Easter!

 The Saturday before Easter was a busy one for us.  Luke and I had rehearsal in the morning for Sunday's performance, then we had a Hsu lunch with all the Hsus - Ron and Misty included.  Next, it was time for some non-religious Easter fun.  The kids and I dyed eggs and decorated them.  The girls had a blast though it's messy business.  We ended up with blue-green fingers but we soaked them in soapy water to get it nice and clean.  After decorating the eggs Luke and I made an Easter Egg Hunt in our backyard for the kids.  We were going to hit the community Easter hunt in the morning, but it was totally ridiculous!  They advertised 3000 eggs but I'm pretty sure there were 300+ people there.  The parking was insane and Luke and I decided that the eggs had about a 2 second life expectancy.  We didn't want the girls and Michael to get trampled in the mob so we did one of our own.  It was much better this way.

 Michael absolutely LOVED the egg hunt and the jelly beans inside them.  He was absolutely adorable.

After the egg hunt we had an early dinner because we had plans to go see Maggie and my mom in the Bellevue South Stake Easter Program that night.  The music was beautiful and we saw lots of people from the old stake that we love and adore.
 Sunday was no less busy.  We had church at 9am in the morning, but since Luke and I were in the specialty number and in choir, I went to church at 8:15am while he stayed behind to get the kids ready.  Church was fantastic and a wonderful reminder about the true meaning of Easter.  After church we came home and had lunch.  After lunch I started cooking like there's no tomorrow.  I was cooking strait from 1pm-5pm since my mom and Zeke and Maggie's family were joining us for dinner.  I had invited Ron and Misty too but unfortunately their family wasn't feeling well and they decided to drive home early.  But, we had so much food that we could've fed the Bailey family!  I enjoy throwing dinner parties and I tend to over do it.. It was fantastic though!  We had ham, green bean casserole, fruit salad, caesar salad, rolls, herb roasted potatoes, bruchetta, spinach artichoke dip, mango pudding and lemon cream cheese bars.  Needless to say we were incredibly stuffed.

A Little Bit of Crafting

 After I came home from my Taiwan trip I had an intense desire to go see Ron and Misty because I wanted to compare pictures and I just wanted to talk to someone about it who has recently been there.  But, how was I suppose to leave my husband again right after I just came home?!  Well, Luke ended up having a YM's snow activity the weekend of Lily's Mid-Winter Break, so I packed up the kids and I and we drove down to Ron and Misty's.
We had a fabulous time looking at all our photos and talking about the food and the kids had a grand time playing.  Now, one of the things that usually happens when I'm around Misty is that I get inspired to do art.  One of the things I have always loved about Misty is our mutual interest in arts and crafts.  She is always doing something - hair clips, painting, sketching, jewelry, household decorations, etc.  Last Summer after seeing her sketch I started sketching again and it's been really fun.  I'll have to post pictures of that later.
Anyway, this time after I came home from her house I decided to make some spring decorations.  I headed off to Michaels and the Dollar store.  I got 2 stems of silk flowers for $1/each, a grapevine wreath for $4.50 at Michaels; and I got some foam eggs (10/Pack) and birds (2/pack) at the Dollar store.  With a little bit of hot clue and some ribbon and raffia these are what I came up with.  It only took me a total of an hour and half and it was pretty fun. :o)

Taiwan Day 8: The End of My Journeys

 After we walked around the Longshan temple, we walked over to an herbal medicine street where there were a bunch of vendors selling medicinal teas, etc.  My aunt got me a menthol grass tea of some sort, it's suppose to be very refreshing.  It tasted decent and the menthol was strong, so yes, in a way, it was quite refreshing.  Then we headed to a historic street.

Yes this is part of the historic street and look, it's Asian graffiti!  I thought it was pretty awesome.  After we walked through the historic street we went and got some lunch.  I wasn't hungry but we ate anyway at a nice little side street shop.  Thereafter my aunt had a previous engagement and so I told her I was going to go to the CKS Memorial Hall.  She decided to accompany me there on the MRT since that's where she does her volunteer work.  Once she got me there, we said good bye for who knows how long.  She was my only aunt/uncle that hugged me goodbye.

So here's the CKS Memorial Hall.  The Hall itself has meeting rooms and exhibitions.  Outside of the Memorial hall there was the ballet and opera building... I think.  Some form of theater/music/performance halls.  Those are the two that you see in the picture above.

Here's the CKS monument and the picture below is the ceiling of the this place.

Here's the actual memorial hall.  I went there to see the changing of guards and the art exhibits besides it being a really cool place to snap photos of Taiwanese architecture.

So, on the outer areas of the Memorial there are gardens.  BEAUTIFUL gardens and here are some photos.

I was told that a lot of brides take pictures in this hall way.

So this is actually an entrance to the restrooms.  Crazy huh!

I spent most of my afternoon at the CKS Memorial, then I took the MRT to another little park, thereafter I started heading back.  It was getting late and once again I knew I should be home around 6:00pm especially since I was taking off at 8pm that night from Gina's.  Walking home I crossed the Sun Yet Sen Memorial where the lantern festival was still going on.  There were lots of people selling bubble wands and bubble guns, etc. and I caught this guy doing a neat little trick.  He makes a giant bubble and then blows on it to create bubbles inside.  He was the BEST at doing this as far as I could tell and he didn't do it for long so I was quite lucky to have caught the photo.
On the street that Gina lives there was a nice looking bakery.  I went it and got myself a custard bun, one of the few things that I actually wanted to eat and hadn't gotten a chance to all trip long.  I figured, I was already looking like I was 4-5 months pregnant, what the heck, a custard bun couldn't do much more damage.
When I got home Gina's MIL started making dinner.  We ate around 6:30, then I packed up everything else.  Gina had sent for a car to come get me.  Her and my grandma and her maid walked me down and said good bye there.  It took about 45-50 min to get to the airport.  I had to wait about 1.5-2 hours before boarding.
To be totally honest, yes, I did miss my family tons, but I was sad, really sad.  I LOVED being in Taiwan.  It was a fantastic experience.  I regret not coming more often when I was younger.  There were summers back when I was an undergraduate when I could've taken teaching jobs to teach English in Taiwan, but I didn't because I thought it'd be important to stick around and find my future. I believe that was a mistake and I should have come back at least 1 summer out of those 5 years that I spent at UW.  But, I know now that it's not hard to come back.  I was terrified for about a week before I came, thinking that I wouldn't be able to communicate as well as I would've liked or that I might get lost, but it was easy.  It was fantastic and it was easy.  So, maybe in a few more years when the kids are older I can go back again.