Our themes for the past two weeks--bugs and milkshakes! We've discovered a plethora of both! The number of snails, roly polies, and giant black ants has definitely increased as the weather begins to cool off and the rain becomes more frequent. And the kids are LOVING it--the boys especially! After Eli found a new class pet (a lizard he found outside during recess), Hud was motivated to do the same. So he convinced his class that THEIR new class pet was the stink bug he discovered on the playground! His teacher (wisely!) sent it home with him after allowing it to stay in the class room (and even share in their snack during snack time) for about two days. I think I allowed it to stay in our house for less than one--then was able to convince him that the stink bug really wanted to return to his family OUTSIDE our apartment.
Noah's fascination with the living things around us continues to grow; and his favorite past time is to hunt for black ants to step on and snails to let crawl around on him during our walks back home after dropping the other three kids off at the bus stop at 7am each morning. He had a new favorite highlight this week as we walked past the body of water in our apartment community. Three men had nets they were dropping in the water to catch small silver-colored minnows. Noah struck up a quick friendship with one of the men who waited patiently for Noah to reach into his net and help him remove the fish from the net and place them into his bag--with Noah squealing with delight the entire time! We "fished" with this kind man for a good half an hour before I could convince Noah it was time to head home (I was in need of another cup of coffee at the time!).
Our other new favorite discovery is a place in our apartment complex that advertises itself as a "yogurt" shop--but really should be bragging about their milkshakes! We had some friends recommend it as a fun place to get a treat, and are so thankful they did. In a place where retail and food vendors seldom last very long, we're doing everything we can to help keep them in business, frequenting the "shop" regularly! You can see a picture of the kids at the window where we order and then wait when we stopped by for an after-school treat one afternoon this week.
The last picture is around our kitchen table with one of our favorite "new normals" in the Joseph household--chopsticks used to eat jiao zi! We asked our ayi to make jiao zi (like dumplings with all kinds of different fillings inside--our favorite is pork and green beans) and then dip them in a vinegar soy sauce. The kids think the dipping and chopsticks part is as much fun as the eating, and usually have a contest to see who can eat the most (Eli holds the record with eating 5)!
I knew we were back in China this week when Kevin and I had a quick lunch date. While we were at the noodle restaurant that Kevin had spotted earlier and wanted to try out for the first time, we ordered then tried to find a seat. All the tables had people seated at them (there were about 8 tables in all), so we picked one that was less crowded--only one person in a four-top. The man didn't even flinch when Kevin and I squeezed in to sit at his table, and I thought how funny the person's reaction would have been if we were in the US trying to pull that one! Our noodles came, and we ended up eating them as quickly as we could, as we discovered we were about the only ones in the whole place who weren't enjoying a smoke along with their noodles, making the experience a little less enjoyable! Guess it wasn't our most romantic of lunch dates... :)
