Spring break in China

We just got back from china. It was a great vacation. We went to Beijing and Xian. It was a great spring break. Here are some pictures of our trip.

Chinese Acrobats. These people were amazing. I can see why their gymnastics team kicks butt. They are built so compact. Although they do seem so be a little more curvy then the Koreans.

Emma skipping on the wall. The tour guide gave us a choice between an easier climb and a steep climb but better view. She said if we had little kids we should stay on the easier climb. We went the hard way and the kids did far better then the adults. It was so steep and allot of work but it was really cool.

Now whats for dinner.

This is me with our Korean tour guide. This was our last dinner it is called hot pot. Everyone gets their own hot pot(even the kids it was a little scary) The pot has water in it and then they come and light the flame under it and you just start adding what ever ingredients that you want. It was crazy. It is really hot plus you get on set of chop sticks to add the raw meat with and then to also eat with. This would never work in America. Still it was O.K. and a great experience.

One night was all dumplings. it was cool because they all had a different shape. Emma is holding a pig. We had duck, fish , shark fin,walnut, and a few other ones.

Here is the fish one.
One night we stopped for street food. nasty but a fun opportunity.

Harold and Logan ate a whole scorpion(they fry them first) Caleb tried the tail and I ate a cricket leg. That was all I could get down. Miranda's friend ate 2 whole crickets (or are those grass hoppers?).

We took a flight to see the Terracotta soldiers. It was pretty cool. That emperor was crazy. I wonder how he got them to do all that for him.

remember these from the Olympics? They are huge.

Speaking of the Olympics here is a shot of The birds Nest

From our tour guide we learned that in china you have to retire at 55 so at the parks we saw a lot of retired people. The were playing insturments, singing, dancing, doing Tai Chi, playing games. It looked like fun, they were very friendly. I just wish they would have paid us a dollar for every picture they took with Emma. One lady kept saying "good luck to take picture with her" Emma did pretty good but was really getting tired of it by the end.

One of the funniest thing that i learned there was the concept of split pants and squatty potties. It was really hard to use those. Koreans have them too but they seem to be more modernized here so there are almost always normal ones also. I really hated them but I guess if you get used to them maybe they are not so bad.

Now as for split pants. When a baby turns one they are out of diapers and in to split pants. It was so cute to see all those little cheeks. I guess it just makes the process quicker. I tried several time to get a good shot but was to slow. Plus I didn't know if it was rude or not.

here she is from the front

there's a shot from the back. Darn 12 was in the way. It just made me think of how we all take a different approach to life's little adventures.

Is that what I think it is?

I know I should be afraid of getting nuked but really this is my biggest fear in Korea. I don't worry that my purse will get taken or that my kids will get kidnapped. I worry that I, or my kids, will get ran over(My past experiences have proven this to be a legit fear). I also worry that I will run over someone else.(Now it is Harold's turn to fear the past.)
Pedestrians and drivers are crazy here. It really is stressful to be on the roads here. When I saw this on the street near my house it confirmed my fears. I know at least three people who have seen people get hit here so it doesn't surprise me but it does scare me.

Army Brat Psychology

Are my kids going to come out of this life style O.K, or are they scarred for life? This is the question I have been asking myself lately. Harold has been gone a lot these last few months, but considering the fact that he is not in Iraq or Afghanistan right now on a 15 month deployment I think we are pretty lucky. He has just been doing the go for two weeks come home for two weeks, go for a week , come home for 5 days go for two more weeks, spend three weeks at home go....... Well you get the picture. So I am thinking that we are getting pretty used to this crazy randomness and all is going O.K. under the circumstances. Until this week.
He is on a two week go away deal when he gets the chance(a week into it) to come home for roughly 24 hours. Is it worth it? For me, heck yea! You take what you can get right. So he comes home for a day and we fill it full. But when he goes to leave my kids lose it. Mostly from the bottom up, but still they all are not cool with it. Like they don't get that we have been given a gift of 24 hours.
So I wonder, would it have been better for them to not have had him come home at all? I have heard that people say the same thing about R&R, it's good for the wife, but bad for the kids.It was like it broke their tender little hearts all over again to have him leave. Even though it is only for like 5 more days. I don't get it. They should be used to it by now. See why I need a therapist. I don't know how to parent kids this way. "Sorry your daddy is gone but if he doesn't get killed he will be home in 6 months to a year". What? Really this is hard. My dad left for the occasional hunting trip but other then that he was home. So I don't know personally how it feels.
Anyone who grew up military, and is not nuts I would love to hear from you. Other mothers of army brats, do you have the answers? I would love to hear them. I have to say that I am finding this very therapeutic to vent right now. Wah wah wah!
I know there is a great deal of good that comes from this life style. Oh, the things my kids have done, the places they have seen, the truly once in a life time opportunities they have had.(Growing-up I barley saw the surrounding states. We are talking exciting places like Wyoming, Arizona.) I do see the good in it but will it, in the long run out weigh the bad? That is my concern.

Happy 15 for Miranda

I can't believe my baby is 15.
I can't believe they even let us leave the hospital with her 15 years ago. He looks like he is in Jr High school.


What a poor little guinea pig she was for us as first time parents. All the bumps along the way seem to have made her strong.

Over the years she has grown.

In a few short years she went from this to this.

She is pretty amazing. And such a big help. Too bad for us she's counting down the days until she gets to leave the nest. Look out world, she is one year closer.

A Suspicious looking device.

So yesterday was quite the day. I had just put the kids on the bus and was on my walk to the gym. This man stops me and says "mam don't go down there there is a suspicious looking device on the street right there." I couldn't really see much but he had an MP there so it was getting worked out. I take a five minute walk out of my way to the gym. Even a bomb is no reason to not hit the gym.

So I go to the gym and hurry through my workout because after all I am pretty curious.

So when I leave the gym I can see more police officers and a few curious onlookers. So I go back to my house where I can actually get a pretty good view. So I'm looking from this little window in my apartment at the device, and it indeed looks like a bomb! So wanting a closer look my friend and I get a pair of binoculars and a camera.

Go a head and click on it. get a better view, it's a fricken bomb
Holy Crap!!!!!!! That's a bomb!!!!! And here I am taking pictures from a hidden location. All for you my fellow bloggers. By this point there are several more police, several more spectators, and a bomb dog. He circles the device and sits down.

At this point I decide I have got to tell my husband this. After all its not everyday that you have a bomb threat in your parking lot. So i get my husband on the phone and he tries to blow me off. But before he can hang up i say "OK but there's a bomb in the parking lot", he says "what does it look like". I say " A bomb, dynamite strapped together with a cord coming out of it", he says " Oh No!, does it say exercise, exercise, exercise on it, I think its mine."
I don't even have time to ask why he has a fake bomb and why its now laying in the middle of the parking lot surrounded by police, bomb dog, and a growing number of spectators. Because he says "RUN!!, give the phone to the nearest MP", I try to talk him out of it but he insists. So here I go running out through the spectators (aka neighbors, and close friends) and to the nearest MP. The MP tries to stop me but I say "I think I know what that is and here's my husband on the phone". He calls the other MP's over and the detective who has now arrived and they all speak to my husband, while I stand there with everyone looking at me. They then go pick the bomb up pass it around and put it in the detectives car, and give me back my phone. They then inform me that I have to go to the police station and make a statement about the events, all the time worrying that my husband was going to jail for planting a fake bomb on a military installation. I'm not sure but I think this is a pretty big deal.

Before I left the station the MP tells me "good thing you came out when you did. We were getting ready to evacuate all the buildings." Can you imagine what a big(o.k. bigger deal) that would have been.

So far he hasn't been arrested but they have given him a new name at work " The Hannam Bomber"(Hannam is the name of the housing development where we are currently living) Good thing I love the man. This is even worse than when he totaled the Humvee.
So anyone who can top that for embarrassing I would love to hear it.


All of this comes after my ill fated talk at district conference just Saturday. My debut as the new district primary president(First and last probably). To sum it up. I show up 10 min after the meeting has started(It took me 50 minutes to go 10 miles, the roads were so bad). I can see a look of relief cross over the faces of the members of the district presidency. The speaker right before me is wrapping it up and I am frazzled and nervous. She finishes so I walk to the stand from the congregation. It is so embarrassing to me. I get like two minutes in to my talk and my cell Phone goes off. You all know how well I hear so you can imagine just how loud it was. Thankfully I left it by Harold and he hurried out of the chapel with it. I did however pause and mumble the words" unbelievable" before beginning my talk again. It wasn't until after the meeting that I realized that people thought I was cursing at whoever phone that was, not knowing it was mine. I would rather they know it was mine then to think I am just mean.
So this week I hope we have met our quota for embarrassing moments for the decade at least. It can't get any worse right?

Our year so far

Miranda blew it! Seriously that is a big bubble. She has so much talent. Plus she cut her hair. And got some A's on exams. I can't complain.

Emma Goes the extra mile. I helped her with her homework and then had to leave. The assignment was to write three sentences about a book we had read. I came home and she had done a few more then that. She said she could get extra credit. In first grade! Does she need meds?

Also that same day she decided to mark her scriptures. What! I need to remember what I fed her that day and feed it to her everyday.

Logan goes for the Gold!We survived another Derby. Poor little Lo had less then impressive results but hey he was smiling when we left so, it's all good. We discovered after the race that his car was much faster with one wheel missing(it "just fell off" after he drove it off the table a few times) and backwards. So after the offical race, when they were all just messing around, he had a moment to shine. The gold one is his.

Sweet Music for Caleb Caleb got moved into advanced Band. He is not a real fan of school so band has been great for him. Since he no longer gets recess, band is his favorite thing about school. He really seems to enjoy his Sax so any news here is good news.

As for me!

I made my first visit to Deagu to visit there primary there. What were they thinking making me the District Primary President. Are they that desperate? On the way home we got lost for like two hours(all in all we spent 8 hours in the car yesterday. It was O.K. because check out the view from my hotel room when we did finally get there. Priceless!!!!!!!!! That wall was like a foot away.









I also made a blanket and almost burned my house down I really don't even know how that towel caught on fire. I just walked in and found it in flames on the counter. Scary!

So all in all a pretty good month for the Stanley's.