We are not dead...

So, first I must say that I am sorry for the lack of blogging as of
late. A number of factors have caused this situation, the biggest of which is the fact that John will not give up his Inner Mongolia pictures that we wanted to use on the blog. I promise to keep harassing him. So you are probably wondering what we have been up to for the last little while. I will attempt to fill in that blank space in the next few days and following posts. The first entry is the two birthdays we have celebrated in the last month. Steven (from Arizona) turned the big 6-0! We all went to a hotel where we had a private room with KTV and everything. We had a good meal with some interesting choices (that is the next post), after eating the cake first – apparently this is how the Chinese do it. Afterwards, Steve and I started off the KTV with “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” which got everyone dancing and turned into an impromptu conga line – anything can happen with this bunch, I tell you! We had a great time singing and dancing. Steve had the best time I think, though… We ended the night by going out to dance at a club. When we got home we had a great time trying to remove Karli’s boot – the zipper had gotten stuck. Finally, with the help of John, we removed it.

Crystal celebrated her 28th birthday as well. It was a more quite affair, but still nice. We went across the street to the hotel restaurant called Sea Star. It has a really cool atmosphere and they serve some Western food. Karli and I had BLTs and fries! The bread was sweet (it usually is) but it still tasted somewhat like home. The restaurant treated crystal to a noodle soup with one long noodle for long life. It sounds like a cool tradition. She also got little steam buns in the shape of peaches that had bean paste inside – yum!

As you can see, the birthday cakes are pretty great. I went with Steve to pick up Crystal’s and got to watch them make it. The decoration is all made of whipped cream that they colour and airbrush. It was just amazing to see how quickly they can create flowers and such – what a work of art! I am excited to pick out a great cake for Karli’s birthday next week – I think we are going for chocolate this time!