“It’s Friday, what can we do?” we thought we could try out the festival at downtown Rogers. When we got there, there was a throng of people coming in for the festival, we hardly find a parking space. We had to walk a distance to the destination but I would say it was a nice walk with the cool weather! Nathan was fascinated with the fire trucks and EMS vehicle parked along the street. Next, he saw people were lining up for the rides. Of course, he won’t miss that. We were worry about sending him off to ride on the train by himself. I was warning him to hold the handle and to sit tight. He did follow my instruction and enjoyed the ride very much. Well, we cannot pass on the funnel cake, corn dogs, and BBQ. So, we stopped to have our dinner there. Nathan had a giant corn dog all by himself. I would say that it was the unhealthy dinner for the evening… well, we could be unhealthy once in a while. It was 8pm, we decided that we need to go. The little young man didn’t have enough rides(we did pass out a lot of rides because it was too late and also daddy and mommy were too busy eating!) and didn’t want to leave! We promise him to take him to the Fayetteville one next week and he seems feeling better after that. Overall, it was a fun day for our family.

 

I wrote an email about the story of what happened to me and Nathan to my hubby. After thinking for a while, maybe I could share/document this so that I could re-read later on. The days goes…

Today er gu(second aunty from Andy’s dad) was leaving Tangshan. So, we sent er gu off at the train station. Before we entered the cab, it started raining. Andy’s mom hesitated about Nathan and I going to the train station with them. But I insisted that I should go and send her off. The weather was not bad at all when we reached the train station. Anyway, we were waiting for er yi(second aunt from Andy’s mom) and shen tong(her son) to come because shen tong was going to take er gu to beijing with him. Er gu started crying before she left. Don’t know why when Nathan said good bye to her and Nathan started crying also… it makes er gu cried even more. Your mom pursuaded us to leave early so that she won’t cry more. By the time we were leaving, the weather was fine initially. We wanted to take a cab to er yi’s house to pay a visit for a while. But just after we stepped out of the station, the rain came back. This time stronger and we had to stop under the big commercial umbrella to avoid the rain. We thought that it would be good enough with the protection, but the wind blew so strong that the umbrella flew away. Then it started raining hails. We had to run back to the station to avoid the rain. I ran with Nathan and I wasn’t careful with the step and we both fell down on the ground. Nathan was frightened. We quickly picked him up and ran to the store. In the store, he was crying and even a bar of chocolate was not good enough. He was wet and frightened… poor baby!

We decided that we had to go home by a cab. So, er yi ran out in the rain to catch a cab for us. We finally took a cab… but there was a car stopped behind the cab and make the cab driver so difficult to go out. Er yi had ran out in the rain again to push away the bikes in front of the cab so that the cab driver could make a left turn to get out of there instead of just reversed the cab out. In the cab, the driver took a long way to er yi’s house. So, we got stucked in the market street with many cars. So, er yi decided to walk home because of the poor baby was still wet and frightened and crying.

This cab driver apparently is not very skillful driver at all… I guess for one she is a lady driver and second I think she just got her license. She even could forget how to make a turn around when steering (she said that she was confused). Mom and I had to teach her a little how to steer. What a day… Finally got home, we had to bathe Nathan so that he won’t get sick. He was crying even louder. So, I decided that I need to nurse him to comfort him. After this he was better!! With the fall, I had a achy leg and little scratch on the hand. Whew… what a day but I still thank God that everybody is still safe and sound!

Andy finally got home today after gotten renewed his passport at Houston. He brought us A LOT of food home. I just remember an idiom in Malay – “kamping masuk bandar” I learned in high school, which literary means a goat enters the city aka people who never been to the city and everything seems so excited and curious. After been in the Fayetteville for a long time, the big city suddenly offers a lot of things.. ahhah at least food which we care much! Andy bought home e.g. roast duck, roast pork, polo bun, sesame ball, pamelo (grapefruit) etc hahah.. even hard to remember them all.

When I first saw the pomelo that he brought back, then  I remember the game that I used to play when I was a little kid. We would cut out the peel of the pomelo with perfect cup and wear them on the head. We also did that tonight and thought that was fun!! It was a great time of reminiscing my childhood when I see the little Nathan wearing the pomelo.

Riding in the car is not the favorite for little Nathan. You can image taking a baby even for 15 min is hard… how much more for a 2 hours drive to the Tulsa Zoo and of course another 2 hour ride home? Well, it definitely takes a good planning and strategy. Nathan got up at 6:30am today and we planned to go out about 2 hours after his waking up because it is about the time he would take his morning nap. This way we could have less crying to hear in the car. I nursed him before put him in the car seat. He was doing quite well and I thought that he might fall asleep soon. After about 45min or 1 hour, he was still awake and now he was getting really tired. He gotten kinda frustrated and started screaming a little. It was not too bad at all and after a few screams, he finally fell asleep. So, we arrived at the Tulsa Zoo with not too much noises from him and it was a good start! Then we spent about 3 hours in the zoo. It was a hot day yet he enjoyed it very much. The best part for him was not actually the animals but was the carousel rides that he had with daddy! He was jumping up and down before the rides and smiling to mommy while riding. Also, he didn’t want to get down from the ride which was the best indication of how much he enjoyed the ride!! After the ride, he was very content to stay in the stroller for a long while which is another surprise for mommy! About 2pm, he was not so content anymore because it’s nap time again. So, I carried him in the sling and back to the entrance with not too long way to go. It was time to head home and the baby was tired. I nursed him a little in the car and very quickly he was in his dreamland. The trip home was peace and quiet until the "incident" at the toll. We didn’t bring cash with us and we finally dug up all the coins, with the 15 pennies and other coins and made up the $2.25 for the toll. So, the automatic coin machine doesn’t take pennies but the toll lady insisted us to throw the coins in the machine. With all the confusions and talking, we awaken the baby. From that onwards, it was a hell ride to home. He was screaming and crying all the way home. It was for another 1 hour!!! Well, what could we say, never wake up a tired and sleepy baby! He sure was not in good mood in the car ride after that! But overall, it was a good trip and actually it was better than what I would have thought of.

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nathan has been really fascinating about the steering wheels! He likes to play them in the park, at the mall and even at Lowe’s when we put him in the cart with steering wheel, he is so content to stay inside. So We’ve decided to buy him a toy with steering wheel. Lo and behold, I found this toy at the clearance aisle at Wal-Mart. Still costs about $30 for this toy and by far the most expensive toy that he has! Most of the toys either given by people or bought from the garage sales… but I thought em.. I could pamper my boy once in a while!

“Nathan: This is my cool scooter… wanna go for a ride?”

It was the perfect weather for little zoo visit at Gentry, Ar. I was worry about Nathan being in the car seat for 45min drive. But it turns out to be a very good trip even though Nathan was a little too young to enjoy everything in the zoo. He was happy to see and pat those little animals. We had a wonderful trip! I guess we’ll go back next time when he knows about to walk or chase after those animals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a great time at Silver Dollar City even though I was not able to participate on my rides (Actually I’m not fond of them at all even if I’m not pregnant). My feet were really hurting due to heavy walking and my increased weight. Probably you can tell from the pictures how pregnant I’m now. I’m about 30 weeks. We went to SDC with Baochuan and Jianpu and her parents, Dr. Niu and his friends. Andy and I wanted to go a cavern, unfortunately, we read from the board that pregnant is not recommended to go because of the structure of the cavern, hahah.. probably I’ll just stuck in between, or even the narrow, slippery paths in the cavern. Well, I thought then we can just ride on the train to enjoy the scenic ride of the SDC. But when it’s our turn to board the train, the person in charge told us that he has to stopped the train because the radar detected a storm coming to the town. Well, no more train ride for me. We went and walked another round of SDC, and decided to give the outlet mall a tour. So, we left SDC at 3:45pm and shopped at the outlet. Andy got himself 3 pieces of tops from Ralph Lauren. After eating dinner at A&W, we headed home. I was so exhausted by the home we got home. We just crashed into our dreamland…

 

 

 

We’d a wonderful time in Chicago. Before we arrived at Chicago, we visited friends in Urbana-Champaign. They have a little boy about 1 year 2 months old. He is really cute and getting with us really well too. The host too showered us with many many baby gifts! I guess Andy really had a great time spending with the old friends especially he had a chance to just sit down, chat and drink beer with his ex-roommate just like the old time. The next day they took us to the campus to have a tour. It’s a really big campus if to compare to UofA campus. We had Korean food for lunch and left Urbana-Champaign to Chicago. After 2 1/2 hours of driving, we finally arrived at Chicago downtown. We had a hard time to locate the hotel since the GPS kept telling us to turn right and turn right. I guessed the GPS got really confused in the city. Any how, we used the old style technology, took out our map to locate the hotel. About 1/2 hour later, we finally arrived at the hotel. After checking in, Andy requested for a king sized bed. We went up to 41st floor for our room. Another surprise, we entered the big room, we can’t believe it has a split level master bedroom, a bathroom with jacuzzi, shower room and toilet. Then a office room, a lounge, a fireplace, and a dining area. Em.. we were wondering if we entered to the wrong room. Then we went out and checked again, well it’s 4100 our room. After going around, we realize that we were given a presidential suite. We were ecstatic about that because it’s our first time ever to be in a presidential suite. That was the highlight of our trip. Besides having a great room, we also enjoyed strolling down the street of Chicago, eating pizzas, touring the museum and visitng the Chinatown. Basically it was a very relaxing trip for us because we both have been to Chicago, and we don’t want to have a hectic shedules to visit places after another. At night, we could watch firework and beautiful scenery from our room too. After two days enjoying ourselves like a king and a queen, we had to journey back to Fayetteville. By the time we got back it was about midnight. Andy was so tired of driving and next day he went to work like a panda bear because of lack of sleep. I was exhausted too, and slept almost the whole day. I guess i’m more blessed because i didn’t have to work. It was like a second honeymoon for us, we thank God for everything God has blessed us throughout the trip.    

 

The Yangs and Mas at Urbana-Champaign

 

Me looks like alien in the Apple’s Store

We’re going away to Chicago this weekend. We’re very exciting about the trip even though we both have been to Chicago in different occasion. This time it’s special because it will be our big trip before the baby is born. I guess it’s still a different trip because it’s three persons family trip from now on. We’ll update you more when we get back.

We were at the Eureka Spring, AR on Dec 28, 2006. Eureka Spring, once told by someone is also known as the “little Switzerland”, which i still not sure why is it. Maybe in my mind Switzerland is much beautiful place. We also visited the Thorncrown Chapel. This woodland chapel has won numerous architectural awards. It was a solemn and wonderful experience to be sitting inside to enjoy the beautiful architecture of the chapel.