Temple in Taipei

Yilan

We went on a group tour to Yilan with friends from church, and one of them put together this little photo collage of the kids.  It is a nice coastal town with parks and lakes.  It was a rainy day, but the kids didn't mind.  Four blonde kids draw a lot of attention.  Even Sylvie and I are considered blonde in Asia.

 

 

Robots

Some of you may remember the robot party we had for Joel's first birthday.  Well, I still had a few old formula cans left and an afternoon to kill with the kids, so we invited neighbors over for arts and crafts and made "recycled robots."  Kind of a Mr. Potato Head concept using trash.

Preschool

A crisis occurred in our family when our awesome babysitter's old back injury flared up, and she had to quit. We started scrambling for a new solution to allow me to continue in Chinese training with Jonathan. We asked everyone we know here for ideas and considered everything from hiring a live-in Filipino helper to sending the boys to full-time preschool. We had reservations about all options, and the search process took me back to my original conflicted feelings about not being home full-time with the boys.  However, on a sleepless night, I reread my journal from earlier this year and revisited my original thought process and feelings. I felt assured that we'd find a way meet our children's needs and allow me to take advantage of the incredible opportunity this year to get full-time advanced training in Mandarin.  In the end, we decided on a local preschool where the boys can be immersed in Chinese, and luckily they were willing to bus the boys to and from our house (important logistically for our schedule).  Here they are on their first day--excited to be like their big sisters--going to school.

Somehow I survived a solo outing with the kids at the zoo...via the metro.

Hiking Grass Mountain