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lunch with elder hansen from brooke taylor on Vimeo.

Hello, Hello! 

After church we ran into lots of Mandarin speaking missionaries, two sets of sisters and three sets of elders. Chase was invited by one set to participate in a quick discussion. Last night I cooked three frozen pizzas and stuck them in the fridge. We ate those under the temple in the parking lot, along with everything else we cleared out of the fridge when we checked out...a fresh pineapple and some other random snacks...green olives and boiled eggs and crackers. We drove to Mt. Coot-tha, a botanical garden, hiking and biking area with a lookout point. There were four tv stations up on the top as well. We took a hike to take Chase's senior pics at Simpson Falls. He was thrilled! Twenty-two years ago today Todd and I were engaged. We celebrated by spending 7 hours at the airport charging all manner of technical devices and trying to keep our baby birds fed. Well, I was. Todd's still nose down in his book. Our flight was from 1AM-7:30AM.  It was fun to watch people coming and going, saying good bye and hello. We also enjoyed watching flight crews pass by.  Some had interesting uniforms.  One batch of stewardesses looked like I Dream of Jeanie with things hanging off of their hats.  Chase liked the purple suits for the men that looked like the Joker.  

Monday: arrived at the airport, made it through customs and picked up our luggage. That is where the fun stopped.  We purchased tickets to get home on the ferry but when we crossed through customs, they would not let us back in to the ferry terminal.  So instead of getting home quickly, it turned into another 4 hours of trying to get back in, find another way home, etc.  Finally our go to cross border driver, David, came and picked us up and took us home. We are very lucky he was available that day because 7 of us with all of our bags would have been hard to get home via subway or bus and multiple changes, stairs, tickets, lines, etc.  All was well at home. We were able to rest and get ready for the week.  Chase and Brigham had basketball practice.  Missing so much the blue skies, open stretches of land and clean air of Australia.  It was hard to come back.  

Tuesday: Yao Feng came today and made us the best stir fried green beans and fried rice.  It was so good she made us another batch.  Our noisy house got suddenly quiet with a bunch of hungry kids eating delicious food.  Back to school, seminary, running errands and laundry. Brooke is busy making videos of our trip and our visit with Chase Hansen. 

Wednesday: Hiked with Rhoda in the misty rain, my favorite!  Time to get some mission errands completed so Chase and I got a taxi to Old Shekou.  Here we dropped of his suit to be altered, went to Peter, the "eye dr.", found a mission bag for Chase and grabbed lunch and a pizza dough ball from Benny's Pizza.  Back home for an hour and then Joyce took Chase and me to get his China criminal background check.  This required Joyce picking up and filling out a form, taking us to a police station, to a notary office, back to the police station, finding out it was the wrong police station, off to another station who sent us to another station, filled out paperwork, back to notary office and then back to 2nd police station.  By this time it was after 5 and the notary officer we had been carting around said he was off work now, and told Chase to  come back to the notary office in the morning with 125RMB to get the certificate.  Everything is made to be so difficult here, with lots of wasted time, workers, and paper.  So much paperwork and duplicate copies of things. 

Thursday: I left after seminary for the Asia Area Women's Conference in Hong Kong. I traveled with Cherie (she's a hoot), ate Thai food and fresh juice from a grocery store, went to the temple and met our other friends after checking into the conference.  They went out to eat, I went  to choir practice.  Brigham had a basketball game so he and Chase rode the subway there.  Todd had late work meetings. Opening session for the conference was at 7PM-small musical group I was in did not sound good! Needed more than an hour of practice I guess.  Went to an Asian cafe for lemon water and hot chocolate. The lemon water is popular here, just ice, lemon, and simple syrup served in a tiny pitcher on the side with a long spoon.  This city is still alive and well at 10:30PM  We have Elsa, Milani, Joyce, Cherie, Anna, Alicia, Rhoda and me from Shenzhen attending the conference, I love them all. Off to the hotel, pooped! 

Friday: Anna had us up and at the gym around 6AM. The conference started at 9:00 am. We grabbed hot chocolate and pastries at starbucks (loved sitting by the window and watching the Honk Kong morning rush), treats and marks & spencer (get the milk chocolate chip shortbread)  and hurried to the Wan Chai church office building.  I met lots of new friends, saw Steve and Kathleen Alder's daughter, Karen, Angie Curtis' friend, Sarah Phillips,  Seth Hiatt's wife, Paula and Erika Garner who I met in college, etc.  SMALL WORLD! We had two classes, lunch-greek chicken salads, fruit, cookies and then two more classes, group photos, country photos and then off shopping, to dinner at LAH, a noodle restaurant (Noel, you would love the decor) and back to the hotel.  My favorite classes were on parenting and enduring to the end--lots of good stories and things to work on and improve.  I was impressed at the variety of women here, and the stories they had to tell.  Todd took the kids bowling and watched Harry Potter with the girls. Joyce, Rhoda, Cherie, Alicia and I went shopping at the ladies market, Mong Kok area.  We ended the night with fresh coconut milk and walking home in the rain.  

Saturday:  Todd up early and running with Jeff.  I had two more classes and then the final general session before we were off to get last things from the grocery store, a new camera lens for Brooklyn and to mail Ally a package.  By the time I headed to the ferry I had five bags hanging off of me and a suitcase so heavy I was praying the handle wouldn't break.  I was greeted with a bouquet of flowers-thanks Todd!  I was bringing back bacon and cheese sticks and licorice and cans of soup, brown sugar, granola, quinoa, jam, lemon curd, fancy crackers and doritos.  I'm usually a star for a few minutes every time I come home from Hong Kong with groceries. I had to nap for a bit and then we were off to our friends, the Karlborgs, for Ulrika's 50th birthday party. She is a tiny personal trainer and DOES NOT look 50.  It was fun to be with all of their Swedish friends. I think we will have to use her guest list and invite the same group to our house when Ally returns home.  They sang happy birthday in Swedish including standing in the middle of the song, blank spaces for people to shout things and raising their glasses to toast the birthday girl.  The food was delicious. It was fun to be around friendly, happy, beautiful people, even if we didn't understand most of what they were saying.  It is so random what brings people to China.  Tonight there were furniture dealers, Ikea workers, LED light suppliers, International grocers, bankers, and people Todd works with in the electronics industry.  Back home we watched American Idol with the kids and Shane until my eyes couldn't stay open one.more.second.  Congrats to Penny, Todd's aunt, on her baptism! Sad to miss such a special day, but we hear that it was a perfect day.  They are such awesome examples to us of care, concern and service to others.  

Sunday: Todd's friend Tomi and his daughter came to church with us today. His wife Adi didn't make it but will try another time.  Brigham (and his super curly hair)  spoke today on the atonement and did a nice job.  Jeff Sears spoke about his experience in the Chinese jail for 10 days and what he learned about making right choices and consequences that follow.  (He was caught riding a scooter when the Chinese decided to enforce the law after not enforcing for years.)  Shane came over for dinner and we had chicken pie with pizza crust on top. Sophie and Brynn are memorizing the articles of faith for primary. Brooke is making pop tarts, round 2.  Shane beat us in Ticket to Ride before heading back home.  Signing the kids up for Youth Conference in April, a trek in Beijing with all the youth in China.   

That's all for now. Have a great week/spring break! Come visit! 

Love from China, 

Todd, Jane & family