Kelly Times Two

Amused in Taiwan

2011-12-09T18:49:00.000-06:00

During a week of our last month in Taiwan, we took a mini vacation down to the southern point of the island and stopped for one hot, muggy day at this amusement park. I can't remember where it even was or what it was called, but will post some pictures of our day there. The place was practically empty and there was hardly any waiting time for the rides. The only drawback for me was that I was just barely pregnant and didn't get to ride on ANYTHING, and was taking all kinds of pills that made me drowsy to help me STAY pregnant, and it was super sticky and moist in the air. Most of my pictures have a humid look to them. Regardless, it was a fun day, and our first vacation with our new daughter. Enjoy! I'll try to get more vacation pictures posted later this week to try to catch up the months that I wasn't blogging.

San Antonio temple weekend

2011-11-30T18:11:00.008-06:00

Here am I (five months pregnant), with Hannah, Kelly, Lindsey, and Christopher, walking out of the San Antonio temple after our new daughter was sealed to us for time and for all eternity during a special, sacred ceremony, this past Saturday afternoon. We were happy to have a wonderful group of guests in attendance with us, Kelly's two sisters, Debbie and Brenda, my sister, Julie, Kelly's mom and dad, my mom, my good friends Lorraine and Stewart, Carol and Rick, and one person from our ward, my buddy, Sue.

Dinner later that night consisted of a feast at the Salt Lick in Driftwood, Texas, for some incredible pork ribs, cole slaw, and more.

We strolled along the Riverwalk to show our visiting family members one of San Antonio's popular tourist spots.

It was a beautiful, windy day, the Saturday following Thanksgiving, in San Antonio.

We tried to find a corner with less wind to blow in our faces.

More photos of the family.

The family, strolling along the Riverwalk.

Our cute kids.

Taking a break after strolling by the Alamo.

Lindsey and the Nutcracker.

Lindsey with Grandma.

We ate at Mesa Rosa on Friday night since some of the family members were wanting some Mexican food, and this place is nearby. These lovely women sitting by my husband are Debbie and Brenda, his two younger sisters.

Here are Julie and Mom, remembering the Alamo.

Hannah is here with Kelly's parents sitting on a bench outside the lovely temple.

My sister, Julie, me, and Hannah, are posing after dinner at Mesa Rosa.

Grandpa likes to squish Christopher.

Kelly's mom and dad with Lindsey and Christopher in the background.

Deb and one of her long, lost ancestors.

The kids smiling for pictures with the aunties.

We are amazed at how well Hannah has adjusted to her new family, new surroundings, and her English is blossoming so quickly. We are very proud of her and love her so much. She's such a good girl and we are grateful to have her in the family!

I'm still here!

2011-09-30T23:31:00.002-05:00

Due to ~~stupid~~ computer issues, I'm having trouble uploading photos and therefore, have not blogged recently. That and the fact that we moved back to the "western" side of the world last month is another excuse I'll use. I just want to say hi and that our shipment from Taiwan arrived in Texas a few days ago, including my PC, which was also messed up before the move, but now that we're in the States, my personal tech support can actually order parts for me and fix it. In the meantime, I just want to report that Kelly and I celebrated our 25 wedding anniversary in August and that Hannah has been able to join us in the United States and has completed three weeks of school here and is adjusting really well. Also, Christopher is so glad to be back in his old school, playing on the 8th grade football team and also playing trombone in band. Lindsey is loving life in Rexburg, Idaho, for her sophomore year of college, majoring in elementary education. We're all happy and healthy and are glad to be back home. I hope to be able to catch up soon, and in the meantime, want to check in so everyone will know I'm still here!

Hannah's baptism

2011-08-03T11:11:00.006-05:00

It's been a while since I updated my blog because my personal computer died and I've been so disappointed to have to use the laptop. So many exciting events keep occurring, like our daughter's baptism, so I am forcing myself to keep journaling these important moments in our family. Congratulations to Hannah on her decision to be baptized!

She was baptized on Saturday, July 23, in Zhubei, Taiwan, at 2:30 in the afternoon by her Daddy, who for the first time ever, said the baptismal prayer in Chinese. He had rehearsed it many times in this foreign language, but had a bit of trouble remembering some words, then on about the fourth try after repeating Hannah's full name, it came back to him and the ordinance was beautiful. The missionaries in our ward, Sister Carroll, from Utah, and Sister Choi, from Korea, helped to teach Hannah and were able to share their talents with playing the piano and leading the music for the baptism.

Hannah was so excited for her baptism day and every day kept a countdown of how many days it was until the big moment. She really was happy to become a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and take upon her the name of the Savior by following His example to be baptized.

We are grateful for the many friends who attended the baptism to show their love and support for Hannah and our family. May and her family were there, and her husband, who is a counselor in the bishopric, conducted the meeting.

Since everything was in Chinese, the rest of us just enjoyed the services and were there to support Hannah. Like so many other times, my dear friend, Abish, (pictured below in the yellow sweater) was able to translate for us. We love her so much for all the service she's provided us to be able to know what's going on.

It's amazing how many miracles we have experienced in the past few months, by having this sweet child become a part of our family.

She loves her Daddy! He is the one who speaks the most Chinese and they can communicate really well together. She and I do pretty well, but a lot of it is non-verbal communication, with plenty of sound effects, charades, and of course, hugs and kisses.

Our friend, Lindesey, who had us over to her home for dinner a month or so ago, was one of the speakers at the baptism, and gave such a good talk about baptism. Unfortunately, Amy, the other speaker, slipped away right after the baptism and I didn't get her picture.

Yvonne and her daughter, Yaya, have also played a huge role in Hannah's life. Yvonne filled the maternal role briefly after Hannah's mother had died, and introduced the gospel to her. We are so grateful to Yvonne, who is May's younger sister. She is pictured here with her new husband--they just got married two weeks prior.

Here is the police officer who is neighbors with Hannah's birth father, who had arranged to have Hannah stay with Yvonne after her birth mother's death, while the dad was incarcerated. He played a role in convincing the dad that adoption would be the best alternative for Hannah. We are very grateful for him.

I whipped up some Reese's Peanut Butter Chips and Chocolate Cookies, Rice Krispy Treats, and Magic Cookie Bars for treats to serve after the baptism, which were tasty. The cute quilt is a little something that Lindsey made for her brother, with a bit of help from me.

Christopher was worried that his special blanky would get all dirty with chocolate, and I assured him that we could easily wash it.

Among the supportive guests, we were so happy that Kelly's Chinese teacher, Helen, and her daughter, Tina were able to attend the baptism. Several other friends were there but I didn't get everyone's picture.

My good friend, Demi, left a meeting early in order to be there to celebrate this special occasion with our family. We have so many awesome friends here that we are going to miss when we move.

After the baptism, Yvonne and her husband had their wedding reception and we were glad that their big day coincided with Hannah's. She refers to Yvonne as "Taiwan mama" since she was the mother figure in her life before I was.

Yvonne made a beautiful bride and we are so happy for her and her new husband and Yaya to have a dad.

Pool drained, turtle set free

2011-07-16T04:13:00.004-05:00

After weeks of neglect from our former pool guy, whom we paid for the entire year, in advance, whose negligence caused us to have to start from scratch to have our swimming pool drained and acid washed, and to rescue the poor turtle who had made a home in it, it's looking good again. Thank you, Aqua-Logistics, one of Austin, Texas' reliable pool cleaners! Good riddance to The Pool Police!

We went to court!

2011-07-11T23:36:00.000-05:00

This free scrapbooking design customized with Smilebox

More camping pictures

2011-07-10T04:00:00.000-05:00

A week with Hannah

2011-07-09T04:48:00.001-05:00

Kelly, Lindsey, and Christopher got to spend a week in America (at his parents' home in Colorado) while Hannah and I stayed behind. For one thing, she doesn't have a visa to enter the US yet, and also, I've already used up my two allotted trips back to the States the Kelly's company agreed to for the year. It was worth it when I went back to the US to take Lindsey to college in Idaho in September, but it was difficult being here while they were there. Hannah and I mad the most of it though and had a fun week. They'll be arriving home tonight and we missed them!

You're fired!

2011-07-06T11:25:00.005-05:00

We paid Keith Malette, the lone technician for The Pool Police in Austin, Texas, for one year of service in advance to care for our pool and these are photos taken yesterday of our pool. It's so bad that the whole Green Giant mess needs to be drained and acid washed. I know, I know...never pay for service until it has been done. Sometimes it's nice to dream that there are actually people in this world who can be trusted on a business deal like this.

It looks like our sprinklers aren't doing our vegetation any favors either. This is so depressing.

Apparently there's a huge turtle that's made a home in our pool too. Great. The hot temperatures in Austin aren't helping the situation much either. Thankfully, we'll be back home soon and we've hired someone to fix Keith's mess and it should be sparkling clean for us by then.

If you want to see what the pool is supposed to look like, here's a link that I posted a couple years ago of our new pool and landscaping. Keith isn't exactly fired. He just stopped showing up for the job apparently, and hasn't been to my house for a while so I thought I'd post his reference from me right here on my blog. When he actually did what he was paid to do, he did an acceptable job. It would have been nice if he would have kept his written and verbal agreement and "from the heart" promise. Keith, if you see this, please give me a call. Thanks!

Happy Fourth of July!!!

2011-07-04T02:36:00.001-05:00

Not all the other shirts/girls showed up yet, but those who were here posed with the flag cheesecake.

The young women in the Zhubei 2nd ward are awesome! Each one has an English name, luckily, because their Chinese names are difficult for me to pronounce and impossible to read. Happy Independence Day to all of my friends that I miss in the United States of America! I'll be home in about six weeks. Taiwan has touched my heart, but I'm getting psyched to be back in Texas.

Book of Mormon Read-a-Thon

2011-07-03T11:29:00.003-05:00

On July 1 and 2, I hosted a youth activity for the teenage girls from our church that began on Friday at 10 am and ended on Saturday at 8 pm with a sleepover at my house while the rest of my family was traveling. After a recent survey, I determined that this was something they all were extremely eager to do, so I planned it right after they finished school for summer vacation, just prior to the US Independence Day holiday weekend, and tied in a stars and stripes flag theme. After all, that's where the golden plates laid hidden for hundreds of years. For fun, I ordered a bunch of t-shirts and shipped them to the hotel when Kelly was on a recent business trip to the States.

It was an incredible two days with these righteous, lovely young women. Their souls delighted in the scriptures. They really felt an appreciation for the truths they discovered in the pages of The Book of Mormon, as they pondered over these words from paragraph six of its introduction page.

"Concerning this record the Prophet Joseph Smith said: I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book."

I grocery shopped, cooked, and baked the few days prior to their arrival, and fed them lunch, dinner, breakfast, and one more lunch, after which they began their fast to prepare for the next day's testimony meeting. I reminded them what a pure testimony should be, and not about saying how much fun they had or how good the food was, but to share what they had learned from the holy scriptures. The next day at church, several bore their testimonies and I could not have been more pleased with their strength and the truths that they shared.

I have more pictures from our event, but will add them tomorrow in a separate entry. I do not want to take away from the nature of this post by adding food pictures, and so forth. I realize that a good portion of those who look at my blog are already members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and have your own copy of The Book of Mormon. For the rest of you, you can click here to get your free copy or to chat with a friendly Mormon missionary in almost any language that you prefer to ask questions about our church.

And while I'm at it, I might as well share my own testimony of The Book of Mormon with the world, as it has been posted on mormon.org for several months, and I sincerely hope that everyone can have access to this marvelous book, that has helped me and my family draw closer together and most importantly toward the Savior, Jesus Christ. Some people wonder why we put so much effort into sharing what we believe with the rest of the world. If you could experience as much joy and happiness in life and felt like you had something so wonderful, you'd want all your friends to know about it too.

Banana Nut Muffins

2011-07-03T03:19:00.002-05:00

My mother-in-law shared her incredible banana nut bread recipe with me years ago after my husband and I first got married, and I love it. I've baked it dozens of times. I'm constantly adding less sugar to most recipes to suit the preferences of my Taiwanese friends, and have done so on this one as well. This mini muffin version is based on Marlene's fantastic recipe, but with a few minor changes, like adding some oatmeal. Enjoy!

1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
6 ripe bananas, mashed (about 3 cups)
4 eggs, well beaten
2 cups flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped pecans (or walnuts)

Mix butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the bananas and eggs until well blended. Sift dry ingredients and add to banana mixture. Stir in nuts. Drop by large stainless scoop into silicone mini muffin tray, and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 to 20 minutes. Pop out by pressing each muffin on bottom of non-stick tray. Cool completely. Makes about 44.

Chinese dinner, school's out

2011-06-26T12:54:00.011-05:00

We got invited over to dinner last week at my friend's house, and she invited a few others over too. She went to a lot of work to put out this authentic Chinese feast. Left to right, Demi, Lindesey's husband, Lindesey (host), my new daughter, Xu Jiemei, Zoey, and Fong Jiemei.

There was so much color and variety, and our friend, Lindesey, went out of her way to make sure there were no heads on the fish, just for me. We enjoyed the evening and were grateful for all that she put into this for us.

Hannah had a fun time playing with Demi's daughter, Zoey.

The next morning, we had to meet with a local court appointed social worker to make sure we are fit to be parents in order to adopt our girl, who is now living with us permanently. We met with our translator friend, Abish, at the Hsinchu County Children Care and Counseling Community Support Center.

As we were looking for the room where we were to have our meeting, Abish squealed with excitement and surprise when she saw this sign hanging on the wall. It was a good sign.

We had a good interview with the social worker and she seemed satisfied with our answers. Abish said they typically meet with people on multiple occasions, but she got the impression that this would be our only time to meet. Our court date is set for July 11, where we hope to finalize the adoption. The court requested a copy of the law in our home state. We tracked the Texas Family Code down in an 8-page document, most of which wouldn't apply to us. Then I had to have it translated into Chinese to present, and that alone cost $250 US for 12 pages of legal jargon. I'll be happy to share it with anyone who might need it in the future for free! I'm guessing there won't be too many takers.

I fell in love with the individually painted paper lanterns hanging in the community center, each one artistically embellished by a different child.

Christopher was in choir this year and performed at the Hsinchu American School graduation. The choir members range from 4th to 8th grade students.

There were four seniors who graduated, but only three of them attended. Max, who was supposed to give the graduation speech, conveniently had to work and only told the principal the day before. Here's Christopher napping to celebrate the end of 7th grade, and no more HAS. He is very eager to return to GMS.

My little fishy, bless her heart, seems to have never had the opportunity to swim. I don't think she's ever had a swimsuit either, she loves bath time and thinks she's really swimming. She wants to wear her swimsuit (and goggles) every time she gets in the tub and insists that I watch her "swim." She'll excitedly say, "Look, Mommy. I swim!" A couple of other things she seems to have been deprived from for well being include teeth brushing and having her temperature taken. She hardly knew what to do with a toothbrush when she first started coming to our house. Her teeth bleed quite a bit each time she brushes them and I hope that her gums get well soon. Kelly had a fever the last couple of days and she was intrigued by the thermometer and I had to show her how it works. What a concept.

Hannah adores her big brother and he's been such a huge help for me with translating and communicating with her. I've been using Google Translate a lot, but have no idea how well it does with some things I try to say or understand. Even though Christopher has attended an English speaking school, he took a Chinese class and gets to practice with all of his church friends and has done an outstanding job picking up the language here. If he can pick up that much Chinese in ten months going to an English speaking school, I know that Hannah will do well learning English quickly when we move back to the States in August.

She saw a brand new set of scriptures (triple combination) on Kelly's bookshelf in Chinese that he had bought a few months ago, but never opened. She asked him if she could have it and he, of course, said yes. She was so happy and immediately wrote all of her names in it, English and Chinese, and is eager to take it to church next week.

She loves to have our undivided attention and sings and dances for us. She was so cute with a little song she had made up that says, "I love you, Lindsey. I love you, Daddy. I love you, Mommy. I love you Christopher. I love you, family. I love you, family. I love you, family." She's asked us several times to show her pictures of her new bedroom in Texas, which is also Lindsey's. She wants us to add "Hannah" to the bedroom wall since she sees her big sister's name on it. In addition, she keeps looking on my blog labels for her name, then today I realized she was hoping to see her name listed. So all posts now that have her in it, have been labeled under "my daughter Hannah." She has looked at each one several times and I am sure she will look at them all again on many more occasions.

Juggling act continues

2011-06-22T21:18:00.020-05:00

A few weeks ago, after we realized that we would be adopting Hannah, I had been reading pages of information from various sites regarding the steps we would need to take to get her home. The USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) requires an extensive application (I-600 or I-600 A) for a non-Hague process country (Taiwan is not part of The Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation and Respect of Intercountry Adoption), that included the need for a home study by a licensed professional social worker. I know of another American couple here in Taiwan who is adopting a little girl, but they did their home study prior to moving to the R.O.C. We didn't even know we would be adding a family member a month ago, let alone a year ago, so I had no idea how we could get the crucial home study done. I tried contacting local adoption agencies, all who referred me to the AIT (American Institute in Taiwan) to find someone. I took the trek to the AIT (I've been there three times so far--it's such an ordeal, needing appointments, having limited times available) and they gave me a phone number of a place in Taipei who might be able to help us, but said there is a one-year waiting list.

As I was lying in bed one night, unable to sleep since I was thinking of everything that needed to be done before we could move back in August, hopefully with our new daughter, I had an epiphany of whom to contact. I wondered if Josh from The R House, who had previously worked for LDS Family Services (the agency for our two previous adoptions) but had recently begun a consulting business with his wife, a huge advocate for adoption, might be able to do it. Since it was the middle of the night here in Asia, it would be daytime in America, so I emailed Josh and he called me right back. I had read on the I-600 A form (there's a form to tell you how to fill out another form--it's SOOO complicated) that US citizens living abroad could use a social worker who is licensed in any state to do our home study. I contacted Josh, aka Mr. R, and asked him if he would be willing to come to Taiwan to do our home study, and he agreed. I booked his flight, hotel room, and started filling out loads of paperwork that he sent to us electronically, then started arranging medical appointments to show that we are in good health, police background checks to make sure we're not criminals, and the list goes on. Josh was out here last week and we should be ready to submit our USCIS form to the AIT next week, fingers crossed.

Every time we go to Taipei, I still get a thrill from seeing the 101 in the background, it's my geographic reference point when I can catch a glimpse of the world's second tallest building between other structures. Later, I tried to take a picture of the AIT building in case any one else might need to go there and would like to have an idea what to look for, but a security guard stopped me just before I clicked the photo. I didn't think the signs that had a camera in a circle with a line across it applied to me (oops!) since I was standing next to the exterior of the building. I assumed they meant to not take pictures once you're inside. Even though the AIT is somewhat hidden with a small entrance area, it was still fairly easy to locate, then the next challenging feat of finding a place to park, was not that much of an ordeal, surprisingly.

Our little Ni Ni, also known as Hannah, celebrated her 8th birthday on Friday last week, and here we are at a restaurant that her birthfather likes, where he treated us and a few friends to dinner. Hannah came home with us again that night, and has been spending the weekends with us and goes back to her dad's on Sunday evenings for the school week. School will be out in a few days, then she will move in with us permanently. She calls us and messages me online in the meantime. Our conversations are quite funny, considering our language barrier, but will add more on that in another post.

Good morning, Hannah! Here she is with her little stuffed animals that her "American daddy" brought her, and the new pajamas that I asked him to bring home after his business trip to California. Kelly called me from Target and had no clue what to shop for when I said to get her a nightgown since she'd been sleeping in Christopher's oversized t-shirts, "Well, there's this yellow one with pandas on it." Sure, that sounds cute. He did great, I think!

As our time in Hsinchu starts to wind down, I'm soaking in the beauty of all the green and tropical plants that make this place so pretty.

These well-groomed shrubs are in the Science Park close to Kelly's work, and I always enjoy this drive.

Here's an after church pose. I found this size 6X brown and white zebra striped dress, accented with pink, at Costco. Kelly had also gotten the white tights for her at Target. The thought of him shopping for little girls' nightgowns and tights still cracks me up, since he has never been much of a shopper, let alone for an 8-year-old. I asked Mrs. R, Josh's wife, if she could shop for a few outfits for Hannah to send over with her husband to deliver when he would be arriving in Taiwan to do the home study. She did a great job and I was excited to receive the darling outfits she had chosen for our new daughter.

Our neighbors have done an excellent job house sitting for us, and sent this picture to me yesterday of a massive snakeskin that was hanging from a tree in our backyard.

We have less than two months left on the island, and I'm starting to get thrilled at the thought of going home and began perusing through this scrumptious cookbook, Reata, Legendary Texas Cuisine, a gift from Denise, a sweet friend in our neighborhood back home. I'm looking forward to hosting a big fiesta when we return to Texas to introduce our Taiwanese girl and to be back in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Our new daughter!

2011-06-08T22:07:00.005-05:00

This picture was taken at church a few days ago while Kelly was on his way to the US for work this week. We have some wonderful news to share. We are adopting 7-year-old Yeh Min Yu, who has been in our home off and on the last couple of months. There's a lot that goes into making this official, dealing with US Homeland Security to arrange for her immigration visa, Taiwan courts and Chinese documents, getting a home study done by a licensed, qualified person, applying for a passport. You have no idea. I'll be glad when it's all done, but I couldn't wait to share this bit of joy with everyone. We will name her Hannah to go on her new US birth certificate and alternate calling her Hannah and her nickname of Ni Ni. She's excited and nervous to go to America with us. She can say more than 100 words in English so far. Some of her favorite things to say are "small dog, butterfly, apple, pig." She says it more like pig-uh. We love her and feel this is one of the reasons we came to Taiwan. Who would have thought that we'd be taking back such an incredible souvenir?

Chef Lindsey's in the house!

2011-06-02T09:08:00.000-05:00

Lindsey has been helping me out in the kitchen since she's been home from college and it's a pleasant surprise to have her creating delicious meals for us. She's turning into quite a fantastic cook!

Road trip to Hualien

2011-05-29T06:05:00.007-05:00

We live on the west side of the island (mainland China is across the sea from us) in Hsinchu and drove up around the north by Taipei, then down the eastern coast of Taiwan to Hualien last weekend. The first several pictures are from our beautiful hotel, the Promised Land Resort, then the beach area in Hualien, where swimming or even playing in the water is prohibited, and also to Taroko Gorge National Park. It took us about five hours by car to get there since the country is extremely mountainous and densely covered with tropical plants and vegetation. A traveler typically does not drive directly through the middle of the country, but instead, would drive around the perimeter of the island, much of which is along a narrow highway, engineered miraculously with cliff-side roads situated close to a rather frightful drop-off almost straight below to the ocean waters.

Our trip was a lot of fun and Kelly enjoyed taking a couple of days off work. We hope to take another road trip around the entire island during the summer, going south from Hsinchu, then coming up from the bottom tip the next time. What a beautiful land.

Our adventurous week in pictures!

2011-05-09T15:36:00.013-05:00

I can't spell well sometimes! It's pedaling not pedalling. Let that be your new spelling word of the day.

Lindsey and I got to ride normal bikes, which were so much easier and more enjoyable. Poor Kelly! He thought the surrey was difficult, but this train-tricycle business was much worse. I rode it briefly and named it the thigh master. The next day, we got to attend Janette's baptism, following church. This is mainly all the foreigners in our ward, with two Taiwanese girls in the front, Ruth and the one whose name I don't know. We have several members from the Philippines here, who are absolutely delightful and have such faith.

Joy was Christopher's bride in the Shakespeare play that they did together a few months ago. My grammar was suffering when I edited this photo and now it will be too much of a pain to fix. New ward boundaries DON'T separate good friends. Is that better?

Apron city! When we get them all finished, I want to do a photo of everyone wearing them. Wish us luck.

All our pictures with Julie were blurry, unfortunately. We drove up to Taipei to see her a few days ago while she was in town. Julie was our neighbor in Texas, then moved to Taiwan. Then she moved to China, and we moved to Taiwan!

Classic Spritz Recipe

2011-04-30T07:55:00.004-05:00

Want a quick cookie recipe? These are so simple, delicious, and eye catching. In a mixing bowl, combine the following ingredients, except the candies. Press an M&M in each cookie prior to baking.

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
M&Ms candies for centers

Do not refrigerate to chill. Fill cookie press with dough, then press out cookies onto a baking sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. Makes about 7 dozen. Happy birthday to my sweet sister-in-law, Brenda, who LOVES shortbread cookies and today is her 40th birthday!

A beautiful family

2011-04-28T13:11:00.011-05:00

Fortune cookies are not Chinese, in case you hadn't heard. They're American. I was quite surprised when Cocoa, a Taiwanese girl, handed one to me recently. It was imported from the States, I quickly discovered. Anyway, I love to read the fortunes more than eat the cookie. I wondered if I should be offended by this particular fortune I got, "You will have a beautiful family." Does that mean we're not beautiful now? Or, should we get excited about a new addition? Don't we usually read what we want into those things anyway? Well, our family has been beautified this past week with little Ni Ni staying with us, and she will be joining us again tomorrow for a few more days.

She fits right in, and if we had it our way, she'd become a permanent member of the family. She did a great job expressing herself to us with her limited English, and loved drawing various works of art, and having me take a million pictures of her designs.

She also motioned for all of us to watch her perform a mini concert of winging it at the keyboards playing Row, Row, Row Your Boat. Kelly made the job easier by putting some sticky strips on the keys where the notes are. She soaked up the love and attention from being part of a regular family.

Ni Ni enjoyed all the new clothes I had bought her from Target.com and which I had Lindsey stash in her suitcase before she joined us in Taiwan.

Dying Easter eggs was completely foreign to Ni Ni, and she wanted to know if she could help crack the eggs open until I showed her that they were cooked, and Christopher, Lindsey, and Kelly demonstrated what to do with the huge bowl of hard-boiled eggs.

She did well adapting to our foods that we eat, and enjoyed an evening out on the town for Japanese food on Friday night with us. Kelly's iPhone kept her entertained when she was tired of eating.

Ni Ni never wanted to have her picture taken before school, but at the end of the day, she was happy to pose, Asian style, as always. It was a big change for me to get up every morning at 6:30 am and get her ready and drop her off at school, then take Kelly to work.

Lindsey and Christopher helped with the pick up times, and she is always super happy when she sees us.

She is really hung up about getting her lunch dishes washed and put back into her school bag. They feed them each day, but everyone brings their own bowls, chopsticks, and spoons, which they take home to clean for the next mealtime. I could tell that it really made her day when I would wash everything for her, since she normally does it herself.

We found out that she is like other typical 7 year olds and starts to self destruct at about 9 pm, and this one night out after we attended the family dance, she had exceeded her limit of congeniality. We knew she felt comfortable with us by knowing she could have her moments of crankiness around us.

After a good night's sleep, she was all smiles again the next day, and was not exactly sure about this Easter Bunny business, but seemed to like it. The Easter Bunny in Taiwan has it rough since it's not really merchandised or recognized here. A little plush, stuffed rabbit or doggy would have been nice, but no luck.

Kelly and Lindsey were the egg hiders for the big hunt.

We have a nice area outside our apartment building that was very convenient for the festivities.

She caught on quickly and was excited about all the eggs she had gathered up.

She loved it and the rest of us enjoyed watching her.

We had Kent and Nikki, a married couple who are students from SUU that had been teaching English here for four months, over for dinner. Kent and Christopher played some XBox 360 games while dinner was getting prepared.

Kent was a missionary in Taiwan a couple of years ago, so this was an excellent journey for the two of them. They flew back to the USA this week and we'll miss them.

Kent is hilarious and was posing here for me. He really should be a drama teacher since he's a funny guy and the teenagers love him.

With Lindsey here, I thought it would be nice to invite Lisa to join us. She's a 17 year old young woman we know from church too, and is the only church member in her family, and I thought she'd enjoy celebrating with us.

Following dinner, we went to the big movie theater in our complex and played our new movie, Tangled, which is the story of Rapunzel. It had Chinese subtitles, so Lisa and Ni Ni could follow that. It was a wonderful Easter.

Fun with Ninnies and Nini

2011-04-19T08:11:00.006-05:00

Our family got to attend the monthly stake temple day at the Taipei temple on Saturday. Lindsey and Christopher did their temple work, then waited outside on the beautiful grounds and at the chapel next door until we were finished with our session. After that, we enjoyed hamburgers at a place we heard about called California Grill, then did some exploring.

Lindsey arrived last week from Rexburg, completing 32 credit hours and her first year of college at Brigham Young University-Idaho. We are so glad to have her home with us! She will be with us until she starts school again in September and will be taking two classes online in the meantime. In addition to Lindsey's arrival, we've been blessed to have the company of 7-year-old Nini with us this week. She's so darling and we love having her around too. It's kind of funny that when Lindsey was a little toddler and she could not say her name well, she called herself Ninnies. So we have Ninnies and Nini with us, and we are enjoying the extra sweet feminine spirits in our home!

A little misty rain keeps the temple grounds lush and beautiful.

Beware of Falling Coconut Branches!

The blue tile rooftops are so pretty on the white buildings and structures.

Bridal shops along the way to the MRT station.

Chen Kai-Shek Memorial Hall

Flora Expo--we have avoided it because of long lines, but saw it from our subway train.

Exhausted from break dancing in Danshui.

Sign to "turn on the headlight" as we exited the underground parking garage at the Taipei temple.

Playing with Ni Ni on the X-Box Kinect bowling game.

Ni Ni is proud of the cookies that she and Lindsey baked.

Lindsey was happy to have a little helper in the kitchen.

Ni Ni is such a sweetheart. We just love her.

Enjoying a bowl of Cheerios before leaving for school.

One quick photo before school and work.

Ni Ni goes to school for so long! I drop her off at between 7:30 and 8:00 and pick her up at 5:30. I get there at 5:00, but she's not ready to leave until close to 5:45!

Walking to her classroom.

She loves Lindsey and Christopher.

Thanks, sis!

2011-04-06T21:59:00.002-05:00

We will now have this as one of our apron options for our Relief Society event on April 30, thanks to my personal shopper, Julie. Click HERE to see what I'm talking about if you're not sure. I was really hoping for the red polka dot print and the aqua jacquard, but since the mocha print clashed with those, this is definitely a better choice. The combo has a striking resemblance to my cocoa and turquoise trio, but sisters tend to like the same things!

Hotpot hot date

2011-04-06T13:11:00.001-05:00

On Friday night after I picked Kelly up from work, since I had the car that day, we drove to the hotpot restaurant in the science park and enjoyed a rare dinner out together. We had such a nice time being out on a date with just the two of us, as we usually have Christopher too, but we left him at home. It was the beginning of a long weekend together, since the boys had Monday and Tuesday off of work and school for yet another Taiwanese holiday that we didn't know about previously called Tomb Sweeping Day. Thanks for a night out with you, Kelly!

Apron making extravaganza

2011-04-03T04:49:00.012-05:00

UPDATE: My order did not ship from Joann's online on time, so I canceled it. My sister, Julie, took her iPad with her to a nearby Joann's store, compared the photos from my blog, and bought the fabrics for me. I told her to get the bottom two combos that I love, and asked her to pick a new trio to replace the above photo since the mocha print didn't quite match after I enlarged the swatch. I can't wait to see what she chose. Thanks for saving the day, Julie.

Each month, I plan our ward's monthly Relief Society activities, and making aprons was the second most popular topic on our recent survey. I shopped for fabric online from Joann's for our April 30 event, seizing the opportunity of someone dear to me arriving from the States soon. I wish I had enlarged these fabric swatches before I ordered them because the Koren mocha print looks less aqua now and more sky blue, so I might need a replacement to tie it all together.

Shopping for fabric here in Taiwan has proven to be a big ordeal, so I'm glad I could do it this way. Lindsey gets to lug all the things I've ordered online when she'll be arriving in Taiwan next week. As you can see, I like these colors so much that I designed a new blog header using these fabric swatches!

This will be my first time to teach others how to sew and I'm a bit nervous about it, wondering how it will work out logistically. I'll give them three choices for the above trios of fabrics and hope that they will benefit from the event.

Baking with Chocolate event

2011-03-23T04:57:00.011-05:00

From nine choices on a recent survey, the women at church selected this event as their first pick for upcoming activities for me to plan. The concept of a once a month (or close to it) Relief Society activity hasn't really been grasped here, and past events have been sort of lumped in with other activities, like our baby quilt making project turned out to be. As I felt the importance of my calling and striving to carry it out the way I believe the mid-week activities are intended, I expressed to the RS president that I hope that we can make this event be just for the women, where they can eagerly look forward to a special time of socializing with others and not have to worry about taking care of the kids and simply enjoy a night out together.

In order to emphasize that this was planned for the women, after I heard that it had been announced in priesthood meeting and the men were excited about it, I knew my work was cut out for me. Since then, I created these invitations that specify who the event is supposed to be planned for, and have made sure we have some men scheduled to help out for the children's class. So far, that part sounds good, but at the last minute, I was told that all the young women were invited to attend too. I feel bad that they don't have regular mutual activities, so I can see why the girls would want to join us--that and for the tasty chocolate. It will be fine to have them there, but I do envision regular monthly Relief Society events that can help serve the purpose of the organization, which is not to be in the entertainment business.

As you can see, I made two versions of the invitation, about six copies in English and about thirty-four in Chinese, and I still ran out. I asked my faithful translation guru, Abish, to help by putting the Chinese text following each line I had typed in English. I just cut and pasted, hoping that everything came out fine. Apparently it worked, but I have no idea what any of the characters say. And since I don't have a clue about any of it, I couldn't exactly change font types. I did manage to add bold and highlights and indents.

I will be making three recipes, a gloriously delicious Texas sheet cake, pictured above, Triple Layer Brownies, and last but not least, No Bake Cookies, since most homes here don't have ovens, so after this, everyone will know how to whip up a batch of chocolate oatmeal peanut butter cookies without having to go to the church to borrow the oven.

I've been getting acquainted with this darling little girl, Ni Ni, who lost her mom a year or two ago, and every time I see her, I try to make sure she knows how delighted I am. She is teaching me a little bit of Chinese while I teach her a little English. I'll add more photos of her later. Ni Ni came over to visit us on Sunday with a few others guests.

Wish me luck for a busy weekend! If you happen to see this invitation, and are a woman {smile}, you are welcome to join us on Saturday night at the LDS chapel in Jhubei at 7 pm.

Taiwan bakery tour

2011-03-17T05:01:00.005-05:00

A friend of mine from church owns eight bakeries between Hsinchu and Taipei and invited me to tour the factory where they make everything.

Vivien is so nice to have given us a hands-on bakery tour.

This baker has worked for her for four years and has been trained in Japan on some specialty bread techniques. This is Bori bread that is like crusty fresh loaf and soft inside. He makes a quick cut with a blade held at an angle before putting into a hot stone oven (225 degrees Celsius) for 16 minutes.

A favorite bread for me in Taiwan is this delicious cheese bread.

I paid close attention and hope to be able to make my own version of cheese bread at home.

After a sprinkle of black pepper and a row of high-melt cheese is added, it gets rolled up for the final rising.

The bread is placed on canvas and handled gently before it goes into the oven.

The scoring on this raisin and walnut bread was very artful with a sprinkling of flour before the cutting.

Hot, fresh bread, right out of the oven smelled wonderful.

Here's another friend of mine, whom I visit teach.

Her daughter, Lisa, just got home from her mission in Taiwan a couple of weeks ago is temporarily working at the bakery part-time. She wasn't in a photo taking mood, which I can respect.

Neither was I! But I smiled for the camera, make-up free, hair-net and all. My friends and I enjoyed the day and Vivien gave each of us a loaf of Bori bread and a loaf of walnut raisin bread. Vivien also gave me a kilo of her imported Japanese flour that is high-quality finely milled, and a bag of high-melt cheese to try out whipping up some bread soon.

It was a really fun outing and I snapped a few pictures of the rice paddy fields that show up in random spots, where ever possible.

Out of curiosity, I would like to have a lesson in rice growing so I can understand the process better. I don't plan to grow any myself, but want to figure out how it grows and is harvested. I only know first hand what the fields looks like since they can be seen all over the place from where I've been so far in Taiwan.

In addition, I often see small patches of land nestled just about anywhere, of gardens where various produce is grown. It's impressive how the Taiwanese have such a green thumb and are excellent at growing things.

Once I got home from the Elly Family bakery, I had worked up an appetite and was anxious to transform my Bori bread into something for lunch.

I sliced it into thick slices and started cooking some bacon, imported from the United States through Costco.

Freshly baked bread with crispy bacon would be perfect for an American classic sandwich, the BLT, which is bacon, lettuce, and tomato on bread.

One thing I missed last fall was Miracle Whip, so I packed two plastic jars of it in my luggage and brought back to Taiwan. Mayonnaise is readily available, but not this good stuff. I like Miracle Whip on certain sandwiches, and mayo on other types.

Open faced BLTs for my lunch and for Christopher's after school snack were amazing with the soft and crusty bread. They were a bit difficult to eat without another slice of bread on top, but it was a small loaf and I had plenty of toppings to spare.

There's a store in Hsinchu that sells one my favorite soft drinks, Diet A&W root beer, that went nicely with my meal.

It will be interesting to attempt scaling down the recipes that I got from Vivien's commercial-sized bakery to my household Kitchen Aid mixer.

Their bakery had several huge mixers to get the job done. She said this one costs about the same as a car!

This popular Taiwanese painting hangs in Vivien's office and is supposed to represent people rushing into your business and bring you good luck.

There are all kinds of things here that symbolize good luck, including this smiling old guy that was also in her factory. Wish me luck as I try to make some cheese bread and Bori bread next week! I'll be sure to post my results on my blog, unless it's a total flop, then I won't bother.

I'm grateful for the beautiful day and enjoyed the kindness of my friends, who helped to plant this cherry tree.

Check out the busy little bee in the center of the tree above. Last year several of the women from church wanted to add some cheer to the grounds around the chapel, so they planted several cherry trees around the perimeter of the property to add beauty. What a great idea! Their act of service by planting those trees will be enjoyed by many in the future.

Vivien's kindness of sharing her bakery secrets with me will hopefully allow me to share what I have learned with family and friends for years to come as I bake with for them. Thank you, Vivien, and Demi and Sis. Lin!

Blanket of snow

2011-03-07T12:01:00.002-06:00

A rare snowfall in Austin in January. Thanks to our excellent house-sitter for capturing what we missed out on.

Much Ado About Nothing

2011-03-04T04:15:00.002-06:00

Our production of Much Ado About Nothing that we've been working on for six months was performed last Saturday. The youth did an outstanding job. Everything came together very nicely, including the background music that one of the young men put onto his laptop to match each scene. Another young man put the entire script onto an overhead screen to provide Chinese subtitles for the audience members who don't know English well enough to follow along throughout the play.

Demi and Emma (Alina's older sister) helped out with hair and makeup as the kids were getting into costumes for the big night. Anticipation for the production was building up as stage props and sound equipment were getting set up. The weeks and months spent practicing and memorizing their lines of foreign dialog were finally shared on stage with the eager, attentive crowd. By their positive reaction and applause, I would say the show was a huge success.

Aaron and his dad helped to provide much needed Chinese subtitles for the English language play.

The Elders Quorum hosted a dumpling making activity downstairs prior to the play, the results of which became dinner for everyone in between our final dress rehearsal and the actual performance.

Here is Christopher, standing up after kneeling down to propose to Joy, or rather, Benedick asking for Beatrice's hand in marriage. She shows off her dazzling green wedding ring to the audience and everyone lives happily ever after.

Following the double wedding ceremony, everyone broke out into dance and the final curtain closed and the crowd cheered graciously. I will always remember fondly this wonderful opportunity I had to work with these incredible youth. Directing this play literally brightened my world in a time that could have been extremely challenging when I first moved to Taiwan. I love and appreciate each of these amazing youth.

Joy's mom had arranged for a colorful bouquet to be given to each participant, including the stage hands who helped tremendously. Demi and I were each given a massive bouquet of sunflowers that I'm still enjoying a week later. Thank you, Charlotte! And thank you to Lisa, Joy, Sophie, Alina, Nancy, Ruth, Christopher, Andy, Jimmy, and Thomas for all your hard work!

Wrapping up Chinese New Year

2011-03-03T03:11:00.009-06:00

There were a lot of fun activities on CNY day at the Taipei Grand Hyatt where we stayed for a couple of days.

This guy had some incredible clay molding skills.

Since it's the year of the rabbit, he's making rabbits!

The paper crafts were really detailed and intricate.

Chinese calligraphy is such a beautiful art form.

The music was traditional Chinese, classical and so pretty.

Whoa! The firecrackers that kicked off the festivities were I-N-T-E-N-S-E!!! It was so thrilling to be there.

I have never heard so many firecrackers go off at once in my life. There were hundreds of long strands coming down from the building in the entrance area. It was incredible.

The drums captivated the crowd.

This guy was recording the live event to show on the Internet.

It was so scary watching these guys jump around on these tall risers. At one point, they fell off and I got it on video, which I'll post later. They quickly remounted and continued the dragon dance.

The decor in the Grand Hyatt was so elegant and provided ample seating for conversation with friends.

We strolled over to the mall at the Taipei 101 to see our second dragon dance of the day.

We attempted to go to the zoo, but spending hours waiting in line for the gondola ride, the zoo had closed.

Here we saw our THIRD dragon dance/acrobats of the day on our first official Chinese New Year day.

We met some friendly Filipino women in line that I had fun socializing with since they could speak English.

More clay creatures, but not quite as spectacular as the ones at the hotel.

More paper crafting. I like the lacy heart design a lot. Check out the rose border. That looks complicated!

There were some water color paintings that I wanted to see but we got to this building just before it closed.

Finally! It was a long wait and we just barely made it before it got too dark to see.

There wasn't much at the top besides tea shops and we were tired, so we took a taxi back to the MRT.

An Easy Card is the way to go.

The following day, we went to a Taoist temple.

We briefly stepped inside to see what was going on, and didn't want to be disrespectful to those who were there for spiritual enlightenment, so we left and walked around outside.

Here's Kelly showing us how to use the MRT with the Easy Card. It's easy!

We took a tour up to an aboriginal tribe in the mountains to this village of the Walai people.

We waited in another ridiculously long line to ride the train.

It was worth it to see the show in the Gaga Theater with these talented youthful dancers. Their show was the best part of the tour, by far.

We rented bikes and rode along the coastline. I had a regular bike and Kelly and his parents and Christopher went in the surrey.

Christopher had a blast flying a kite on a very windy day along the seaside.

Squid on a stick.

Grilled to perfection.

Kelly enjoying his hot squid.

One of the odd car names here in Taiwan, the Nippy.

Twin girls at church.

One of the elders' cousins was in town with her Taiwanese husband and their son.

Someone gave us some corn on the cob at church so we cooked it as soon as we got home.

Marlene and Dee's last day before heading back to Colorado.

Sweetness continues

2011-02-24T02:04:00.012-06:00

A Valentine's Day novelty that I missed seeing, eating, and reading this month was boxes of conversation hearts, an American candy staple that kids and grown ups exchange in February. When I found that our friend, Gerard, was coming from Austin to Hsinchu on business this week, I asked his wife, Becky, to please send some boxes over for us with him, which they kindly did. Last night after play practice, I passed them out to my awesome Taiwan teenagers. I thought they would enjoy the short English phrases and get a taste of this tradition. Thank you, Becky and Gerard!
If you're surprised that I'm still posting Valentines things, you may conclude that I'm possibly (1) completely bored and have nothing better to do, or (2) clinging on to a somewhat insignificant holiday because I never really got it out of my system yet this year, or (3) tired of the three English television shows that air over and over that I'm sick of watching, or (4) all of the above, then you could be right.
I realize that I never posted a picture of the kitchen in our Taiwan apartment when I blogged about it previously, so take a look. Notice that we don't have a dishwasher but a dish dryer instead. (It's the overhead appliance with the see-through door.) All my dishes have to be hand washed, which doesn't bother me too much most of the time. My oven is the silver countertop unit (beneath the white portable microwave in the corner) that I bought at Costco since they aren't standard in kitchens here. To see the rest of our casita, click HERE, for those who might have missed this post and also have nothing better to do. If you're lucky, I might even surprise you sometime and add pictures of our laundry room and what I call the pantry.
My in-laws gave me this beautiful Valentine. Kelly didn't get one for me this year for the first time ever, but he was sick that Monday and didn't really know where to buy a card here. He did suggest that I make one for him to give to me, which I agreed to, but never did. Who knows, I might still create one when I feel like it. I'm presently suffering from a severe case of zero motivation. It's a good thing that we both know we love each other.
A few days after February 14, I bought myself these pretty red flowers from Costco and since I left my abundant collection of vases in Texas, I was resourceful and used this black shiny make-shift vase from my crockpot and actually love the transformation. Maybe I'll start a new trend where crockpot vases become the new rage!
My sister, Julie, made a delicious cheesecake when I was in California at Aunt Polly's house for a family dinner, the night before Uncle Wally's funeral. The cheesecake was amazing, but there were a houseful of guinea pigs who wanted to taste it, so I just nabbed a sliver. I have been craving it ever since then, so I made some this week, even without access to a springform pan, and was pleased that it turned out quite well and everyone devoured it.

Inside our Austin home

2011-02-22T21:11:00.018-06:00

We've been living in Taiwan for six months, which is our half-way point for Kelly's work contract that he's fulfilling. I took some pictures for myself of our home the day I left to come back to Taiwan after Christmas break to look at when I'm feeling a bit homesick. Here's a quick tour of our casa bonita. You can also click HERE for an old link to see our swimming pool after it was completed.
I prefer fresh flowers, but these will do while I'm away.

Sometimes I want to click my heels three times and repeat, "There's no place like home" to escape back to there. Then I realize that home is where my family is, and right now, that's in Taiwan with the exception of our college student. I do miss all my friends in Texas though. And some of my dishes. :-)

I love languages!

2011-02-19T04:19:00.015-06:00

Foreign languages have always fascinated me. When I was a teenager, I started learning how to say something, even if it was just a simple phrase, in many different languages. I love hearing the different pronunciations and am so impressed when I meet people who are talented at communicating in more than one language.

As I have lived outside of my native country, it has been a unique experience to strive to adapt to a world where I cannot easily communicate or understand what is going on around me most of the time. It has given me a greater appreciation for my Spanish speaking friends from the United States and to my surprise, I feel like I can more easily relate to my deaf friends, to know what they might be dealing with when they cannot hear what's going on when others are talking.

American Sign Language is a beautiful language, and I love watching people communicate by using their hands. In a barbaric way, that's actually how I've been getting by in Taiwan to get my point across, but not in any formal language, often simply by just using gestures, facial expressions and emotions. It would be awesome to be able to actually "speak" in ASL.

I have a friend in Texas who is an ASL teacher and he has an excellent website that teaches this language. If you're interested in learning American Sign language, you might want to take a look at what Rob has to offer. He is a pro and can teach you as much as you want to know. If anything, click on his link HERE and check out his site. You will enjoy his minute and a half intro video and his likable personality. He is hoping to get more traffic and I know he would appreciate it.

Valentine's Day and 500th post

2011-02-14T11:44:00.041-06:00

Whoa. I just realized that this is my 500th post since I started my blog a couple of years ago! How fitting that I'll be talking about some of my favorite things today. I should probably take a moment to say "hello" and "thank you" to everyone who ever looks at or reads my blog. I appreciate all of you, so please don't ever feel like you're a stalker. It's nice to be noticed and feel the love!
I'm not a huge Jell-O fan, but for some odd reason, I was in the mood to create some heart shaped jigglers for Valentines Day.
I used strawberry, orange, and lemon flavored Jell-O to make these cute li'l sugary hearts.
The super sweet treats are SO easy to make and just pop right out of my deep heart molds.
Speaking of sweetness...it was a joy to receive all the cards that friends and family sent us when we went home to Austin for a couple of weeks in December for the holidays, but I never got around to reciprocating and sending out Christmas cards myself, which I typically do.Kelly's solution was to send Chinese New Year cards. Brilliant! I love that man. Why didn't I think of that? So, I designed a card and whipped up several to send.
I spotted this beautiful rubber stamp with these four lanterns at a little stamping store I stumbled upon here in Hsinchu that I could not resist.
It turns out that there's another Chinese holiday that we didn't know about until this week which ties in perfectly with the cards I just created! The lantern festival holiday, a few days after Valentine's Day, is the last day to celebrate Chinese New Year, and some of our new friends were quite generous to bring over an assortment of colorful paper lanterns and candles for us, along with a special soup that is traditionally served on this occasion.
We turned out the lights to get a glimpse of how the lanterns look when they're lit up.
I was worried that we might burn down the house, but fortunately, we didn't. We just put little small "birthday-like" candles into the centers by anchoring them down with a little hot wax that gets dripped onto the bottom first.
The children walk around on the evening of the lantern festival with the paper creations to continue the tradition.
The special soup features these miniature spongy balls that represent the moon to wish good luck. One blogger summarized the holiday well, "Tonight is the night the Chinese New Year celebrations come to an end, on the 15th of the First Full Moon with the Lantern Festival known as Yuan Xiao. The highlight of Yuan Xiao is when people go out at night to watch lanterns, solve riddles, enjoy fireworks and traditional performances such as dragon lantern dance and lion dancing at parks or open squares. Families usually get together again to eat "Tang Yuan," sweet glutinous rice dumplings which represent the happiness of family reunion and affection and good luck for the New Year." --Betty Wong
Check out the apron I made last week with fabric my mother-in-law brought me! I crocheted the little flower on it too. I used every square inch of fabric she brought, including strips of 1/8 yard pieces, plus about a yard of the light blue print.
Take a close up peek at the glutinous rice balls that were cooked with red beans in a thin broth, slightly sweetened with a strong ginger scent infused. It was so very thoughtful of them to share these customs with us and we felt so loved!
We all sat round the living room table and enjoyed a nice visit and I was delighted to get better acquainted with these new friends from our church. Abish translated for us. What a life saver she has been for me since I have been a slacker at learning Chinese.
I wish everyone a happy Valentine's Day, and happy Lantern Festival too!

Kelly's parents arrive for Chinese New Year

2011-02-06T05:15:00.104-06:00

We welcomed our first visitors since we moved to Taiwan six months ago, Kelly's mom and dad arranged to be here while he had some time off work during Chinese New Year.
Here's Christopher showing Grandma how to play River Rafting on Kinect Adventures.
We were told that traffic would be terrible during the holiday, so we didn't travel too far away and ended up going to most places we'd already been, such as Emei Lake.
"Orange you" glad I took some pictures of the fresh fruit?
Orange trees filled every nook and cranny of the hillsides, and fruit was plentiful and looked very tempting. We made sure to buy some oranges along the way.
Here's the plant that makes the betel nut tobacco-like substance that is sold here. It's not really tobacco, but more like a chewable nut that turns your saliva red and ruins your teeth. People actually pay for this product in little shops to have this happen.
This young woman was standing outside in the cold, selling wedges of this mystery food that we didn't really know what it was, but we bought some anyway. I think it is made from rice, but it looks like cheese or tofu.
Kelly ordered some and we weren't sure what we would get or how it would taste, but it was fun watching him converse with her in Chinese.
She grilled up a few pieces for us to go. It was somewhat tasty, surprisingly. I'm not very adventurous when I don't know what I'm eating.
Christopher was having fun talking in Chinese with her too.
We hiked for a while and that warmed us up.
It was quite chilly that day.
*Christopher, my 13-year-old.
*A couple of golden statues outside of a Buddhist nunnery.
*A chubby Buddha in the courtyard of the nunnery.
*Scenic view from the nunnery
We were waiting for Dee to come back, who was unaware that people actually live there, and he was trying to enter their home until we called for him to come back and he finally listened to us. We had a good laugh about it.
Cheese!
Here's the massive Buddha near the lake that we'd visited a couple of months ago.
We bought some fruit and vegetables along the roadside. This little old lady was so tiny, about four and a half feet tall. Look at her little wooden stool in the background.
Christopher arranged the fruit in the bowl when we got home and here's Kelly with his mom showing it off. The bananas were really small and firm, with a lot more fibrous texture than what I'm used to. We bought a few varieties of oranges which were really sweet and delicious. Later that day, we went to a reception to celebrate the temple sealing of a couple in our ward.

One of the missionaries was lucky to have his cousin, Becky, and her husband and son come here for a visit. Becky's husband grew up in Hsinchu.
This is one of the counselors in our bishopric and his adorable little girl whom his wife and he adopted. She's darling.
Here's Christopher with "wife," Joy. They get married in the Shakespeare play that they'll be performing in together later this month. The two of them have a blast telling everyone they are married.
This 11-year-old girl got baptized and we attended her baptism. Kelly's parents were able to meet several of the people from our church and they were kindly welcomed by everyone.
We stopped by the nearby Hi-Life convenience store to pick up a few tasty bakery items.
The first day that Kelly had off from work, we drove to Taipei and spent a few days there exploring.
We stayed at the Grand Hyatt and here's a view of the swimming pool on the 5th floor, from our 11th floor window.
The grand entrance had a magnificent tree that was decorated with fancy little red envelopes and red lantern ornaments.

There were all these beautiful natural elements that made the most wonderful art.
These were strings of leaves.

We headed right next door to the Taipei 101 shopping mall.

Almost every high end shop you can imagine can be found in the Taipei 101 mall.
There was some kind of live show being recorded, I think it might have been a lottery program.

We took Kelly's parents up to the 89th floor observatory.
There were hardly any lines, which was a pleasant surprise.

There were some little cards where people could write down wishes for the year. I wish I could have read some of them, but most all were in Chinese. We were thinking of Lindsey, wishing she could be here too, so I made a wish for her.

Local taste preferences were considered, as you can see a Seaweed Pretzel is offered as a choice. That probably wouldn't be a big seller in the United States, at least not in Austin.

We boarded the complimentary shuttle outside the mall to head to the MRT to catch a subway train.
We were intrigued by the Chinese New Year decorations on the bus.
We made it to the MRT en route to the night market.
The smell of stinky tofu filled the air and I visited the same shop I'd been with Lindsey and we bought a few goodies.

There was a giant W outside the Westin hotel that was very striking.

We were hoping to see fireworks from the Taipei 101 on New Year's Eve, but found out that they were only on the December 31 New Year's Eve, not the one for the Lunar New Year. We did see random fireworks go off at midnight from our city view on the 11th floor.
Christopher received his very first red envelope on New Year's Day. I still have a ton more pictures to upload from Kelly's parents' visit, but will stop here since this post is already quite lengthy, and will add more soon.

Chocolate Haystack Cheesecake Bites

2011-01-25T07:39:00.014-06:00

When I was a teenager, my siblings used to make fun of me for putting coconut in almost everything. I'm a coconut enthusiast--what can I say? None of them will be surprised to see a version of this divine recipe that I discovered at Mel's Kitchen Cafe, then made a few minor changes to. If you are as crazy for coconut and chocolate as I am, you will have mounds of good things to say about this familiar concoction.

I'm supposed to provide refreshments for a baptism at the church in a couple of days, so I've made these these Chocolate Haystack Cheesecake Bites and put them into the freezer, and hope they will be pleasing to our Taiwanese congregation.

Here's everything you will need to make them, only nine ingredients--five for the crust and four for the top layer.
I use this Flexipan, which nothing sticks to, and they simply pop right out.
CRUST:
2 cups firmly packed ground graham cracker crumbs (from about 19 rectangles)
2 cups coconut
1-1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 egg

CREAM CHEESE LAYER:
16 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
6 eggs
1-1/2 cups coconut

Preparing the crust: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir together the graham cracker crumbs and coconut. Place chocolate chips and butter in microwave safe bowl. Microwave for one minute at 50% power. Stir. Microwave for 30 to 40 more seconds or until the chocolate mixture is melted and smooth. Let the mixture cool slightly until lukewarm to the touch. Quickly whisk in the egg. Stir the chocolate mixture into the graham cracker and coconut mixture. Use a small stainless steel scoop to fill silicon mini muffin pan. Press evenly into the bottom of the pan. Bake until set, about 10 minutes.

Preparing the cream cheese layer: Beat the cream cheese and sugar on high speed in a stand mixer until very smooth and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Reduce the speed to medium, and add eggs, 1 at a time, until well combined. Scrape the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat on medium-high speed until completely smooth, about 3 minutes. Ladle spoons full of the mixture into a Wilton easy pour funnel, then fill each of the individual chocolate-coconut crusts in the mini muffin pan. Sprinkle coconut evenly over the top. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the top layer is just set and golden brown. Pop out of the silicone mini muffin cups and serve warm or chilled. Refrigerate until serving. Makes 60.

Saturday is a special day

2011-01-20T21:09:00.034-06:00

Every Saturday we usually do our shopping for the week and often spend part of the day doing some sort of activity with our church friends.
Last Saturday our stake planned a big charity event that was essentially a flea market or garage sale where loads of second-hand items were donated then resold, and the money raised would be donated to a charity.
Several people cooked foods to sell at the event. Our ward Relief Society asked me to teach others how to make dinner rolls to be able to sell in packages of five for the service project. I spent most of the day on Friday in the kitchen at the church teaching, or rather showing, how to make the rolls. Most of them don't usually bake or even use flour to cook, so they were very excited to learn how to do it themselves. We ended up making more than a dozen batches of rolls. Later, I made some little labels to jazz the packaging up a bit. Appearance counts with food!
By the time Kelly and I got to the fund raiser, all the rolls were sold out, so I was glad they they were a success. The rain and cold weather didn't stop anything, although I would guess that if had been more pleasant outside, a larger crowd would have come out to support the activity.
Our youth got to perform a few times. They sang.
And they danced.
And danced some more.
It was extra exciting for me to see these wonderful kids because I had been in the U.S. for a month and I missed them!
We spent a while there, were able to greet a lot of our adult friends from church and it was overall a very happy reunion.
Since we left Taiwan during the holidays, a new American couple moved into our ward to be here for the next four months. Kent and Nikki, a young newlywed couple, are so nice and friendly and are really going to be such a bright addition. Kent served his mission here in Taiwan and communicates very well with people and is dancing in the photo below, the one on the far left, and Nikki also joined the youth on stage and is in the very back, in front of the red door with the orange scarf--you can barely see her from here. We're anxious to get acquainted with them.
Most of these teenagers here are the ones I've been working with on the Shakespeare play.
Speaking of...we will be doing our play on the Saturday before Valentine's Day, February 12, if anyone locally is interested in attending. Everyone is invited!
I will post the address of the church later as it gets closer to the date.
Kelly and I left the excitement in Jhubei, then headed for Costco.
We did first buy a few things before we left, but we were anxious to get back into our warm car.
We saw the friendly LDS missionaries arrive on their bicycles, who told us that their hands were freezing, so I bought them some hand warmers which were conveniently available at one of the booths.
Edison and Alma were also there and it was very nice to see the two of them together. They're both from the Philippines and in my opinion, would make such a lovely couple! I have invited the two of them over for dinner on Sunday to see if I can somehow assist in the matchmaking a bit.
Life here has many possible....
Here's the Costco! We got to stock up on a few essentials.
The Taiwanese Michelin man has been on a diet! Look how skinny this guy is compared to the American Michelin mascot (not pictured). Do they think our Michelin man is too chubby?
The food court at Costco is always packed on Saturdays. They have a similar menu in general. The pizza topping selection is somewhat more Asian. For example, we ordered the Peking Duck pizza, and since there was no place for us to sit, we took it to our duck pizza to our Toyota Corolla and had a picnic.
This little boy was working having so much fun standing on this vent. It looks like he's working on a decent Marilyn Monroe pose, however, I missed the best shot where his coat and hair were sticking straight up.
It feels good to be back in Taiwan. I missed all my friends.

Uncle Wally's funeral

2011-01-17T00:45:00.067-06:00

Two days before I was going to return to Taiwan after being home in Texas for the holidays, my sweet Uncle Wally passed away. Thankfully, I was able to rearrange my flight to be able to attend the funeral and be in northern California to see my extended family, aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, brother, and mother, to be able to celebrate his life of 89 years. He is one of my Mom's six brothers, and was always one of my favorites. He and his darling wife, Aunt Arlene, were kind enough to provide a home for my brother and me several years ago when we were little kids, when our mom had suffered from a nervous breakdown of sorts, in between marriages. All five of us kids were sent out to California from Oklahoma on a Greyhound bus, farmed out to different family members until Mom got well. We initially all went to Aunt Ollie's and Uncle Andy's house, but Marc and I somehow ended up at Uncle Wally's for a month or two. Since I was only 8 years old at the time, I don't remember a great deal of the details, but do recall being treated well and being fed by two great cooks, both Aunt Arlene and Uncle Wally were good at that.

One of the things that I remember fondly was that Uncle Wally used to cook the most delicious barbecued chicken ever. About eight or nine years ago, I called him and got some pointers on how to make Uncle Wally's famous chicken, and I've actually grilled it many times for friends and family since then. What a long, fulfilling life he lived, the father of five children, and grandpa, or Papa, as they called him, to many and also some great grandchildren. About five of his grandchildren spoke at his funeral and their words were a beautiful tribute to a loving family man who will be missed by all of us.

After the funeral, family and friends gathered around the cemetery where we were able visit the graves or headstones of many other family members who were also buried there, including my dear grandmother and some other beloved uncles and an infant son of one of my cousins. This was my first visit to this cemetery, and I took a moment to place a flower on each of their graves and it was a tender, quiet moment that I was glad to have been able to experience, and I felt a warm and peaceful feeling as my thoughts and silent prayers went out to remember each of them.

I'm overwhelmingly grateful that the timing of my uncle's passing worked out so that I was still in the country, before I was back in Taiwan, or I most likely would have missed the gathering. It was joyous to be surrounded by so many Jackson family members and to be there to share the love we have for our dear family. The day after the funeral, I flew directly from San Francisco back to Taiwan, where my awesome husband and son greeted me at the airport when I arrived. The month home to the United States flew by quickly and it felt good to be back in Taiwan.

Dessert with Anyck

2011-01-08T22:48:00.007-06:00

The day after Christmas, our neighbor, Anyck, invited us over to her house for dessert and to visit. We went to church that morning, then walked over to her house which is three houses away from ours.
She showed us her plans for adding a deck on to the back yard and some changes she's going to make around her swimming pool, then we came inside and had some black forest cake and ice cream and visited with her loveable dog, Marley, who is very friendly and mild mannered. The kids really were impressed with Anyck, who is French Canadian with a delightful accent, when she showed them a big award she had gotten for her work, which was heavy, similar to an Oscar.
We are surrounded by people from many countries on our street, with neighbors from Argentina and the Netherlands, living two houses over, and one house over, we have neighbors from India who moved in right when we moved to Taiwan. Our neighbors on the other side of us are Americans, but Kari's mom lives in Saudi Arabi. Then two houses over on the right are from China. We really are blessed to be part of such a nice neighborhood and are grateful for Anyck's hospitality.

Christmassy Hudson's on the Bend

2010-12-30T14:06:00.008-06:00

One of my all-time favorite Austin restaurants (if not, most favorite) is Hudson's on the Bend, and Kelly and I were fortunate to experience an incredibly delicious dinner out together as one of our Christmas presents while were were home in Texas for the holidays. The cozy ambiance and local flavors and ingredients always make the evening memorable and this night out was no exception as we enjoyed their incredible signature dish of hot and crunchy trout combined with some kind of elk entree which was so tender and moist. The duo was well balanced with just the right southwestern flavors and perfectly cooked and seasoned vegetables. It was heavenly to soak in the festive lights and dine at a quiet table for two with my dear husband.
The real apples dangling from the ceiling created a most festive holiday spirit.
This was one of my highlights during our brief trip to Texas. Thank you, honey!

Santa brought me a new camera!

2010-12-27T15:34:00.010-06:00

These first, second, and fourth pictures were with my old camera. The shot above was taken right after we got home from church yesterday, then this morning for breakfast I made this Butterscotch Pecan Pull Apart in a fluted baking stone and thought it would be interesting to compare my old camera to my new one. I had it in auto mode, which is what I usually do.

Old camera:
New camera:
Old camera:
New camera:
Thank you, Santa! I like my new Canon PowerShot S95 camera!

Merry Christmas to all!

2010-12-25T10:22:00.003-06:00

Click HERE to see a slide show I made to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Please be patient since it takes two or three minutes to load all the photos. Enjoy! --Kelly

Lunch with Demi and Charlotte

2010-12-21T17:54:00.018-06:00

Every month I schedule a visit in my home with Demi and Charlotte, some of my friends from church, who come by to check on me to make sure I'm doing fine. It's always a pleasure. We had talked about eating lunch out, but I suggested that they come by so I could cook for them. Demi asked me if I would show her how to make something Mexican, so I made beef tostadas served with Touchdown Taco Dip, and the food was a big hit. Charlotte told me she was in heaven as she dined on her meal. She was so cute, as she sat comfortably at my dining table, savoring each bite, taking note of the pleasant music playing in the background, fully appreciating the delicious meal that someone else had cooked for her.
While those of you who are in the United States may be seeing this, it's probably no big deal t you. I actually bought a package of 90 tortillas at HEB on my last trip to Texas, then carried them on the plane, took them through security, simply because my luggage weight was maxed out, and I have yet to locate them in Taiwan. The US airport security obviously sees a lot of tortillas, as they were wagering on whether they were made from flour or corn as they passed through the x-ray screen overhead. Once I got them home, I then divided my huge stack of tortillas into smaller portions, stuck them in my freezer, and was now sharing the last of my stash.

As far as the ground beef goes, it's hard to locate in Hsinchu. It finally occurred to me one day that I could use the pre-shaped hamburger patties in the freezer section at Costco when I want a pound of ground beef, a very common ingredient to Americans. After lunch, I asked Charlotte to help me find the cleaners where our clothes were since I couldn't remember, as all the Chinese signs tend to blend together in my head. I've driven along Minghu Lu multiple times in search of the cleaners, to no avail. Once Charlotte helped me find it, based on the address, I took a picture of the sign so I could find it the next time I need to, then realized there is also English on it that I had overlooked somehow.
Demi brought me a pretty purple necklace for Christmas which I wore back home to Texas on the airplane. (We're in Texas for the holidays, by the way.) I gave each of my friends a small package of Texas corn bread mix and an uplifting quote little plaque that I had gotten when I was in Rexburg taking Lindsey to college.
I will be back in Taiwan after the new year and I'll be sure to post some happenings in the meantime from Austin, our home sweet home. We miss our Taiwan friends while we are temporarily away and love them so much!

Pecan pie tarlets

2010-12-08T00:59:00.014-06:00

My sister, Tracy, took a moment from her busy schedule, she works full-time for the Federal Reserve, to email her pecan pie recipe to me and I really appreciate it. Thanks, Tracy! Is that Grandma Jackson's recipe? I accidentally stumbled across these beautiful mini pie crust shells at a local store, Aiga Food, and also a candy funnel tool that made the job be rather tidy. Here's the recipe:

Pecan Pie

3 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup corn syrup
1 cup pecans
unbaked pie shell

Mix first five ingredients until nice and creamy. Stir in pecans and then pour into pie crust. Bake at 350 F (or 176 C) until center is solid. For these tartlets, I baked them for 23 minutes. You would need to more than double the baking time for a regular pie shell.

To make the tartlets, I didn't add the pecans until I had filled each shell using the candy funnel, which worked like a charm. I then added a few pecans to each mini pie, then tried to coat them with the filling, then baked them. Next time, I might put the pecans into the filling first to coat them, then lift them out with a giant slotted ladle, then fill each tartlet. Either way, it is an easy recipe and best of all, they taste sensational. One recipe makes 30 tartlets or one regular sized, amazing pecan pie.

Zhiping Lu, our Taiwan home

2010-12-07T23:44:00.035-06:00

Our daughter has been hoping to see pictures of our apartment, since she hasn't seen it since we moved in. I've been planning to take more outside pictures before posting this, but since there are already plenty of interior shots, I'll save those for another time.
Here's the elevator we take to the second floor. You have to use an elevator key to get to our floor and we can only access that one floor to keep the building extra secure which can provide a feeling of safety, but at times can be inconvenient.
Here is our front door on the right. We usually keep the gate open.
When you walk in, here is the first view you'll see. The marble and wood floors are very pretty.
This is just around the corner from our front door.
Family photos warm the place up with everyone's smiles.
Here's our living room, looking toward the breezeway.
This is the opposite angle, looking into the living room from the breezeway.
We have two revolving glass doors on each end of the breezeway that are convenient and provide a lot of light and openness. We can easily close all the doors to block the sound from the television if we don't want noise on the other side of the breezeway where the bedrooms and study are.
This comfortably, quaint canopy creates the best reading and relaxing nook in the apartment.
More family photos help it to feel like home.
There are two large plants that grow well in this sunroom and breezeway area.
Opposite the canopy seating area are these floor-to-ceiling windows down the entire exterior wall of the breezeway which brightens our entire apartment where we can see the stone exterior and our green view.
This is the master bedroom.
My brown, beige, and turquoise bedding clashes with the purple vine print Pyrex-like entry wall of the room, but I can live with it.
We shipped our television from home, not sure if we'd have one in Taiwan. It turns out, we didn't need to, so we this put it in our room.
Here is the view to the outside from the master bedroom window.
Here is the study, where Kelly is constantly studying Chinese in his free time.
We have a piano keyboard in this room for Kelly and the kids to practice since we didn't bring our piano.
My friends Demi and Charlotte gave me this gorgeous plant with orchids for my birthday. Charlotte made the arrangement herself.
Here is the opposite side of the computer desk in the study. I brought the small purple with brown lace pillows from Texas to add extra color to the all brown sofa.
The dining room table was the reason I chose this apartment out of all the others since I enjoy entertaining and this one offered the most space for when we have guests.
Christopher's bedroom is just outside the study.
Here is another shot of Christopher's bedroom.
This is Lindsey's room. She will have to wait until April to join us, so it is our guestroom in the meantime. We are expecting Kelly's parents to visit during the Chinese New Year.
We keep plenty of pictures of Lindsey around the house to help us not miss her as much.