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| Looking over our neighborhood from the bridge. |
Hello Everyone. I hope you had a great week. This week's adventures centered around our oldest daughter becoming a teenager. I know, just the word teenager strikes fear into the hearts of many. No worries, Claire promised us that she wouldn't turn into a monster. Taylor is not quite sure that it isn't going to happen yet. Anyway, I had one or two experiences along the way but the weekend was Claire's. I have also included a couple of photos from the neighborhood. It was such a beautiful week, I felt I just needed to share. So, here is this week's news.
SCHOOL: Not much to report other than an apology was given. Enough said!!
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| This is only half of the Canton Fair Facility. |
ADVENTURES: The week started off with an adventure with my friend James to the Canton Fair. Now, this is not your typical fair that you might think in the sense of carnival rides, deep fried everything and cotton candy. The Canton Fair is the largest import/export fair in the world.
For those of you that have been to the Del Mar Fair, put this impression in your mind. Imagine the gadget section of the Del Mar Fair, but with four buildings the size of the entire fairgrounds. Inside the buildings there are four floors each. Now imagine everything that you can possibly purchase to repair, build or manufacture. In one day, I made it with my friend James through two floors. We spent most of our time on the building tools floor. This one floor was like going to the tool section at Home Depot, but now the tool section is the size of the entire store with three more stories above. Finally the other section we went to was the manufacturing section. Ask me how something is made and I probably saw the machine that makes it. One of the coolest machines was the machine that recycled plastic and turned it into the plastic fencing stuff that you see around events. You know the stuff that is bright orange and has holes in it. I can honestly tell you that I was happy to sit down when I got on the metro that evening. |
| Who says I don't have a green thumb!! I don't even need to water. |
The rest of
the week was pretty quite until we got to Claire's birthday on the
weekend. On Saturday the girls tutored and hung out and then we
prepared for the evening's activities for Claire's Birthday. Early in
the day Cecelia and Taylor ran out to our little village. They came
back with a beautiful cake covered in
chocolate powder and chocolate
flakes on the side. This was Taylor's birthday present to Claire.
Cecelia and I did not buy Claire any presents, because her present is
coming up next week when we go on a special trip. You will just have to
wait a couple of weeks to find out what she received!!! Nothing like a
little plug to keep you tuning into the blog. In the evening, we did
allow Claire to choose dinner and a special activity. She chose sushi
to the chagrine of Taylor and Cecelia. Claire and I like the place that
she chose, because it has one of those bars that has the sushi on
different colored plates revolving around a center island. You just
grab the type that you like and stack the plates up in front of you.
When you are done eating, they total up the amount of your plates. At
least Cecelia and Taylor could order beef skewers to meet their
nutritional needs. After we ate our fill of sushi and other delicacies,
we broke out the birthday cake. Of course it was delicious. On the
inside it was a very light cake with pineapple filling. Yum
Pineapple!!!!!! 
After dinner the girls met our friends the Madsons to see the movie
"The Croogs in 3D. Unfortunately I was not able to attend. Because of
my visual impairment, I am unable to see 3D because I get headaches from
watching. There has to be a lawsuit in there somewhere for not
accommodating those of us that have the inability to see 3D or those
stupid 3D pictures that everyone stares at in order to pick out
the picture. I think there is a conspiracy by my friends to try and
drive me crazy when they see those pictures. They all smugly say, "Oh
yah, I can see the elephant in there." "Can't you see it Rusty?" as
they laugh behind their hands. I bet there isn't anything really
there. I do have some friends that would do that, they are called
brothers.
Anyway, I will get back to the present. After I dropped off the girls
at the movies, I rode my moto over to the driving range to pick up my
golf clubs. I was picking them up, because I was going to be coaching
the family that took us to the amazing resort I mentioned a few weeks
back. Just before I got to the range the wind started to blow heavily.
Thunder and Lightening began to develop as well. As I parked my moto, a
large lightening strike hit nearby and a huge thunderclap ensued.
With that done, the rain came down like a shower head. Fortunately I
was spared the rain, but I ended up being stuck at the driving range.
Now you wouldn't think in my case that this would be a bad thing right?
Wrong!!!! As a golfer I have read too many stories about golfers being
struck by lightening, because they happened to be holding up a
stainless steal lightening rod in their hands. Along with the continued
rain, the thunder and lightening intensified. It was quite the storm.
It rained so hard that I watched the driving range change from grass to
a lake in literally ten minutes. Even if I was stupid enough to hit
balls, when you hit a ball it wouldn't have mattered. There was so much
water coming off the roof of the driving range that it practically
knocked the ball down when they were hit. How do I know this without
hitting balls? There were a few intrepid Chinese golfers still whacking
away while the storm was going on.
I thought that the rain would stop a little while after the rain
started, but three hours later I had to be saved by my friend Michael
who came to the range to practice. After the movie, Cecelia put the girls in a taxi with the Madsens and then rode her
scooter home. At least she had a poncho and raincoat. On the way back
she told me a story while laughing about one section that she rode
through that came up to her ankles while she was on the scooter. It
was a good thing that she was riding Paul's old scooter at the time. We
realized later that if she had been riding her scooter that she would
have probably shorted out the batteries on hers, because the batteries
on her scooter are in the floor. We all made it home and dried off. Claire had a great day and is
looking forward to her present. I have included a little present I made
for her as well. I have been waiting a long time to make this slide
show. The reason is because I found this song from Paul Simon and have
wanted to use it for a special occasion. I think becoming a teenager is
a special enough occasion. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed
making it.
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