us there for dinner.

Look at the chairs you sit on! They even had little flush buttons and everything!

And yes, chocolate ice cream served in a squatty potty....."Don't think, just eat" I repeatedly told myself.

And then ending the meal with a little bit of DDR! We sure did bring quite the crowd of people behind us...but hey, good thing we can laugh off how ridiculous we looked.

So surprisingly, everything was decorated with "with taste"...I would even say a bit classy. Apparently it is a well known European food chain. Very interesting...