What's Cookin' Tonight!

by Amy

I love to cook. When I got married, 8 years ago, I had no idea how to cook! But, suddenly, I had a husband that wanted to eat ~ who was tired of eating hamburger helper and pasta-roni all the time. So, with the help of many women around me, I learned how to cook. Now, I love it! One really fun thing about living over here is that I have to make more things than I used to. I have previously mentioned the tortillas and salsa that I made, and just the other day Savannah and I made banana bread and homemade English muffins. (Did you know that English muffins are not baked in the oven, but the dough is cooked in a skillet! Who Knew!?!?) It has been tons of fun for me to learn how to cook new things in this new country. And, I hope that when we get a house-helper, she'll teach me how to cook Asian food. (Yes, I'm still liking the food around here, although, I am very thankful for my own kitchen so I don't have to eat it everyday!)

When cooking new things like English muffins, I was very prepared for failure. After all, I'm not even sure I bought the right kind of flour at the store. Plus, I've never been too successful at making breads. So, when they turned out, I was super excited! Well in the past few days, we made two purchases that (I thought) would make my life much easier. We finally found a mixer and a crock pot. When I lived in America, I used both of these items regularly, often several times a week. So, I have been hunting all around to find these items, and with the help of a local friend, I'm happy to report that my new, wonderful kitchen, now is home to a rare mixer and easy-to-clean-kind of crock pot. So, all that to say, with the recent success's in my kitchen, nothing prepared me for what we had for dinner tonight!

I meet with my language tutor on Wednesday afternoons, so I was sure this would be the right time to try our new crock pot. And, when we went to that big city a couple of weeks ago, I bought 5 precious cans of cream of chicken soup. So, I just knew tonight would be the perfect night for Creamy Italian Chicken. (If you've every been a guest in my home, there's a good chance you've eaten this dish!) This meal is so easy! You just put your raw chicken breasts in the crock pot and cover with 1/4 cup of water and a package of Italian dressing mix (imported from the states, of course!) Then, you let your chicken cook for several hours. 1-2 hours before eating you mix (with a delightful mixer) cream of chicken soup and cream cheese and pour it over the chicken. Served over rice with warm bread....mmmmmm..... It's comfort food at it's best! Well, as I'm finishing up my language session, Brad calls me from the kitchen, "Aim, you better come look at your crock pot. I don't think this is what you are expecting." He was right... At that time we noticed my lid had a small little hole to let steam out. Therefore, my chicken was dry and starting to burn on the bottom of the pot. Oh no! And, there's this really thick black burnt goo on the sides of my pot. I know it will take forever to clean.... Well, after picking up the chicken and having Brad taste a bit, we decide he caught it just in time! I add some more water and finish my tutorial session. Then I add a little more water to the crock pot along with the cream of chicken/cream cheese mixture. As I stir the chicken, it begins to fall apart because it's so tender, as all Creamy Italian Chicken should be. I'm relieved! I put rice in my new rice maker and assume all is going to be great. About 20 min. later, I check the crock pot only to discover that all the caked on burnt stuff on the side is melting into the cheesy mixture, turning it brown. My husband, who actually likes things a little on the burnt side, assures me it will be OK if we just transfer the food to the oven. So, into the oven it goes..... About 45 min. later we open the rice cooker to discover crunchy, even a little burnt rice. I soon find out, it's the perfect complement to the burnt tasting Creamy Italian Chicken..... We did also have green beans and fresh, hot bread that I made in my new bread maker.... It was pretty good, but had a hole in one side.

So, to sum it up, I've had a blast cooking new things in this country, but when it comes to simple favorites, I've got to work on them a bit! Brad thinks I had unrealistic expectations since I was using three new appliances for the first time. (Crock pot, Rice cooker, and Bread maker) Maybe I'll take them one at a time for the next few meals and closely monitor as they cook.

Large Video Below

Okay, this video is pretty large, I think about about 40 meg. Broadband users shouldn't have a problem, but dial up may want to start the process and come back in about an hour or so. I tried a higher quality, but I'm not sure blogger was able to capture the higher quality video. We'll play with it in the future and find out.

Our New Home Video

Pink Asian Girl

From Brad. Well, the little girl is adapting well to her new culture. She is still pink through and through, but this silk dress was a treat she bought in the big city last week. I have a feeling she'll be wearing it quite a lot. She already asked if she could wear it to our Sun. AM get together. The answer is yes! since its a very small crowd and I don't think there will be much 'comparing' going on. She's sitting on our new couch. A comfy couch that Amy picked out about a month ago, yet came just about 2 weeks ago. Most of the couches here are extremely firm, but we were thrilled to find one that was quite a bit softer.
Peter seems to be enjoying himself although the chair which came with the couch swallows him up. We've found that the chair is just big enough to fit 1 adult and 3 kiddos, although it can get a bit cramped. Its great for stories (Peter is holding what else besides...a choo-choo train book), and for youtube videos.

Amy is thrilled to be done with this old kitchen table...and so am I. Old knees on hardwood floors is just not that comfortable. So much for horsey rides from Dad...at least until we get a rug or two. Hopefully soon we'll have some picts or a video up of our whole place.

Finally, at dinner the other night in a restaurant, I met a guy who spoke pretty good English. He had studied in America and you could tell. Most of the more savvy English speaking locals here give themselves an English name. Oftentimes, they'll pick one that is close to their Asian name. In this case the guy went for the gold (or maybe I should say goldfinger). He introduced himself as Bond...James Bond. How great is that. So I was considering Yao Ming. Why not...I am from Houston after all!

Well, goodnight until next time.

Every day life...

by Amy

Well, we've been here for 5 weeks and yesterday is the first day that I didn't have to go outside once - the entire day! It was delightful. Brad took the boys out to run a few errands, while Savannah and I stayed home and painted (while sitting at our wonderful, new kitchen table.) Then, in the afternoon, Brad cooked some tomatoes(for salsa) while I mashed and froze 30 avocados. Yes, you read correctly, I bought avocados! Our friends here found a place to buy them in bulk, so we placed an order together. It is delightful! And, after our special deliveries from the states last weekend and a trip to an import store, we had tacos for dinner last night, complete with fresh guac and homemade salsa! What a yummy treat!

I always heard that life outside the US takes longer, and now I can attest that it's true. But, longer isn't always worse. Let's take salsa for example.... Rather than opening up two can of diced tomatoes, Brad cooked 11 tomatoes. First he blackened them a bit in the skillet, then crushed them in the blender, and finally, heated them in a sauce pan to cook off some of the extra liquid. So, what usually took me 20-30 seconds, took him 30-40 min. But, the flavor was great (so I'm told, since I don't eat salsa!) Also, laundry here takes longer. I have this cool, front-loading machine that will wash and dry my clothes. But, one load takes about 4 hours from start to finish. The great thing is that at night before we go to bed, I can start a load of laundry, and it the morning, it's dry! I didn't have to flip it in the middle of the night! But, when you have a family of 5, laundry is always piling up, and 4 hours per load doesn't seem to make much of a dent.... (maybe that's why people here often wear the same outfit 2 or 3 days in a row ~ less laundry!) I think we're going to try that pretty soon!

Well, I'm off to put my nightly load in the washer before we head to bed! happy sleeps!

Fun Weekend Trip

by Brad and Amy.

So we've been on the run for a while. Last week was busy as Brad started his meetings with his language tutor...very helpful for breaking bad habits started with the language back in the states. Amy finally got a kitchen...the installation of which made a mess of the entire house. Curtains came for our room, we continued to meet friends and finally...we had a fun trip to the big city to meet friends from the states. We'll focus on our weekend trip as there's not much time right now.

We live in a city of around 5 mil people, but that is not the 'big city'. The big city (about 3 hrs away) has about triple that (or more). We got there by a train which was probably the highlight of my boys' lives in their (almost) 3 years of living. It was spacious, smooth and fast (around 100 mph) and quite the deal ($150 US for round trip for 5 of us).
The main cataylist for our trip this early was the fact that our friends from Colorado were in this city on a company trip. So we met up with them for dinner on Friday night (Outback…what a treat) and spent all day Saturday with them. We visited the local zoo which was a blast and got to see some Pandas. They were a little sleepy and boring, but the highlight of this zoo was its aquarium. It was huge, complete with a seal/dolphin show to boot.


After the trip to the zoo, we went swimming in our friend’s hotel pool which was amazing. The kids had not been in a swimming pool for months and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was such a blessing to visit with our Colorado friends even as they were trying to overcome jetlag and keep up with three crazy munchkins.

The rest of our time was spent hitting import stores and local markets. We found a few neat gifts for our kids, friends, ourselves and a familiar US coffee shop! However, $13 US for 8 oz of coffee was just too much for even us to pay. All in all, we had a great time which was encouraging and entertaining, yet tiring. We all slept in a little Monday morning and still felt a little sluggish throughout the day.

A Simple Update

Brad here. It seems I've got a little more time to share since Amy has done more shopping lately and has more preferences when it comes to certain purchases (like curtains!).
Life is starting to get a little more settled here and will be much better when we get our long awaited dining room table and kitchen. To give you a little glimpse of how life can be a little more frustrating here, the contract we signed on the kitchen stated it would be finished by Thursday, May 10th. On the 10th, at 3pm I took a taxi to see the 'kitchen guy'. When I arrived he pulled out the contract and proceeded to scratch out the 10th and write in the 14th. Amazing! I called a friend who did some translation work and I learned that the materials were being shipped in and have not arrived yet. Therefore, we'd need to wait another 4 days. Well, its been 3 of those 4 days and still no word from him. Is this normal or am I being taken advantage of b/c I'm a foreigner. Maybe a little of both from what I can tell, but its the type of thing that will kill us if we let it get to us.
Or we can simply say, things like this do occur sometimes in the US and we just need to keep the big picture in mind. I must admit, I am tempted to scratch out the price I agreed to pay him and reduce it by 10% and see what he thinks of that. The kitchen table should arrive Thursday and life will be a little easier at that time.

The kids don't seem to mind a whole lot. Without a kitchen, they get to go out a little more and that's usually a welcome event. Yesterday morning, Amy took the kids to McD for breakfast (yes, they know us quite well there) and took a walk around my campus since it was such a beautiful day. I got a chance to study the language for a couple of hours while listening to baseball in the background (yeah, a little strange to listen to the Astros while eating cereal...but the upside is they don't keep me awake all night when they play like bums or when Brad Lidge blows a save...however, I'm thankful we didn't dump him...he's looking better all the time).

We are continuing to meet many new local friends. I must admit we are working hard to get settled, but people are so eager to meet us and speak English to us, we have plenty of opportunities to make friends and share our message. It is an amazing time to live here, and I can't wait to have some of you visit so you can witness what it is like. Peter loves it here since ice cream cones at McD cost around 35 cents and make a fun after dinner treat.


Here's a shot outside our 13th story window. Not a bad view of the city. We'll give you more of a tour of our place once all our stuff gets in later on this week.

Random Observations and Other Fun Facts

by Amy

Here the stop lights go from Green to Yellow to Red to Yellow to Green. So, it's kind of crazy when your taxi driver is stopped at a red light. It turns yellow and he begins reeving his engine and may even take off a bit early. All the while the drivers on the perpendicular road are going as fast as they can to get through the intersection before the light turns red (or is red for too long.....) Therefore, screeching of brakes and honking of horns is a common sound on the city streets!

In the local grocery stores, you have to have your produce bagged, weighed, and priced before leaving the produce section.

Many stores, grocery stores included, are two, three, or four stories tall. They have these cool little moving ramps that your shopping cart locks into that you ride from floor to floor.

Taxi drivers only abide by one rule: There are NO rules when driving! This makes for some exciting rides! It's not uncommon to see taxis drive on the sidewalk when the street is too busy. It's also not uncommon for my taxi driver to drive on the wrong side of the road (into opposing traffic) if that will help him get to the final destination 1/4 of a second earlier! Also, left turn arrows are very rare here, so taxis just pull out and make the other cars wait or hit them....

Did you know that God made yellow watermelons? That's right, the outside is green, but when you cut into it, the inside is bright yellow! Brad brought a couple home for us to enjoy the other day. We had a yellow dinner two nights ago ~ cheese, crackers, pineapple and watermelon! Our kiddos thought it was fun!

Many people have been wondering what type of food items are available here. I have to admit that I've been pleasantly surprised and thankful with the western foods that I can find. Here are a few:
- Ketchup (even Heinz)
- Refried Beans ~ Old El Paso brand! They come and go, but that's OK, I'll take 'em when I can get 'em!
- Olive oil and Red Wine Vinegar (to complement the Good Season's Italian Dressing Mix I brought from the states ~ a favorite of my husbands!)
- Cereal
- Hershey's Chocolate Syrup Mix (you pay for it, but it's here!)
- Real milk ~ it's whole milk, but that's OK. It's cold and pasteurized! And, they'll even deliver it to my door!
- Cream Cheese ~ It's pretty pricey too, but one store here carries it fairly regularly.
- Avocados ~ isn't that delightful!?!
- American Cheese slices.
- Pringles.
- Ritz crackers.
- Boneless, skinless chicken breasts (they are actually one of the cheapest cuts of chicken!)
- Ground Beef.
- Ice cream ~ most of the chocolate flavored ice cream is not what I'm used to, but the vanilla is pretty yummy!

So, it looks like I'm not going to starve to death after all! Now, if we could just get our kitchen installed, I could cook up some of this yummy food!

Speaking of cooking, the kitchen in our apartment came complete with one short, small, plastic sink. So, I've been using our plastic trunks to build "counters" that hold my coffee pot, microwave, water dispenser,etc. It's working out OK, but I'm so ready to have a range and oven so I can cook our food instead of eating most meals out. Today, though, I cooked spaghetti in our microwave! Who knew you could boil noodles in a microwave?! (Obviously, my husband did!) In the second to last pic on Savannah's post below she is standing in my make-shift kitchen!

I'm sure I'll have more random thoughts at a later date, but that's it for now!

A Post from the Little Girl

People here like to crowd around me all the time. For the most part I don’t really like it, because they like to touch me in the face, cheeks, hair. So sometimes I get into the back of the stroller and recline to escape it. Almost everyone comments on how pretty or lovely I am. This picture was taken the other night on the way home from McDonalds. We attracted a large crowd by simply walking home.



The other day we had a fun time. We visited a park that had lots of inflatable rides/slides. Here I am climbing up one side so I can slide down the other. However, my favorite was the boat ride. It was a little boat which went forward when I peddled with my feet. We were in a large pool that was probably 1-2 feet deep.

My favorite thing about this country so far is a nearby park (see previous blog pictures). I like it so much because there are lots of rides there. I think we get to go there after my brothers wake up from their nap.



My favorite new food is ‘sweet and sour chicken’ (editors correction…that’s not chicken…I think its pork…I hope its pork). The sauce is great and I love to eat it with rice. On the other hand, yesterday we (Daddy and my brothers) ate lunch for a total of $0.50. it was some sort of fried egg and ham sandwich on pita bread. It had a weird brownish sauce on it and it was not good at all. I do enjoy our frequent visits to McD, KFC and Pizza Hut since Mommy doesn’t have a kitchen yet (hopefully tomorrow). However, I miss Burger King so much.







Finally, my favorite thing about my home is my ‘stairs bed’. Also, I love the fact that Mommy let me choose the colors of my room. Purple and Pink are my favorite colors. Well, its time for me to run, but I wanted to say that I miss my friends and family and love you all.

Here comes the stuff

The boys on their new bunk bed.

With a few minutes to burn (Brad here), I thought I’d give you a glimpse of our home as it is beginning to fill up. The most stress producing thing over the last week has not been language, food or anything else related to the culture, its been having no set location for our things and constantly searching for keys, wallet, books, receipts, etc. among the scattered toys, clothes, books, etc. As I was trying to share with a local friend yesterday in my home, it was maddening to search for the dual language good book and not be able to locate it. In any case, this is a short season which is coming to an end thanks to some recent purchases.


This is our new closet. It is 2.5 meters high which is about the height of our bedroom. Nice for storage. Yes, there are no closets, attics, or any type of storage in the typical apartment here. You buy them or have them made.

I bet Amy might go into more detail at some point about why we bought this or that, but I’ll give you one last picture of Savannah's bed/office?. The bed is on top, the stairs double as drawers and below there is a desk, mini-dresser, and shelves.

Embedded Video Below

Brad here. Below is our first attempt at an embedded video. You might need to click on the play button a couple of times until you see 'buffering'. As the white bar underneath the video turns gray, that is the amount of video that has been 'buffered' or is ready for viewing upon another press of the play button. The video is nothing special except 3 munchkins enjoying their new home. The lack of furniture is a bit of a bonus as the entire place serves as a choo-choo train platform. I’d love some feedback on the quality of the video vs. the time it took you to upload this page. I went with a smaller file size (lower quality, about 2meg) so that it wouldn’t take long for you to upload and view the video. Did it still take a long time? Or was it short and you'd prefer better quality? Just curious.

We had a wonderful lunch with a family we recently met and had some good conversation. Additionally, he took me to a store after lunch that sold great, very inexpensive bathroom items. Finally, Amy found some ovens for almost 1/3 of the initial price we mentioned the other day!!! Right in the nick of time as the kitchen designer was drawing up plans and needed the dimensions asap. I was so desperate I searched the ebay in this country. I couldn't read a thing but I thought it was worth a shot. :)

Who Needs Furniture?