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| Tacos! Glorious taco shells! May 1 |
1. Cheese. If you are in a decent sized and modernized city, real cheese will be available but maybe in only every third supermarket and it is going to cost you. In Wuhu we can find cheese in Auchang and in Walmart (though when we arrived here Walmart didn't sell real cheese). Auchang has a better selection so we end up shopping there for cheese even though it is on the other side of town.
The other thing about cheese... it's going to cost about 30rmb. That doesn't sound like a lot it if you convert it to the American dollar, but consider that 1 rmb will buy you a 20oz bottle of water and we can cook all of our meals for the week for about 150 rmb, or less.
2. Spices. Chinese dishes have some nice spicy spices but nothing quite like the chili spice we use for Mexican cooking. This year our spice problem was eliminated by some awesome gifted taco spices from family who came to visit and in care packages. <Thanks again, everyone for all the awesome care packages we received this year!>
3. Shells. The final, and most difficult complication is the taco shells! We had never quite figured out a good way to get taco shells until we found some for sale online. We ordered a box of shells and they were perfect! (Ok, so 2 were broken, but other than that they were perfect!) We're becoming semi-pro at ordering off the internet here. Anyway, the shells were about 25 rmb including shipping.
But Connor can't eat tacos, so what was he doing? EVERYTHING ELSE!
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| May 2 |
Mostly though he was practicing standing and working on his teeth!
We guess that even he thought it was silly that he still only had 2 teeth after 3 months!
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| Connor uses the side of his crib as a teether. May 2 |
In more news from Connor's parents... news that may shock those who've known us for a long time... we took up running. It's true! (Though there are no actual photographs of us running...) We bought some sports clothes (because, strangely, people who don't exercise typically don't have anything that is suitable to wear when exercising) and as a family would go to the track and field. We have to take turns so someone is always with Connor.
One day while Kim was running we met a new friend. A woman and her five year old son who gave Connor his first sticker! You can see it stuck to his forehead below. The woman also gave Connor a mini banana (or a "Marty banana" as Kim calls them because she had never seen one until she saw our friend, Marty, eat one) which Connor tried to eat, peel and all...
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| Connor with his first stickers! An egg on his forehead and an Angry Bird on his shirt. May 4 |
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| Connor takes a bite from his mini banana. May 4 |
Unfortunately some rainy days broke up the rhythm of our workouts. So Connor had some fun playing inside and reading books, but we did have to go outside at least once where Connor learned of his new favorite invention, umbrellas. May 7
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| "I can carry my own umbrella." |
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| "Which book should I read?" |
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| Playing nicely inside! |
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| Connor: "I'll help you hold that!" |
A Few Fun Random Shots
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| Connor learned a new skill. Standing on hands. Just not standing on his own hands! May 10 |
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| Connor doing a good job standing. May 14 |
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| Connor found an umbrella in the house left open to dry. |
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| Connor with a favorite stuffed animal aptly named "Foxy" |
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| Here's Connor examining the drawstring of his new pants (It's actually just a decorative drawstring.) May 12 |
New Swag in Connor's Life
We bought some new clothes for Connor, which is we haven't done too often this year since we brought a lot with us from America at the beginning of the term.
We also bought Connor some much needed blocks. We've been talking about getting blocks since Christmas! And finally we just did it. Whew.
After we bought them we took a million and a half photos of him playing with them but posting all of them would be insane, so we just picked four to share...
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| Look! My mom built a block city and I helped! |
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| Choosing a block. |
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| Orange cylinder is the best! |
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| What do you mean there is a green cylinder? |
Mother's Day & Jenny's visit
Our friend Jenny came to visit us in Wuhu over Mother's Day weekend! We had a blast showing Jenny some of the sites, and celebrating Kim's first Mother's Day with her.
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| Good friends and good food! May 12 |
Jenny & Connor! May 12
Scenes from the lake on Mother's Day. What a beautiful day!
Mother's Day Flowers & Cake!
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| We don't know why they put a "happy birthday" candy on this cake, but it was delicious! |
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| Happy mom & baby! |
We're ending this post with a fun Mother's Day inspired "compare and contrast".
Here's Kim wearing her "lovely cat" t-shirt on Aug. 7 (one month before Connor was born).
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And here she is wearing it on May 17th. Can you spot the difference?
