Holiday Madness Part 2

We headed to Colorado for the second half of our USA aventure.  First stop, my sister's place in Evergreen.  It's always refreshing to hang out in Denver's mountains for a few days, playing FIFA with my nephew, watching out for birds and wildlife, and imbibing a few cocktails.  We were lucky enough to get one warmish day and enjoyed it strolling downtown Evergreen.

From there, we went into Boulder and crashed at Will and Andrea's for five days.  We had so much fun with their two kids, Ellie (4.5) and Zander (2).  It was really cute to see how enthusiastic the kids were about Jordan.  The first thing they did every morning was come check on Jordan, and also the last thing before bed.

On Esther's birthday, we had a marvelous, sunny, 65 degree day and spent it walking around pearl street.  Esther, on that day, fell in love with the city and was overheard saying, "Ok, we could live here."  That's a common story though, people are always falling in love with Boulder.  

Our last day in Boulder, we watched the Packers and Broncos both beat down in close games.  Will and Andrea invited they friends who have kids, and in total there were toddlers roaming around, and one other baby two days younger than Jordan.  Will smoked some pork and we enjoyed the best/only BBQ i've had since Home Plate in Beijing.  As you can see, Jordan was quite a hit with the ladies.

With our last 4 days, we headed to the Glenwood Springs/Aspen area to visit Jordan (my friend from college) and his family.  That drive on I-70, through Summit County and Glenwood Canyon, is just so spectacular, it's almost worth the 3 hour drive just to see that.  But once there, we found more to make the trip worthwhile.  

We went to Aspen one day and, while easily the coldest day of our trip, we still had a great time.  Big Jordan and I suffered 5 runs worth of cold while Nicki and Esther hung out in they city.  Afterwards, Esther and I rode the Gondola up to the top to check out the view.  We lasted about 45 seconds at the top before the cold forced us off.

Another day, Esther and I drove the West Elk Scenic Loop about 1.5 hours from Carbondale to Redstone and Paonia.  I don't think I had ever driven that part of it before, and it was the perfect activity for another coldish day.

We spent the rest of our USA time hanging out back at my parents house and relaxing in between multiple trips to Target, Esther's new favorite store.  I didn't remember Target having so much cheap stuff, but unbelievably, it seemed even cheaper than shops in China.  We then shipped Jordan back to China just in time for the Chinese New Year craziness.  Hurrah!

~Kev

Holiday Madness Part 1

We spent the first two weeks in a Chicago suburb, making merry and just relaxing.  Jordan and esther were everyone's favorite people for those two weeks.  Brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, and parents all literally stood in line to hold jordan.  When they weren't holding him, they'd hang out with esther and get to know her.  I'm old news.

Christmas itself was a crazy barrage of gifts, people, music, eating and drinking, nothing new there.  For New Years Eve, on the other hand, i was in bed by about 9:30.  Having a 3-month old AND getting over jetlag will shut that whole "partying" thing down real quick-like.

It was interesting seeing my hometown through esther's eyes.  We were driving down the street and she saw some squirrels playing.  She got excited and i pulled over so she could watch them.  That just doesn't happen where she's from, and i hadn't realized the extent to which she had missed out on wildlife growing up.  I tried to remedy that with a trip to Brookfield Zoo with my Dad and another trip to the field museum downtown.  My own a pet shop, so we hung out there and played with snakes, birds and turtles. I held a tarantula.

Her other big takeaway was how spread out everything was, and yet still convenient.  It meant getting in your car anytime you wanted to go anywhere, but having a car meant that we could travel as far as needed to run errands.  Even in China when she had a car, you could still accomplish most of your basic errands with a 5 minute walk.

We also had our third and final wedding reception.  It was great to see all my extended family, aunts, uncles and cousins, as well as friends from all over, but it felt anti-climatic.  Nothing could ever have topped the uniqueness and excitement of the first one in Hangzhou, but it sure was fun trying.  And it gave esther and i another chance to look great in our wedding attire.  (Special thanks to my cousin Mark for all these photos!)

The best part of this reception was the timing, though.  During Christmas, my immediate family usually gathers for 36 hours, maximum, before everyone has to be off to somewhere else.  This year though, we were all together for 4 full days, which is the longest we've been together in probably 8 years.

In addition, Reid and Julia from Beijing came and a close college friend, Jordan, brought his family as well.  Between them, Jeff Orcutt (of Autobots, Deploy! fame), and Aaron and Nick Kurasz (my pet shop friends), i had friends from the last 20 years of my life in attendance.  So much love.

~Kev

Merry Christmas, Stateside

It's 6am, Christmas morning, and i'm the only one awake.  I just put Jordan to bed after his 5am feeding, and all is quiet.  There's no presents under the tree because, like many big families, we no longer celebrate Christmas on Christmas day.  My brothers and sisters are all off with in-laws, and we will get together on the 27th.

Jorkevstherdan (it's a work in progress) successfully made the trip to Chicago, a mostly uneventful 24 hour journey from Hangzhou.  I lost count at how many people tried to make me worry about the flight, warning that traveling with an infant would be a nightmare.  I never let myself give into the hype, though, and in retrospect, it was truly uneventful.  Part of that if due to Jordan's awesome personality.  Even at 10 weeks, i can tell he's going to be a cool, relaxed dude.  He smiles on cue, doesn't fuss, sleeps well, loves cuddling, and doesn't cry.  I've been keeping count; he's cried 5 times so far, and two of those were when he got vaccinations.  

United also made our trip much more bearable by providing a bassinet that attached to the bulkhead in front of us.  Basically, that made the whole "traveling with an infant" thing simple.  Now if they would only resume giving away free alcohol on international flights, they would continue to be my airline of choice.   

So we arrived in Chicago and immediately made a bee-line for Portillo's.  Obviously.  If you're from Chicago, you understand.

We've been hanging out with whatever local family i have, and getting ourselves onto the new time zone.  Having an infant adds a whole new wrinkle to that problem, but he's basically sleeping through the night now again, so even that problem is mostly behind us.  Now i just need to make myself sleep through the night.

We're spending two weeks in Chicago and two more in Colorado, with very few things actually planned.  We like it that way, and should make it easier to travel with the little man.

I'll leave you with an example of the English we find on baby stuff here.  This was on a diaper changing mat.   It's fantastic!  I mean, are they even trying?  Even with the minimum of effort, like if they copied straight from an online translator, it wouldn't be this bad.  Note: in the first line, "wanmei" means "perfect" in Chinese, so that's at least a decent attempt at Chinglish.  The rest is just madness.

Honestly, they must be slapping together a bunch of random words and letters, randomizing the capitalization and hoping no one can read it. Because, you know, having "English" on a product makes it worth more?

~Kev