Saturday, November 27, 2010
Turkey Bowl Champs
jarred returned saturday night a champion. saturday morning the acc routed the sec 43-6 in the annual turkey bowl. congratulations especially to jarred, harrison and daniel, some of our neighbors here, who contributed to the win! go acc!
storage
this is our coffee table in our living room:
and since apartments here don't have closets, it also doubles as our christmas storage. which means that over the next 48 hours every christmas decoration we own, including the tree itself, is going to come out of this trunk to be put up around our house. it's pretty unbelievable.
next up: pictures of a decorated apartment!
and since apartments here don't have closets, it also doubles as our christmas storage. which means that over the next 48 hours every christmas decoration we own, including the tree itself, is going to come out of this trunk to be put up around our house. it's pretty unbelievable.
next up: pictures of a decorated apartment!
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Max is 1!
Hard to believe that this little thing...
Has turned into this...
over the past 11 months.When we got Max last December the vet here estimated he was almost a month old, and when we did the math, his birthday came up around November 25th. The same as my sister-in-law Jada's. And while her birthday is way more important (HAPPY BIRTHDAY JADA!), we did want to recognize Max with a couple presents. Although upon inspection, these presents are really for us.
He got saddle bags we found at the dog market. Not only can he now make himself useful by carrying his frisbee and other stuff for us, but load these things down with a water bottle on each side and our out-of-control crazy pup becomes a pretty good walker. And as a bonus he gets worn out quicker. Winners: Jarred and Shelley
And a shock collar. Don't call PETA quite yet. We don't really hurt the little fella, just a noise, vibrate, or small shock when he gets on the counters, into the trash cans, chews his paws, jumps on guests, or pulls on his leash. We have only had this thing that we ordered off the asian ebay for about 48 hours and he is still getting used to it, but it has been awesome and I am so thankful for it. And again the winners in this gift are: Jarred and Shelley.
Happy Birthday, Max. You make our life even more of an adventure...
And a shock collar. Don't call PETA quite yet. We don't really hurt the little fella, just a noise, vibrate, or small shock when he gets on the counters, into the trash cans, chews his paws, jumps on guests, or pulls on his leash. We have only had this thing that we ordered off the asian ebay for about 48 hours and he is still getting used to it, but it has been awesome and I am so thankful for it. And again the winners in this gift are: Jarred and Shelley.
Happy Birthday, Max. You make our life even more of an adventure...
the TURKEY BOWL
for months now Jarred has been talking about the Turkey Bowl. every year, a bunch of expat guys we know here all go to one city to play a really big football game the Saturday after Thanksgiving, aptly named the Turkey Bowl. Jarred, along with some other guys, tried really hard this year to get the game moved to the city near us. alas, it was to no avail.
so i surprised my husband with a plane ticket to the game. he heads out this afternoon for 30 hours away to get his fill of football for the year. and this is not just any pick-up football game. it's acc vs. sec, with a trophy and bragging rights for a year to the winning team. it's flag football, but full contact on the line with no pads. and thank you to harrison, our new friend and neighbor here this year who was a college football center, jarred this year has a newfound love for playing on the defensive line. i may be a little glad not to be seeing that in person. a couple weeks ago jarred went out to do wind sprints to start getting ready for the game. then all the guys in our city got together to practice and play. last week he got new cleats since his baseball ones are in the states. the countdown until Saturday morning is down to hours.... GO JARRED and GO ACC!
so what will i be doing while he's away?
well getting out our Christmas decorations so we can put up our tree on Sunday!
so i surprised my husband with a plane ticket to the game. he heads out this afternoon for 30 hours away to get his fill of football for the year. and this is not just any pick-up football game. it's acc vs. sec, with a trophy and bragging rights for a year to the winning team. it's flag football, but full contact on the line with no pads. and thank you to harrison, our new friend and neighbor here this year who was a college football center, jarred this year has a newfound love for playing on the defensive line. i may be a little glad not to be seeing that in person. a couple weeks ago jarred went out to do wind sprints to start getting ready for the game. then all the guys in our city got together to practice and play. last week he got new cleats since his baseball ones are in the states. the countdown until Saturday morning is down to hours.... GO JARRED and GO ACC!
so what will i be doing while he's away?
well getting out our Christmas decorations so we can put up our tree on Sunday!
caramel apples
September through November of this year have been Jarred's and my weakest performances as bloggers. We have just been so busy and when we have had time to relax we have just wanted to crash and not think about typing, but no fears, if you haven't noticed yet, I am in the process of trying to catch you up on our lives pretty well....
I have heard from a few friends over the past year that if you heat a can of sweetened condensed milk long enough it turns into caramel. Intriguing, no? And since we can't get caramel here I thought it was worth the try. So Wednesday I took it upon myself to put this supposed theory to the test. The only caution I found online was that sometimes the metal cans explode. Yes, explode. And this was enough to make Jarred think I had gone insane for even wanting to try it. They also said don't use cans that have a pop top, but that's all I could find, so I went for it anyways. I loaded up our crockpot anyways with a can of sweetened condensed milk with the label removed on a plate and water all the way to the top, being sure to cover the can.
And ELEVEN hours later.... we had CARAMEL. And what is there to do with a bowl of caramel in the fall except to make CARAMEL APPLES! YUM!
I have heard from a few friends over the past year that if you heat a can of sweetened condensed milk long enough it turns into caramel. Intriguing, no? And since we can't get caramel here I thought it was worth the try. So Wednesday I took it upon myself to put this supposed theory to the test. The only caution I found online was that sometimes the metal cans explode. Yes, explode. And this was enough to make Jarred think I had gone insane for even wanting to try it. They also said don't use cans that have a pop top, but that's all I could find, so I went for it anyways. I loaded up our crockpot anyways with a can of sweetened condensed milk with the label removed on a plate and water all the way to the top, being sure to cover the can.
And ELEVEN hours later.... we had CARAMEL. And what is there to do with a bowl of caramel in the fall except to make CARAMEL APPLES! YUM!
Thanksgiving Tradition
For at least the past 2 years it has been a tradition for our friends and us on Thanksgiving night to officially kick off the Christmas season by watching this:
And so we all headed over to the boys where Daniel has installed an HD projector turning their living room into a bona fide movie theater complete with an approximately 15x5 foot screen on their wall. And we announced that Christmas has begun.
I think that America is kind of the same with Christmas shopping starting on black Friday, but the day after Thanksgiving is officially Christmas season here. Yesterday as Jarred and I were cooking for Thanksgiving dinner, I turned on his ipod and while searching for some music for us to listen to told him that it was the last day that Christmas music would not be listened to in our house. Yes, starting today through December 25 we will listen to Christmas music everday. Thank you Will Ferrell for kicking off Christmas!
Thanksgiving Pictures
Our wonderful friends here!The boys: Harrison, Daniel, Jarred, and Josh
The girls: Grace, Lindsey, me, and Danielle
The preparations: All of us at Josh and Danielle's getting ready to eat. Danielle made the turkey (that Josh is carving) and it was awesome. And on the right in the back is Grace's boyfriend Michael who is visiting from Chapel Hill for a week!
The feast: every special Thanksgiving tradition for 8 different people creates quite a spread.
Our 3 pies: The first time I have eaten pecan pie in Asia.
And the best pie: Because my stud of a husband made this delicious apple pie himself.Let's just say we were all expecting there to be way more leftovers than there actually were!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving!
So far today we have made a few side dishes, dressed up and gone out to take our Christmas picture, sung O Come, Thankful People, Come, stuffed ourselves full of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, corn pudding, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, rolls, and green bean casserole, and multiple pies, and walked around the lake with our friends and max. We love Thanksgiving so much, even across the world in Asia where no one around us really knows what is up with the Americans today. And our sweet American friends here are the best company as we all celebrate away from our families. We'll post pictures soon of Thanksgiving 2010 (which also happens to be Max's 1st birthday as far as we can guess), but we just want to wish all of you, especially our families celebrating in Michigan and Pennsylvania a very Happy Thanksgiving. We love you all and hope you enjoy a special day set apart to thank you to the one who gives us so much. We love you! Happy Thanksgiving!
Love,
Jarred and Shelley
Love,
Jarred and Shelley
Thursday, November 18, 2010
the abc's of fall
i looked at my sister's amazon wishlist the other and it is mostly compiled of a bajillion baby things. not unusual for the mother of an infant, i know. but what is surprising is that america now has ABC everything you could imagine. hooked on phonics apparently started a craze of teaching 1 year olds to read. and so i thought, why not have an ABCs of our fall since we have that many things to blog about.
A-adopting- we currently know a number of people in the adoption process. they live in multiple different countries and are adopting from multiple different countries. and 2 families we know have gone to pick up their little girls in the past week! we both think adoption is incredible and we are so excited for these families.
B- basketball- a few weeks ago my teacher texted me to ask me if i wanted to play in the school basketball tournament between all the different departments. i thought i had gotten out of it when i told her i was going to be out of town that saturday, but low and behold my friend's teacher came into my class the next day to explain to me that it was a 2 week tournament and they really needed me on the girls team and jarred on the boys team. we were stuck. so i conceeded and signed us up. that sunday we got back from being out of town just in time for the boys game. jarred didn't want to go, but i talked (nagged) him into it since i had signed him up. and i just went along and brought max to hang out and watch. but when we showed up i was immediately informed that the girls were playing too and their game had already started. a kid grabbed max and said he would watch him, a girl on the bench took her jersey off and handed it to me, and i was immediately subbed in. the first time i ever felt indigenous in this culture was when i wore a huge rain jacket on my scooter that covered not only me but the scooter as well. the second time was when i played an actual, reffed basketball game wearing corduroys and no one but jarred and me thought it was absurd. that game we got stomped. i am talking like 25 to 5 or something like that. only one other girl on my team had ever touched a basketball. so for the next game i thought i would try to come up with a plan. zone defense was part one of the plan. it took forever before the game to teach them and it only slightly helped. it was also a problem that never in any of my classes have i had a lesson on offense, defense, dribble, shoot, etc. so we'll just say a gained a lot of vocabulary that day and did a lot of moving people around to show them physically what to do. part 2 of my plan was a pick-and-roll. we'll just say that that part of the plan crashed and burned before the game ever started. and we got stomped again. nonetheless, i did get asked by the head coach of the university team if i had a student card and could play on the team. the best part of talking to her was when she asked me how long i had played basketball and i told her i played in high school but hadn't played in a number of years. i think she chose to assume i had misspoken than reevaluate her thought that i was 19 years old.
C- cookies- one of danielle's and my favorite cooking blogs is ourbestbites.com and they have the most amazing chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe. i have made multiple batches in the past couple weeks, enough that i had to start baking only half the dough and freezing the rest because all the cookies would get eaten so fast in our house and we don't need that. and i only had one egg the other day and learned that you can substitute a banana (or half) for an egg (or yoke). fascinating. and jarred had no idea. almost as good as when i fooled him with tofu instead of ricotta in lasagna.
D- decorations- so we don't really have fall here. the weather kind of goes from summer to winter with a few random fall-ish days in between. so i do my best to put up some fall decorations to make it seem in our house at least like it is my favorite season of the year. jarred complained when i put them out the last week of september since it was still 80 degrees out, but i think he likes them now. just in time for christmas decorations to go up.
E-examination- last week jarred took an exam for a grad level class he is in the process of taking. i am pretty sure he did really well. he read his essays to me afterwards and at least i thought they were great. now to writing that 10 page paper...
F- facial hair-2 weeks ago jarred started growing a beard. he is playing in a big football game in a few weeks and all the guys grow out their facial hair. i didn't think jarred was planning on doing it but when he found out i didn't care he stopped shaving he was all in. just in time for our christmas picture. i never thought i would be googling how to groom a beard, but the other night we did. i am curious as to if he'll keep it or not.
G- gillian grace- was a stegasaurus for halloween. i am so glad i live in asia and don't have to celebrate that stupid holiday (although i have to celebrate ones about the moon and dragon boats, so i don't know that i really win here), but this is one cute dinosaur niece.
H-How People Grow- right now i have to read this book and i am glad that i do bc i would probably never pick such a deep, psychological book on my own. but it is so good and challenging and i highly recommend it. seriously, i think every adult should read this book because i think the current generation is one that is very good at not dealing with issues that each of us has and not fully becoming what we are intended to be. it's by henry cloud and john townsend. check it out.
I- igoogle- jarred recently set up an igoogle page as his homepage and he is OBSESSED with it. i mean, it does seem pretty incredible to have everything you want to read or know right there on one page, but it seems to have changed his life.
J- jeanette. my sister's best friend from college, who has practically become a part of our family over the past 10 years came to visit 2 weeks ago. she is awesome and was such a fun guest on her own accord in addition to bringing us pounds and pounds of goodies. the right kind of visitor. she only failed in one request- kidnapping my niece and bringing her too. but she brought me a picture of gillian in her stegasaurus outfit and that sufficed.
K- kleins- because it is 27 DAYS until my parents and little sister get here. i am excited beyond belief. jarred i think bought earplugs.
L- Lord of the Rings- these are some of my husband's favorite movies and i have never seen them all. a few years ago i watched the first one with him and some friends, but never finished the trilogy. and apparently, according to real l of r fans at least, you can't wait the second 2 years later without rewatching the first one. so in an attempt to love my husband very well, i told him i would watch ALL 3 with him before christmas. i bet in a few weeks i will blow your minds with my lord of the rings trilogy. i just wish gollum wasn't so gross.
M- ma yo yo, better known as yo yo ma to we Americans (in East Asia you put the last name first). jarred has downloaded a lot of his music, and then expressed a recent interest in learning the cello. this may sound out there to many of you, but my husband is actually very musically talented. he played the saxophone all through school and excelled at it. however, after high school, there were not many opportunities for him to continue since he wasn't a music major. either way, if he can find a teacher and a cheap cello, he has plans to start learning! i am excited for this.
N-nikon d90- after almost 2 years of talking and planning for getting a digital slr camera, we finally decided on which one we wanted, our requested christmas present from many family members. it is simple enough for me to use and be happy with, and complex enough for jarred to learn the ins-and-outs of and use to its max capability. future pictures should be even better.
O- oranges- my favorite asian fruit, real mandarin oranges are out in full force at the market. they are amazing, and this year my parents will get to try them after hearing me rave about them for years. yum.
P- pumpkin. um, it is fall. and this year the best thing about pumpkin is that of the 2 new pumpkin creations i have made this fall jarred has loved BOTH of them. no more bashing my pumpkin roasting and freezing because he loved pumpkin bars with brown sugar icing and cream of pumpkin soup (a cup of whole cream, who wouldn't?). and the other day i made homemade pumpkin spice lattes with danielle, grace, and lindsey! i just might put pumpkin spice in his decaf one day.
Q- quiet nights at home with jarred have been few and far between lately. but it is fall, so anytime we get one and i ask him what he wants me to make him for dinner, he answers "something hearty. its fall." i didn't know what "hearty" food was before his requests. now i know. hearty qualifies as anything with large quantities of meat, potatoes, and carrots. greens on the side are acceptable.
R-rustic tart- a couple weeks ago jarred made this incredible pear and cranberry rustic tart from simplyrecipes.com. i guess him having an igoogle page pays off for me too! i heavily suggest making this delicious little dessert. and by this point you can probably tell which one of us has the knack for making an incredible pie crust. he gets it from his mom.
S- Sundays- jarred and i have been leading the toddlers this month at the service we go to and it has been great. they are cute and old enough at 2 to 4 that they don't cry all that much being away from their parents for an hour and a half. and jarred is an awesome teacher. our last week is this week, though, and i don't think we will overly broken up over it. the best part: at 12:10 their parents come back and pick them up.
T- travel- i feel like jarred and i have been all over the place in the last 2 months. one of our fav trips took us to another city here where one of our neighbors from last year now lives and we had an absolute blast getting to see him. we also got to go to the h&m (my favorite store in the world) on the second day it was open. i wouldn't recommend that in a city metrapolis of 31 million people. despite not being able to breath, i still loved it.
U- UGGs. yes i am well aware that these were popular in the states like 3 years ago. but i just bought leggings and it is cold here. not only that, but shopping taobao (the asian ebay) is one of our new favorite things) and i ordered them for like 17 bucks. ok so they probably are real, but who cares? i live in asia.
V- vacation- last month we booked our vacation for this year in koh lanta. just about the time the cold weather and no heat here gets unbearable and classes are over for the semester, we get to go to this magical place in thailand and drink watermelon shakes, play beach volleyball, and lay in the sun and read. our little heaven on earth.
W- the wire- our friend daniel suggested this show to us and i will not recommend it to others bc the language is less than desirable, but that aside, it is an incredible show. i like it despite the language bc it is so realistic and i want to enter into that and actually know about it and not pretend like it doesn't exist a few blocks away from the suburbs in most of our cities. it does, nonetheless, make me so thankful i live in asia and not in america, especially not in the projects in baltimore. but it is such a good commentary on urban america and the drug trade. i have a personal soap box on the drug trade and the screwed up judicial system that continually punishes the dealers and not the users, but fails in that anyways because they only nail low-levels and not the people actually in charge. there are lots of problems, and the show shows a lot of sides. i had been trying to convince jarred to live in an inner-city whenever we move back to the states, but i don't know if i'm ready for that. we'll see. i'm definitely not ready to ever be a cop. or a drug dealer.
X- eXchange rate- when we moved here it was 8:1, last year it was 6.8, this week it is 6.65. ugh. let's just say we aren't personally in favor of congress pressuring our country over here to let its currency fall more.
Y- yundonghui- means sports day- kind of like an american field day. although in america we only have field days for elementary school children, here in asia they have them for college students too. and our school's is today, the day after thanksgiving. since jarred, grace, and daniel are all leaving town, they got out of it. i told the school that i didn't want to participate. they signed me up anyway, for 3 races. they wanted me to run the 100, the 200, and the 400, and they wanted me to show up at 8:30 am to prepare for the opening ceremony. students prepare for weeks for these races. the day after thanksgiving for me? not gonna happen. so i jarred called the school and told them i couldn't participate. they were astonished! what could be more important than the sports meeting? only here in east asia are college students forced to participate in children's events. as my friend josh says, no one makes forced fun more miserable than east asia.
Z- zap- is what max's new shock collar does to him when he's bad. it is awesome.
A-adopting- we currently know a number of people in the adoption process. they live in multiple different countries and are adopting from multiple different countries. and 2 families we know have gone to pick up their little girls in the past week! we both think adoption is incredible and we are so excited for these families.
B- basketball- a few weeks ago my teacher texted me to ask me if i wanted to play in the school basketball tournament between all the different departments. i thought i had gotten out of it when i told her i was going to be out of town that saturday, but low and behold my friend's teacher came into my class the next day to explain to me that it was a 2 week tournament and they really needed me on the girls team and jarred on the boys team. we were stuck. so i conceeded and signed us up. that sunday we got back from being out of town just in time for the boys game. jarred didn't want to go, but i talked (nagged) him into it since i had signed him up. and i just went along and brought max to hang out and watch. but when we showed up i was immediately informed that the girls were playing too and their game had already started. a kid grabbed max and said he would watch him, a girl on the bench took her jersey off and handed it to me, and i was immediately subbed in. the first time i ever felt indigenous in this culture was when i wore a huge rain jacket on my scooter that covered not only me but the scooter as well. the second time was when i played an actual, reffed basketball game wearing corduroys and no one but jarred and me thought it was absurd. that game we got stomped. i am talking like 25 to 5 or something like that. only one other girl on my team had ever touched a basketball. so for the next game i thought i would try to come up with a plan. zone defense was part one of the plan. it took forever before the game to teach them and it only slightly helped. it was also a problem that never in any of my classes have i had a lesson on offense, defense, dribble, shoot, etc. so we'll just say a gained a lot of vocabulary that day and did a lot of moving people around to show them physically what to do. part 2 of my plan was a pick-and-roll. we'll just say that that part of the plan crashed and burned before the game ever started. and we got stomped again. nonetheless, i did get asked by the head coach of the university team if i had a student card and could play on the team. the best part of talking to her was when she asked me how long i had played basketball and i told her i played in high school but hadn't played in a number of years. i think she chose to assume i had misspoken than reevaluate her thought that i was 19 years old.
C- cookies- one of danielle's and my favorite cooking blogs is ourbestbites.com and they have the most amazing chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe. i have made multiple batches in the past couple weeks, enough that i had to start baking only half the dough and freezing the rest because all the cookies would get eaten so fast in our house and we don't need that. and i only had one egg the other day and learned that you can substitute a banana (or half) for an egg (or yoke). fascinating. and jarred had no idea. almost as good as when i fooled him with tofu instead of ricotta in lasagna.
D- decorations- so we don't really have fall here. the weather kind of goes from summer to winter with a few random fall-ish days in between. so i do my best to put up some fall decorations to make it seem in our house at least like it is my favorite season of the year. jarred complained when i put them out the last week of september since it was still 80 degrees out, but i think he likes them now. just in time for christmas decorations to go up.
E-examination- last week jarred took an exam for a grad level class he is in the process of taking. i am pretty sure he did really well. he read his essays to me afterwards and at least i thought they were great. now to writing that 10 page paper...F- facial hair-2 weeks ago jarred started growing a beard. he is playing in a big football game in a few weeks and all the guys grow out their facial hair. i didn't think jarred was planning on doing it but when he found out i didn't care he stopped shaving he was all in. just in time for our christmas picture. i never thought i would be googling how to groom a beard, but the other night we did. i am curious as to if he'll keep it or not.
G- gillian grace- was a stegasaurus for halloween. i am so glad i live in asia and don't have to celebrate that stupid holiday (although i have to celebrate ones about the moon and dragon boats, so i don't know that i really win here), but this is one cute dinosaur niece.
H-How People Grow- right now i have to read this book and i am glad that i do bc i would probably never pick such a deep, psychological book on my own. but it is so good and challenging and i highly recommend it. seriously, i think every adult should read this book because i think the current generation is one that is very good at not dealing with issues that each of us has and not fully becoming what we are intended to be. it's by henry cloud and john townsend. check it out.I- igoogle- jarred recently set up an igoogle page as his homepage and he is OBSESSED with it. i mean, it does seem pretty incredible to have everything you want to read or know right there on one page, but it seems to have changed his life.
J- jeanette. my sister's best friend from college, who has practically become a part of our family over the past 10 years came to visit 2 weeks ago. she is awesome and was such a fun guest on her own accord in addition to bringing us pounds and pounds of goodies. the right kind of visitor. she only failed in one request- kidnapping my niece and bringing her too. but she brought me a picture of gillian in her stegasaurus outfit and that sufficed.
K- kleins- because it is 27 DAYS until my parents and little sister get here. i am excited beyond belief. jarred i think bought earplugs.
L- Lord of the Rings- these are some of my husband's favorite movies and i have never seen them all. a few years ago i watched the first one with him and some friends, but never finished the trilogy. and apparently, according to real l of r fans at least, you can't wait the second 2 years later without rewatching the first one. so in an attempt to love my husband very well, i told him i would watch ALL 3 with him before christmas. i bet in a few weeks i will blow your minds with my lord of the rings trilogy. i just wish gollum wasn't so gross.
M- ma yo yo, better known as yo yo ma to we Americans (in East Asia you put the last name first). jarred has downloaded a lot of his music, and then expressed a recent interest in learning the cello. this may sound out there to many of you, but my husband is actually very musically talented. he played the saxophone all through school and excelled at it. however, after high school, there were not many opportunities for him to continue since he wasn't a music major. either way, if he can find a teacher and a cheap cello, he has plans to start learning! i am excited for this.
N-nikon d90- after almost 2 years of talking and planning for getting a digital slr camera, we finally decided on which one we wanted, our requested christmas present from many family members. it is simple enough for me to use and be happy with, and complex enough for jarred to learn the ins-and-outs of and use to its max capability. future pictures should be even better.
O- oranges- my favorite asian fruit, real mandarin oranges are out in full force at the market. they are amazing, and this year my parents will get to try them after hearing me rave about them for years. yum.
P- pumpkin. um, it is fall. and this year the best thing about pumpkin is that of the 2 new pumpkin creations i have made this fall jarred has loved BOTH of them. no more bashing my pumpkin roasting and freezing because he loved pumpkin bars with brown sugar icing and cream of pumpkin soup (a cup of whole cream, who wouldn't?). and the other day i made homemade pumpkin spice lattes with danielle, grace, and lindsey! i just might put pumpkin spice in his decaf one day.
Q- quiet nights at home with jarred have been few and far between lately. but it is fall, so anytime we get one and i ask him what he wants me to make him for dinner, he answers "something hearty. its fall." i didn't know what "hearty" food was before his requests. now i know. hearty qualifies as anything with large quantities of meat, potatoes, and carrots. greens on the side are acceptable.
R-rustic tart- a couple weeks ago jarred made this incredible pear and cranberry rustic tart from simplyrecipes.com. i guess him having an igoogle page pays off for me too! i heavily suggest making this delicious little dessert. and by this point you can probably tell which one of us has the knack for making an incredible pie crust. he gets it from his mom.
S- Sundays- jarred and i have been leading the toddlers this month at the service we go to and it has been great. they are cute and old enough at 2 to 4 that they don't cry all that much being away from their parents for an hour and a half. and jarred is an awesome teacher. our last week is this week, though, and i don't think we will overly broken up over it. the best part: at 12:10 their parents come back and pick them up.T- travel- i feel like jarred and i have been all over the place in the last 2 months. one of our fav trips took us to another city here where one of our neighbors from last year now lives and we had an absolute blast getting to see him. we also got to go to the h&m (my favorite store in the world) on the second day it was open. i wouldn't recommend that in a city metrapolis of 31 million people. despite not being able to breath, i still loved it.
U- UGGs. yes i am well aware that these were popular in the states like 3 years ago. but i just bought leggings and it is cold here. not only that, but shopping taobao (the asian ebay) is one of our new favorite things) and i ordered them for like 17 bucks. ok so they probably are real, but who cares? i live in asia.
V- vacation- last month we booked our vacation for this year in koh lanta. just about the time the cold weather and no heat here gets unbearable and classes are over for the semester, we get to go to this magical place in thailand and drink watermelon shakes, play beach volleyball, and lay in the sun and read. our little heaven on earth.
W- the wire- our friend daniel suggested this show to us and i will not recommend it to others bc the language is less than desirable, but that aside, it is an incredible show. i like it despite the language bc it is so realistic and i want to enter into that and actually know about it and not pretend like it doesn't exist a few blocks away from the suburbs in most of our cities. it does, nonetheless, make me so thankful i live in asia and not in america, especially not in the projects in baltimore. but it is such a good commentary on urban america and the drug trade. i have a personal soap box on the drug trade and the screwed up judicial system that continually punishes the dealers and not the users, but fails in that anyways because they only nail low-levels and not the people actually in charge. there are lots of problems, and the show shows a lot of sides. i had been trying to convince jarred to live in an inner-city whenever we move back to the states, but i don't know if i'm ready for that. we'll see. i'm definitely not ready to ever be a cop. or a drug dealer.X- eXchange rate- when we moved here it was 8:1, last year it was 6.8, this week it is 6.65. ugh. let's just say we aren't personally in favor of congress pressuring our country over here to let its currency fall more.
Y- yundonghui- means sports day- kind of like an american field day. although in america we only have field days for elementary school children, here in asia they have them for college students too. and our school's is today, the day after thanksgiving. since jarred, grace, and daniel are all leaving town, they got out of it. i told the school that i didn't want to participate. they signed me up anyway, for 3 races. they wanted me to run the 100, the 200, and the 400, and they wanted me to show up at 8:30 am to prepare for the opening ceremony. students prepare for weeks for these races. the day after thanksgiving for me? not gonna happen. so i jarred called the school and told them i couldn't participate. they were astonished! what could be more important than the sports meeting? only here in east asia are college students forced to participate in children's events. as my friend josh says, no one makes forced fun more miserable than east asia.
Z- zap- is what max's new shock collar does to him when he's bad. it is awesome.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Fall and foodies
It is autumn again here, and we have been so busy eating pumpkin spice that we haven't had time to blog. Sometimes we put it in lattes, sometimes in pies, sometimes I just find myself eating entire bowls of pumpkin spice for breakfast! (A few weeks ago, the coffee shop in town gave away free drinks if you said "A touch of pumpkin" to the cashier. I made my wife say it. I just couldn't do it. Its kind of like ordering the "Rootie Tootie Fresh and Fruity" at Ihop. Its by far the best deal on the menu, and you get the most food, but most guys will pass it up to keep from having to say it. I confess I totally ripped that example off of Tim Hawkins.)
Actually, in an effort to expand my culinary tastes this year, I have decided to take on some of these pumpkin delicacies that Shelley cranks out of the kitchen day after day. I started with pumpkin bars. I actually enjoyed them. Thursday night, Shelley made pumpkin soup, which was also delicious. Before you know it, it'll be in my latte.
I guess with all this pumpkin, Shelley and I officially can call ourselves "foodies." I heard that a foodie is the new thing to be in America now, so in order to stay updated to our home culture, we will also be foodies. Based on all the people I have heard calling themselves foodies lately, I have figured out that a foodie is typically: middle class, likes good food, has watched the Food Network before and can name a chef off of the food network. Since Shelley and I fall into those 3 categories, I am officially declaring us "foodies." I will give you some examples of our foodie-ness:
1. The other day set up an igoogle page and there was a food blog automatically placed on the page. I did not remove it when I customized my igoogle page.
2. Mario Batali... BAM!!!
3. Regular Doritos... oh no... we only do Cool Ranch Doritos in our house. We're kind of foodies (I think this is how you are supposed to say it)
4. Last week I only ate American food 5 times, and I was offered tofu 6 times (ok, so it was a choice at the cafeteria, but still, I'm a kind of a foodie, so I like to eat at interesting places that most people wouldn't understand.)
5. My wife has an allrecipes recipe box.
6. Two words: pumpkin... bars... we don't do brownies anymore. We're kind of foodies.
7. One time I saw an Epicurious magazine, or Epi Mag as we foodies call it (I don't know where you buy Siberian quail, or what ginko root stuffed truffles are, but I don't have to know, I just have to throw it out in conversation to keep my foodie status)
Thats right. Totally foodies.
It feels so good to know that even though we are a world away, we can still keep up with America by being so culturally counter-cultural. It is refreshing to know that we enjoy good food. It is sad that most people don't understand what it is like to enjoy good food. But then again, if they did, being a foodie wouldn't be so special.
This blog posted from my super cool Apple product
Actually, in an effort to expand my culinary tastes this year, I have decided to take on some of these pumpkin delicacies that Shelley cranks out of the kitchen day after day. I started with pumpkin bars. I actually enjoyed them. Thursday night, Shelley made pumpkin soup, which was also delicious. Before you know it, it'll be in my latte.
I guess with all this pumpkin, Shelley and I officially can call ourselves "foodies." I heard that a foodie is the new thing to be in America now, so in order to stay updated to our home culture, we will also be foodies. Based on all the people I have heard calling themselves foodies lately, I have figured out that a foodie is typically: middle class, likes good food, has watched the Food Network before and can name a chef off of the food network. Since Shelley and I fall into those 3 categories, I am officially declaring us "foodies." I will give you some examples of our foodie-ness:
1. The other day set up an igoogle page and there was a food blog automatically placed on the page. I did not remove it when I customized my igoogle page.
2. Mario Batali... BAM!!!
3. Regular Doritos... oh no... we only do Cool Ranch Doritos in our house. We're kind of foodies (I think this is how you are supposed to say it)
4. Last week I only ate American food 5 times, and I was offered tofu 6 times (ok, so it was a choice at the cafeteria, but still, I'm a kind of a foodie, so I like to eat at interesting places that most people wouldn't understand.)
5. My wife has an allrecipes recipe box.
6. Two words: pumpkin... bars... we don't do brownies anymore. We're kind of foodies.
7. One time I saw an Epicurious magazine, or Epi Mag as we foodies call it (I don't know where you buy Siberian quail, or what ginko root stuffed truffles are, but I don't have to know, I just have to throw it out in conversation to keep my foodie status)
Thats right. Totally foodies.
It feels so good to know that even though we are a world away, we can still keep up with America by being so culturally counter-cultural. It is refreshing to know that we enjoy good food. It is sad that most people don't understand what it is like to enjoy good food. But then again, if they did, being a foodie wouldn't be so special.
This blog posted from my super cool Apple product
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