For Sharon...

The family on Sunday in our 2009 shirts. Dress code was green 2010 shirts for Saturday and last years orange for Sunday. Glad we didn't throw out the old ones like we wanted...

The apple eating contest. Angie was going for last ... and made it. We noticed most of the games they like to play were banned while we were kids in the USA. Musical chairs where one adults snatches a seat out from under someone and they fall and everyone laughs. Who can eat an apple the fastest (without choking). Who can hold their breath the longest (without drowning), etc.
Lifeguard duty. Do you choose to sit in the blazing sun or under the umbrella that is holding in all the heat?? Decisions, decisions.
Looking awesome for the pre-trip group photo.
Can you find the white folks?!?

Women huddled in the shade.
This is a 2009 shot since we never got a picture of Craig in his green one.
Another 2009 shot.
The end!

What a Cool Nickname!

When we got to the beach on Saturday for our Family Trip with some neighbors, the first thing the kids found was this awesome sliding board with a really cool nickname! In order to make the slide more exciting they spray painted on its side: BROKEN DANGER

It was like all those signs when you go to ride The Beast or Tower of Terror some such roller coaster. They all have signs that say: Go Back! Do Not Enter! eware!! and the B is all bitten off or whatever.

Well, we thought it was a cool advertising slogan or something but ... how can you know? Lesser parents might have said, "Oh, honey it clearly says, 'Danger Broken' so stay away." But not us! We know the only way to know if its broken is to try it for ourselves!

We elected Hudson for the first attempt. When it turned out well, we decided the only way to know for sure was if we pushed it a bit. So we recruited a few more kids and threw them all on it at once.
Turns out the thing is neither BROKEN nor DANGEROUS. Its just a slide and its all for the best anyway. What if someone got hurt? You can hardly sue if they painted a warning right on the side, you know!?!

Now Intestine Free!

For lunch today we tried these new smoked sausages we found. After buying them we saw the main selling point: Tiada Usus!

Now in the middle the thing says "skinless" but as you can see from an internet dictionary, "usus" doesn't mean "skin" it means "intestines".
I'm no fool and since I have watched River Cottage more than a few times, I know real sausages come from grinding up an animal's meat and then feeding the meat back into its own intestines and smoking the package. But these tasty treats were delightfully free of intestines.

Its got me thinking about how many things should be sold with that tag: Now With No Intestines! Popsicles, soda pops, pizza. No ... wait ... can't use pizza, can you? Not a Meat Lovers anyway. Oh well, guess I need to give it a bit more thought.

The Finale

One great thing about homeschool is that you can take time off for important events. Important events like the American Idol finale. Its a fun time to sit and listen to how my children haven't been impacted by US culture.

We have Nick, Disney, and E! and we get a lot of US movies but its still not uncommon to hear my kids say, "I don't know who that is." Pop culture moves so fast that after almost 3 years outside America we have almost no idea who most famous people are nowadays.

One perk during the American Idol finale is they bring back old artists like Hall and Oates so Mom and Dad at least know something. Plus, we get the added benefit of saying, "Wow, they are old-looking!" I guess its better than becoming odd-looking but then again they did have the Alice Cooper black-eyed youth choir...

You're Fired!

One thing I always loved about cartoons was the trap door. Sometimes in life we desperately need a trap door to feed some fool to a pool of hungry sharks. Like whoever had this idea:

Its Pizza Hut's FISH KING pizza. It features as its main attraction eight fish sticks arranged tantalizingly around the pie. BUT WAIT! There's more than just fish sticks here, the part you can't really read goes on to list the other bits of deliciousness awaiting you: crabsticks and cool, lime mayo. How can you resist?!?

I wonder how that pitch meeting went. What other horrid ideas had to be laid on the table that made a fish stick pizza look like a good bet? How about a large pizza with six human hairs baked into the cheese? Or maybe a horse-lovers pizza made with various horse meat parts!

Which brings up an interesting story. Recently we were talking with some neighbors about a Louisville Cardinal shirt we gave their son. We explained the cardinal was the school's mascot since the cardinal is our state bird in Kentucky. So they asked the obvious question: Can you eat this bird, the cardinal?

We just sat there dumbstruck. Why would a person want to eat a cardinal?!? Finally we managed a weak, "Uh, no. You can't eat them." "Why?" they pressed. "Because its a cardinal and not a duck or a chicken," we wanted to say. Instead the best answer we could come up with was, "I think its illegal to kill one since its the state bird." And that made total sense to them.

Which brings me back to the trap door. Sometimes in life we just need to make a person disappear immediately, without discussion. Sometimes people put forth an idea like fish stick pizza or eating a cardinal and they only response we should give is to make them disappear and then ask the ones remaining, "Any other ideas?"

*Special thanks to Tim Hurst for the great cardinal picture!

Ronald is out to get Caleb

Mother's Day '10

The celebration started early for Angie with breakfast in bed, expertly prepared by our crack staff!

Some eggs and toast with a nice note and some sweet tea.
The kids brought up the iPod, too, for some Michael Buble mood music. A nice way to start the day.
Every day we should make Mom feel special. Most days we don't!
In the afternoon we got a Starbucks chocolate cream chip frappucino for her and then a mani-pedi. Later we got some tasty naan and curry while she opened up her presents (which is weird in SE Asia, normally presents are not opened in front of the giver).


So there you have it. We know we should've done better for Moms and Grandmas in the States. We'll try to do better when we are in person next year!!

Yeah, that is what I thought you said

Hallmark cards have nothing on the romance of t-shirts in Asia. They are so full of love and incomprehensibility. You can say anything you want and slap two teddy bears and a heart. BAM! Romance!

I have seriously considered bringing back shirts like this for every Christmas gift for family members but assume no one will wear them. You need to be a pretty cool teenager to wear something like this. Some of the dumber kids will think you didn't know it wasn't an Ambercrombie shirt and will make fun of you. That is simply because they aren't cool enough to wear something no one else can imitate.

I do know a few cool people (i.e. Brian Pickerel) who can wear cool stuff and make it look awesome. How few there are, though, who can carry it off. I guess my cottage industry making fun of Asian English will have to wait a few more years. Until then I can only imagine Old Navy ripping off my idea and intentionally trying to produce shirts like this one.

Speaking of fruit

You know your fruit is pretty ripe when you open it up and find baby trees! For those of you who have never cut up your own papaya this is what it looks like inside. Maybe most closely resembles a cantaloupe in its consistency and how it gets cleaned.

But never did I open a cantaloupe to find budding seeds. I thought of just taking the papaya half and planting the whole thing, seeds and all, to start my own orchard but decided it was too hot!
This is nothing compared to friends who say they have cracked an egg only to have a baby bird fall out. That is ripe!

Lets Hear it for Genetically Modified Food!

Sure there can be some problems with modifying genes (i.e. three-eyed fish). But when you can make a chicken lay 3 eggs or a cow give gallons of extra milk, how can it be bad??

And an even better example:

If you can grow a mango the size a of man's hand, I'm not too concerned about what laws of nature had to bend to make it possible. If you can sell it super cheap on top, I'll buy with my eyes closed! YUMMY! Plus, I'm thinking if we can inject enough preservatives, I'll never need to be embalmed.

French (Fry) Toast

Doesn't this look tempting? A basket of two curry puffs and french (fry) toast. Actually, its neither french toast nor are they french fries. That is butter cut so expertly that it looks like a crinkle cut fry on a piece of toast.

But sometimes when you live outside your own culture you get things you'd never expect, then you get used to it. A couple of weeks ago on the show Bizarre Foods the guy was eating fish head curry and Hudson said, "Fish head curry? That is not a weird food."