alvin and bethany

Happy 2nd Birthday Meliya

2013-10-01T21:06:00.000-05:00

Meliya just turned two years old. We had a fun time celebrating in our courtyard of our complex with some of the neighborhood kids. Some of them we invited, some of them just turned up. We go outside to the courtyard often, so we recognized all of them that showed up. We also shared the birthday party with another two year old who is one day older than Meliya.

We also had a friend do some face painting. Meliya really liked it and was quite sad when it started to fade.

Right now, Ye-Ye and Nai-Nai are visiting. Meliya is growing up fast. Her favorite foods are crackers and cheese (like mama). She also really likes olives, eggs, and nuts. She enjoys saying the words "egg" and "money" a lot, but also is enjoying saying the word "no." She likes going outside still, and is really good at figuring out things. She really likes her sticker books She also likes doing the prenatal workout video with mama.

Here are some pictures:

Fishing and Mailboxes

2013-06-11T07:32:00.000-05:00

Here are some updates on Meliya:

Meliya is pretty good with her hands, and can figure out things pretty fast. One thing she really enjoyed was fishing at the park. Basically, you pay a little to get a plastic pole and fish out plastic fish. You have to return all the fish. Meliya really enjoyed it.

Also, as mentioned before, she likes to play with keys and mailboxes. Alvin asked the key maker near our house for some useless keys, and he gave Alvin 6 of them. We gave them to Meliya. One day, Meliya was with her friend, and he used one of the keys and realized he could open one of the milk boxes (basically these boxes get fresh milk delivered everyday). The look on Meliya and her friend's faces was priceless. It looked like they finally, after 2 months of hard work at opening the boxes, they finally succeeded. We haven't open the box since, out of respect for the owner.

Here are some more pics of Meliya. She was tilting her head because Alvin's flash was sideways.

iPlay Play

2013-05-01T09:14:00.004-05:00

Every Wednesday, I take Meliya to iPlay (an activity center for kids 0-5 years old), in order to go to story time. During that time, the staff will read a book in English and in Chinese. The kids can also play in the fun area before or after, or in the case of Meliya, during. Meliya has never sat through all of story time. Today, she didn't even sit through one page of story time. She always wants to run out to go play.

Below are some pictures of her playing. She enjoys strolling around the place, is good at figuring out rings, although in the picture this one is all messed up. She also really likes music, so she likes riding this giraffe while playing music from the buttons. She always wants to collect all the stray balls outside of the ball pit and put them back.

BUT, her all time favorite... she likes to play with the lockers and keys. When she enters iPlay, she signs the word for "keys," and then will play with a key and locker for half an hour. Every once in a while, while she is in the activity center, she will run out to the lobby to play with the lockers. These days, I take her at least once a day to the courtyard of our apartment complex, put her in front of the mailboxes, gives her a set of keys, and then she will play with it for hours. Today, she clocked in two hours of key and mailbox time. She has also started a trend. I know of at least 3 other kids who are now into keys and locks because of the influence of Meliya.

Bike Helmets

2013-04-13T09:10:00.000-05:00

The weather has been really great, so lately we have been taking Meliya out by bike. When she was one, she received a bike helmet, and so we went to buy a kid seat. Initially she wasn't that into biking, but by the third time, she really liked it.

Yet it was too cold for the last 4 months to go biking with a baby. So this last month, when the weather got better, we started biking again. We also bought helmets for ourselves, and twice took Meliya and her friend Serenity on the bike with us (since both Alvin and I have kid bike seats.) Meliya is now crazy about biking. She even likes it more than walking. She will even run up to other people's bikes, and signal that she wants to ride on it. One time she ran up to a local's person's bike with kid seat, and while signalling that she wanted to ride it, knocked it over in front of the owner. Oops.

March in a Flash

2013-04-10T09:00:00.000-05:00

March started off with Meliya walking. She was getting really close to walking before, but she wouldn't take the steps independently. So I took her to this activity center, and she was crawling around, and then all of a sudden she walked to the manager, who she really likes. The whole center started clapping for her, which really excites her, and so she started walking more. I told Alvin to meet us at the center after work so he could see her. It was a good thing he was able to watch her a little, because for the next two days at home and elsewhere, she wouldn't walk. So on the third day, we took her back to the activity center and then she started walking again. After that, she hasn't stopped walking. Now she still walks with her arms out, but she can walk pretty fast and hasn't really taken a tumble at all.
At the end of the month, we had an Easter party. Alvin and I dyed some eggs and invited kids around Meliya's age over for an Easter egg hunt. We were supposed to do the hunt outside, but there was a sand storm outside, so we ended up having the hunt in our living room.

Most of the kids were too young to understand what was happening. The oldest kid, a boy a couple months older than Meliya, was the only one that got the gist. One of the kids just found the egg, with the shells, and started eating it. Eventually there was egg shells, egg white, and egg yolk all over the place. You can see in the picture one kid eating the egg. You can also see Meliya looking like she is stealing the other girl's basket. After reviewing the film, we see that Meliya was actually unloading her eggs in the other girl's basket, but after Meliya had no more eggs, she then took the other girl's basket. The other girl did not mind as she was trying to figure out how to eat eggs without eating all the shells.

Still, it was a fun time. Some of the moms have hinted that it was so fun and the kids would like to do it again. I guess Easter egg hunts don't have to be limited to Easter time. One of the moms even suggested that next time at her house she will boil the eggs, put stickers on them, and then we can have another hunt.

February in a Flash

2013-04-08T08:39:00.000-05:00

After we left Los Angeles, we flew to Thailand to try to get there in time to see some friends. We had also planned to take a week of vacation in Phuket with Alvin's parents.

We spent almost everyday going to the pool. During our vacation time, we went to the pool two or three times a day. Meliya really loved it. After we got home, she had some major breakdowns if she couldn't go outside right after every meal, and also renewed her love for bathing in the bathtub.

During the vacation time, we saw a baby elephant. If you buy bananas from the owner, you could feed the elephant and even pet him. Meliya and I decided to do it together, but we both did not like it when he put his trunk around my neck. It was itchy.

Also, we went to the beach. Alvin's parents really enjoyed their time with Meliya and loved helping her walk around and helping her up and down the stairs. Meliya was getting really close to walking by herself, but she never took the steps while we were in Thailand.

January in a Flash

2013-04-06T08:24:00.000-05:00

Oh dear, well the months have just gone by. I will try to do a month by month update in a week.

In January, I was done with school and spent more time at home. I guess the big news was that we bought an upright piano. Alvin has been looking on a Chinese ebay site to look for second hand pianos. Finally, he found one that fit for us. It was only 7 years old, and according to the owner, wasn't used that much.

We hired professional movers, 4 guys, that helped move the piano. Meliya took to the piano right away. Everyday, she comes by to "practice," esp. if we are trying to play.

Also, at the end of the month, I received the sad news that my grandma was not doing so well. My parents gave me the news and so our whole family flew to Los Angeles to attend my grandmother's funeral (as we were leaving for the states, we found out she passed away).

We were only able to stay 9 days in the states. We were able to have a family reunion with my side of the family, celebrate and remember the memories of my grandma, and also Meliya was able to play with many of her cousins. The sad part was that Meliya had roseola (an infant virus that has 3 days fever and then a rash for 3 days). Those 3 days, Meliya was acting terribly cranky, and she pretty much stayed at Alvin's parent's house sleeping, except on the day of the funeral where she spent a lot of time in the car sleeping as we traveled from event to event.

After a long whirlwind of a trip, we packed up to go on our already scheduled annual trip to Thailand. Come back and read about it in a couple of days.

Growing Up

2013-01-01T02:27:00.000-06:00

Meliya is now one year and 3 months. She still can't walk, and can only say "mama," but we still feel like she is growing up fast. She can crawl pretty fast, and enjoys going to the jungle gyms to go down slides and crawl up and down the gym.

She enjoys breads, crackers, and cheese still. She also really likes spinach, yogurt, and oatmeal. She doesn't particularly like oranges or green beans.

She enjoys breaking down the Duplo Legos that she got for Christmas, and threading large beads on a stick. She enjoys things with latches, and could play with them for a long time.

She also has improved in her sign language. Now she can do the following words: more, please, milk, eat, all done, hat, outside, book, and bowl. Surprisingly, she likes to do "hat" a lot. We are shocked at how quickly she can pick up a work. Sometimes we feel like we say it a couple times and she starts using it. Although some words like "water" or "drink," she still hasn't used even though we used it for a couple months.

Can you tell which signs she is using?

Walking on Ice

2012-12-31T02:07:00.000-06:00

One of the things we wanted to try out with our friend Angela was walking on ice. It has been below freezing temperatures here in our city for awhile, and the lakes have all been frozen. At one of the parks, you can walk on the ice for free, and you can also rent a wooden bobsled to slide around on the ice. We decided to take our friend, since she was coming from Singapore where there is no such thing as frozen lakes. We also thought we would pack a lunch and eat at the park before we got on the ice.

But the day we went, the temperature was really cold. That day, it had a high of 20 degrees Fahrenheit, and a low of 8 degrees. Also, it was really windy and there was some snow flurries. We walked the 20 min. to the park, sat there in freezing temperatures as we ate our lunch and fed Meliya, ran out on the ice for 5 minutes, and then walked back home. By the time we got home, our faces and feet were frozen. Meliya did pretty well, but at the end did have a little bit of a whine.

It was a unique experience. The ice felt super thick. The next day, a whole bunch of the expats were playing Broomball on the ice. They got their 80 cents broom from the store, and just jumped on the ice. This is a lot cheaper than playing broomball in the states, but a little more dangerous since there is no guarantee that the ice will not break.

Have you walked on icy lakes before? Would you want to try in China?

Christmas Parties

2012-12-30T01:53:00.000-06:00

The week of Christmas was pretty busy. We had a ladies Christmas tea on the Saturday before, at then on Sunday we had two parties in a row at our house. The first one was with the parents and kids from our complex (mostly locals), and the second one was with Alvin's company's interns.
Here is the kids' party:

Here is the interns' party: We were about to read the Christmas story and sing songs.

Here we are on Christmas Day at our friend's house:

My friend Angela, from the states, also came to celebrate Christmas with us:

Christmas Tree

2012-12-29T08:16:00.000-06:00

Earlier this month, we decided to buy a Christmas tree for the first time in Alvin and my life.

So here is our family's first Christmas tree:

Meliya didn't seem to care about the tree. The first day, she was curious, but after that, she wasn't interested in going near the tree. Sometimes I wondered if she was a little scared of it. She never even tried to touch any of the ornaments.

Playing in Taiwan

2012-12-28T07:57:00.001-06:00

While we were in Taiwan, we also went to the Da' An Park.

It was Meliya's first time on a swing. She loved it:

Here we are enjoying our last day in Taiwan:

Taipei Zoo

2012-12-16T22:54:00.000-06:00

This is Bethany. It has been a while since I have blogged, but I blame our internet connection. Due to internet blocking issues in the country we're in, I'mm unable to sign in to edit the blog at home. Alvin, on the other hand, is able to connect through his work computer. If you have questions about that, just ask Alvin.

Last week, we took a trip to Taipei to visit friends and family. Our first day, we went to the zoo. This is Meliya's second trip to a zoo. We went with our friend Shirley who also came to visit Taipei at the same time.

Here is Shirley feeding Meliya to the lions. I like that the animals felt so close.

This is the second time Meliya has gone to see pandas.

Also, the most interesting part was seeing the gorilla. Shirley's parents, kept telling us to go see King Kong, but when we went to visit, the gorilla was eating. Then after closer inspection, we found out what he was eating. (Viewer discretion advised, this is not for people with weak stomachs.)

Yummy Double Thanksgiving

2012-11-27T06:49:00.001-06:00

We celebrated Thanksgiving twice. Once last Thursday, and once last Saturday. On Thursday, we had the three intern trainees from our company come over to celebrate with us over a Thanksgiving dinner. It was fun to see them try and enjoy new foods that they had never had before. We didn't have turkey for Thursday's dinner, as we were only able to get our hands on one turkey this year, and we needed it for Saturday. Thursday was also a bit of a dry run for us for the dishes we would need to prepare (again) for Saturday. For Bethany, that meant brining a chicken. And for me, that meant making fresh baked rolls.

We got through our entire Thursday evening, and I realized that I only took a picture of the spread on the table, but completely forgot to take pictures of us with the interns. Oops.

Thursday night's hits included the chicken, the cranberry sauce, the sticky rice, and the rolls. Our guests thought the mashed potatoes were a little bit strange. Oh well, more leftovers for us!

Having mastered the art of brining a bird and cooking it in a small toaster over (that barely fits a 9x13), Bethany took on the much more complicated task of doing an overnight apple cider brine for a 15-pound turkey and then cooking it in a larger toaster oven. This would be for a Thanksgiving potluck dinner gathering we would be attending on Saturday evening. My task was to improve on the rolls which I had made on Thursday.

We borrowed the larger toaster oven on Friday, and had the turkey all ready in the evening for an overnight brine. But we still weren't sure where we would find a pot large enough to brine the turkey. Fortunately, a friend here recommended that we use the vegetable drawer from our refrigerator - that's what they had just done the day before after reading the suggestion online. What a great idea! So that is what we did.

And then came Saturday - what was going to be a long day. Oh yes, we also woke up once on Friday about 1:00 AM in order to turn the turkey over once in the brine. Then, on Saturday... we woke up at about 6:30 AM to prep the turkey for the oven. That was because we also signed up to run a 5K at 8:30 AM. So the turkey went in the oven for about 45 minutes. And then we turned the oven off, got Meliya dressed for a cold morning outside, and participated in a 5K with other foreigners here.

When we got back at 10:00 AM, the next 5 hours was spent roasting the turkey while taking it out to baste every 30 minutes. Bethany and I started to get pretty efficient at cooperative basting - the bird was out of the oven for maybe 3 minutes, and then back in it went.

In the meantime, I re-made the rolls from Thursday, but this time made them smaller, since they were for a potluck that would have a lot of food. I used the Cloverleaf Roll recipe from the Joy of Cooking. they turned out well.

The turkey was a success. Cooked just right. Flavorful. Moist. Tender. This was Bethany's second turkey ever, and she did a great job.

And today, we used the leftover bones to make a yummy pot of rice porridge, as do most Chinese (American) households post-Thanksgiving.

Some friends have mentioned that all they ever see for pictures here on our blog are pictures of Meliya or pictures of food. What do Alvin and Bethany look like these days? Here's a picture shot of us on the cold morning of the 5K...

Meliya's One Year Old Pictures

2012-10-23T09:17:00.000-05:00

We took Meliya to a photo place near our house. It is very cheap to take pictures there, esp. if you bring your own clothes. It only took 30 minutes. We only have to pay $2.50 for each picture, and no fee for the photo shoot. You only have to pay for the pictures you choose. The only issue is that the photographer takes very few shots and doesn't really wait for the best picture before they say, "you are done, next outfit please."

Also, they did some photoshopping to the pictures. One of the pictures, you can see that they cut out a little bit of Meliya's head.

Shapotou Theme Park

2012-10-20T08:55:00.000-05:00

I am still taking one class this semester to improve my Chinese. This last Friday, instead of class, the school took all the students to the most popular tourist site in our province: Shapotou Theme Park. It is basically sand dunes next to the Yellow River. They have some fun activities at this park including sand board sliding, camel riding, ATV riding on the sand, zip-lining across the river, and riding across the river on sheep skin boats. I took the family, and we did the free things including walking down the sand dunes, walking across the bridge, and walking along the river. (I guess we just did a lot of walking.) The school paid for our entrance fee, but all the other activities we had to pay on our own. They did stress that they didn't want us to ride the sheep skin boats because it is "very, very dangerous."

The day was quite beautiful. The trip consisted of a 2 and a half hour bus ride each way and Meliya did very well on the way there. The last 45 minutes of the trip home was pretty hard on Meliya. I think she just wanted to be in her own bed. Still, we are glad to have gotten the opportunity to hang out with the other students and enjoy the beautiful scenery.

All dressed and ready for the day:

Does this look dangerous?

Beijing Zoo

2012-10-15T01:37:00.000-05:00

While the grandparents were here, we went to the Beijing Zoo. It was Meliya's first time at a zoo, and her parents first time at the Beijing Zoo. We started off at the panda exhibit.
The first picture is Meliya fully unaware that a national treasure is behind her: (Can you see him?)

Here she is, now more aware that we might not be in our living room:

Here's Meliya in front of fake elephants:

The zoo also has an aquarium in it. Here she is fascinated by the lights and the things moving inside:

This fish came up to examine Meliya, while Meliya cross-examined him:

Playground

2012-10-13T01:09:00.000-05:00

Before grandma and grandpa came into town, it seemed like Meliya was timid around playground equipment. On the left is a picture of Meliya on her first slide the weekend grandparents came in town. Her buddy, little S, is thinking, "what's the fuss about, slides are so fun!"
After three weeks of active climbing, Meliya started changing her view. This is Meliya in Beijing. She was loving the slide.

Here she is on some of the other playground equipment and walking steps:

Ye Ye, Nai Nai

2012-10-10T08:36:00.000-05:00

Alvin's parents visited us in our city for about a month. They were able to celebrate Meliya's first birthday and we all just traveled to Beijing for a weekend before they left. Meliya had a wonderful time with the grandparents. She enjoyed coming out in the morning to play with Ye Ye and Nai Nai. Ye Ye taught Meliya how to climb up the sofa and then down again, and Nai Nai taught Meliya how to play "Chong chong, chong chong fei" (while imitating a fly flying with the fingers.) Today was the first day Meliya was without her grandparents, and she was actually kind of grumpy. I think she misses them.

Even in the 4 weeks the grandparents were here, she was growing and changing. Before they came, she only would walk about 4 steps with help, and now she loves to walk around with assistance. Meliya really enjoyed the time with her Ye Ye, Nai Nai, and looks forward to the next time with them.

Happy 1 Year Birthday Meliya!

2012-10-02T02:53:00.000-05:00

This last Sunday was Meliya's one year birthday. Alvin and I can't believe she is already one.

We celebrated by having a little get together at our house. Meliya seemed to enjoy it; esp. the birthday cake (which Alvin calls a birthday bread.) It really is an apple bread (with no sugar added) with yogurt as the frosting, and fruit on top. The comment we got was that "it sure tastes healthy." Hmm, I am not sure what that means, but Meliya really liked it. I picked 4 fruits to decorate the cake, but there isn't a lot of berries or peaches in this area around this season. So I chose 4 fruits. Can you guess what they are? (Hint: The middle one is not oranges)

Here's little M opening presents:

I noticed that I didn't update everyone on what little M is up to the last two months. Well, right now she can only say mama. She uses Mama for mom, milk, and more. I guess mom can help her satisfy all three of these things.

She can't walk yet, but grandpa just taught her how to climb and get off the couch all by herself. She is a really good climber, and likes to do things by herself. She still likes tofu and cheese (not together), and she likes to go outside. She doesn't like to ride the animated rides outside of grocery stores, but she enjoys bike rides in her bike seat and sitting in the grocery cart. We love her so much and am so happy that she is one! Yeah little kiddo; you are doing great!

M at one year old:

Sunflower

2012-08-27T08:52:00.000-05:00

One day, we noticed that there was a sunflower downstairs in our apartment. I never noticed it even coming up, but it was now at the height of Meliya. So we quickly grabbed Meliya, and shot some pictures before the flower was taken away.

Shanghai

2012-08-22T08:37:00.000-05:00

Pool time

Meliya and I went for 4 days to visit my cousin, Richard, and their family. At the same time, my other cousin, Jennifer, was visiting with her two kids and her mom. We spent a lot of the time just at the apartment, enjoying the pool and the other amenities at the apartment.

Meliya was actually really clingy the whole time. She did fine on the plane rides, but she wasn't so keen on being held by others, unless she spent some time with that person. That made it hard for me. Still, all my relatives really helped out.

Olympics

2012-08-20T08:28:00.001-05:00

In honor of the Olympics, the 2008 mascot

The last few weeks, Alvin and I have been watching Olympics at night. After a while, I noticed that what we view on prime time in China is very different from what we view on prime time in the states. First, a big chunk of the viewing time is spent on table tennis and badminton. One foreigner friend here, also commented on how a lot of shooting and archery is also shown. This is because there is a lot of medals won by China in these sports. There was some swimming shown, but mostly it was when China won a medal. There was also a lot of diving and some individual event gymnastics. I still haven't seen the women's all-around for gymnastics (which I still want to watch). I heard it was played in the middle of the night.

The last few days of the Olympics (which included mostly track and field), the sports channels were not playing new footage, but just old footage of when China won medals. I have always been easily moved to emotions by the commentators, but once or twice when the Chinese announcers got really excited, I was moved to tears by the excitement. I had to remind myself a couple of times that I root for USA.

Still, it was fun watching the Olympics. I wish I could see which US athletes were getting profiled in the states, but now at least I know all about the ping pong gold medal winners.

10 Months

2012-08-07T08:57:00.001-05:00

Meliya is now over 10 months old. She had another month where she is learning a lot. Now she can do the hand signals for "more," "milk," and "all done." She loves to do "more," even for toys and for mama. She likes to finish off the sign for "all done" with "more." It is quite confusing.

She can now pull herself to standing position, and also get down. Holding on to the sofa or table, she can move around.

She is starting to get more clingy to mama. Before, she didn't fuss at all when strangers held her, but now she seems to care more. Her favorite food is now cheese and her favorite book is That's Not My Train. Her favorite page in the book is the one that say, "That's not my train, it's funnel is too rusty." The picture is textured so the funnel feels like a nail file. Meliya loves touching it. She will flip specifically to that page.

She often has a crooked smile. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to capture it yet. She has two top teeth coming in. Here is a glimpse of them:

To Hong Kong and Back

2012-07-19T03:16:00.000-05:00

Last week, our family and Alvin's coworker's family took a spontaneous trip to Hong Kong to get our business visa. Alvin and his coworker has been working on getting the visa for their office for about 8 months, and after a couple of snafus, on Tuesday, July 10th, they received all the paperwork to go. So we left that Tuesday. We flew to Guangzhou first, and then took a train to Hong Kong. The coworker's family are also from the states and have a daughter around the same age as Meliya. The whole trip was 5 days, and everything was very last minute.

It seemed like everyone had fun though. We even went swimming two days at the hotel in Hong Kong. We all went to eat some dim sum and then our family also went to see the ferry. We didn't ride it, but we did see it.

Here is Meliya enjoying the train ride with Alvin's coworker.