Still Haven't Found Jon Huntsman

Well, it took me more than a month but I finally saved up the 12 dollars needed to renew my American IP address.
You see, the only good thing about the internet in China are the millions of bootleg movies you can watch for free. Or maybe that's the only bad thing about the internet in China, I guess it depends on how honest of a person you are. So having a Chinese IP address is just bollocks. All the blogs are banned and so is that youtube site. So when I first got here I bought an American IP address so I could boogie board the web (I'm not at surfing status just yet) without any censorship. But it turned out that the address was only good for a month and then you had to pay more money for more months. But I didn't have more money so I had to get a job writing fortune cookie fortunes. They had me working really long hours, so if you get a fortune that reads "brain too ungood to write lucky cookie phrase" and your lucky numbers are "purple monkey dishwasher" I'm really sorry.

A lot has happened since my last post, for example Farrah Fawcett passed away on the worst possible day a celebrity could pass away on: the day Michael Jackson died.

But in opposite news, my husband celebrated his 26th birthday! Since I spent all of my fortune cookie money on my IP address I had to make him a gift with my bare two own hands.
This thing

His ties were just lying around collecting essence of mushu pork so I decided to make them their own little forbidden city.

China really brings out the genius in me, am I right?

Before After

I know it's a pretty pitiful present but that's what he gets for bringing me to a country that doesn't have an Albertson's right down the street where I can buy him a flashlight and a bucket of neapolitan ice cream like I usually do for his birthday.

Here are very many pictures for those of you who like seeing pictures.
For those who don't like pictures, GET OFF MY BLOG!

This is at the aquarium, the largest inland aquarium in our solar system. It was very auspicious.

The kids finished all their dried seaweed (that's what Evan's holding in the bottom picture) so they got to eat cotton candy for the first time in their lives while they watched the dolphin show.


June 1st was Children's Day, so Z caught the kids some grasshoppers. That's not a Chinese tradition or anything, Z just really likes grasshoppers.

Go ahead and click on the picture. My kids aren't abnormally small, those are just some really big grasshoppers.

This is the same lake the 2008 Summer Olympian Triathletes swam in. It's just down the street from our house.

Kids in puddles in the front yard.

Everything I Love About China

It's shaped like a giant chicken with its feet cut off!







Because the feet are the tastiest part.

Hi Everybody!

I guess I better hurry and write something before people start calling China and asking for me. If you've been thinking I drowned in a bowl of noodles or was eaten by a dragon (they have those here) don't worry I'm safe and sound, although there was a noodle incident, but I was never really in much danger, just a bit tangled.

The reason I haven't blogged in so long was because the batteries in the mouse died and the new ones were all the way over there. So my husband brought me over the laptop but he left before I could tell him it had no power and to please plug it in. So instead of turning my head slightly to the left to see if there was an outlet nearby, I decided to teach my kids about outlet safety: only plug things in if Mommy tells you to. We've got a really neat laptop that takes 2 months to charge, so that's the reason for my absence.

Anyway, we all made it to China, and I'm able to blog from behind the bamboo curtain because we have an American IP address, yippee! Now I can rummage through all of your blarbage without my IP address giving me away. And I can access sights like hulu and cwtv.com; I don't think I could go on living without knowing who America's Next Top Model was.

I just need to be careful about what I say about China, or the next time you see me I'll be on display at the body worlds exhibit, skinless and playing shuffleboard.

So yahoo, I'm able to blog, but because I'm millions of miles away from my birth family, I think I'll just use this blog as a way to keep them up to date on our wacky China life. I may even rename this blog "The Tong Family Adventures: Our Zany Life in a Blogshell".
Most of my posts will probably look a little something like this:


Picture Overload!


Today we went to China. It was fun. The kids were really good on the airplane and the food was actually pretty good, too. LOL!

This is just a picture I took while we were waiting at the San Fran airport. The chairs weren't very comfy but that didn't stop Z from taking a little nap, lol. He's so crazy!

Evan loved the flat escalators. When Extreme Makeover: Home Edition makes over our home I'll ask them to put one in his airport themed room.











Remember that scene in Honey I Shrunk the Kids, when they're all sleeping in the blue lego?
It's so romantic! ~sigh~





So everyone feel free to extinguish your visits to this blog; it's about to get pretty normal in here.

Yes, I'm Moving to China!

I'm a bit puzzled as to why so many of you are so concerned about my husband moving to China.
He's from China, remember?
Haven't any of your husbands packed up and moved to their places of origin?

I hope I didn't give you the impression that he left me and the kids for good. He would NEVER do that; not while I'm holding the buy-eleven-Cafe-Rio-entrees-get-the-twelfth-one-free card. We've already bought the first ten but we're waiting to buy the eleventh and get our freebie for our 50th wedding anniversary. As long as I have that card nothing can come between us. He'd die before he'd waste a free meal.

Anyway, he has been wanting to move back to China for a long time now, but we have stayed here because I have a huge crush on garbage disposals, dishwashers and the freedom to blog. So we've stayed in America; he getting up early ever morning and going to work, and I staying home with the kids and flirting with my crushes; life was good... for me. He, on the other hand, was continually stressed and worried. He was working at a job that was great for the present, but didn't have much of a future; no ladder to climb. He kept telling me that if we lived in China he could find a much better job where we could actually save money! I kept telling him life was fine how it was; I could keep living like this forever. So what if I didn't have insurance; I'd just be extra careful when feeding stray wolves and playing with my garbage disposal. And who really needs to own a home anyway? Renters don't have to unclog their own toilets. So just calm down, honey and go to work. The kids are Asian, they'll get all the scholarships they need.

But one day while I was putting my kids' pictures on glass jars and writing "pwees feed me" on them and then asking grocery store owners if I could place the jars at the check-out counters, I realized that I'm kind of a selfish person. My husband was in a foreign country, speaking a foreign language and trying to understand this foreign culture; all while trying to support his family. If I expected him to be the one to earn the living then maybe he should be the one to decide where that living was lived. So I called him up at work and said lets go!

So he left to get things ready for our arrival, but now that he's been there for a couple weeks, and has seen his beloved country through the eyes of an American, he's realized it's not the perfect wonderland he remembered it as. Now that he has the good old United States of Awesomeness to compare it to, he's having second thoughts on weather or not to raise his family there. But that would mean the kids and I living here while he travels back and forth every few months. Which would be sweet if I couldn't stand this guy and only wanted to see him every couple months. But I can stand him, that's the problem. And I don't want him to always be flying back and forth over the Pacific Ocean; if they'd hurry and finish the under-water tunnel I read about then maybe I wouldn't mind so much, but air travel really freaks me out. Men weren't meant to fly; they were meant to tunnel and scooter. So, it's off to China we go, but not until next month. So I have time to perfect my squatting position; I'm getting really good at it, I've been squatting the entire time I've been typing this, and have only fallen over maybe 58 times.

Sorry I still haven't had the chance to make it over to all of your blogs. I share this computer with my three little brothers and my parents. So I've had to learn how to share. They're behind me right now, just waiting for their turn and wondering why I'm squatting. But once I move out I'll be sure to catch up on all of your blogs.
Thank you all for your thoughtful comments and emails.
I love you!
Really.

So Much Has Happened

I'll just start where I left off.

My last post was around Thanksgiving. I'm so sorry I ruined all of your dinners. I know you were going to say you were thankful for having me in your blife when it was your turn to give the thankful-for speech, and instead you had to say something lame like family or butterflies. Sorry.

Anyway, while you were making a fool of yourself I was visiting my family in Southern Utah, and watching that movie Twilight!

I only have one thing to say about it:

My heart totally belongs to EdWaRd...

Scissorhands!

Well maybe I have a few more things to say about it, like "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" or "What the?!"

I give Twilight a chuckle and a snort and 2 head shakes of disappointment.

After Thanksgiving came a lot of Rock Band and Diner Dash. I always thought the highest score you could get on Rock Band was five stars but one cold afternoon while the kids were monopoling the walls (they get monopoly money wet and stick it to the walls; it's beautiful!) I learned the truth. If you are on the expert level and doing a perfect performance those five stars will turn GOLD! The day it happened to me was the happiest day of my life! Sorry day my kids were born, but labor stings real bad.

December brought a couple birthdays.

Meici turned two! I love you, Meici! Even though I don't dress you like I do!

I also had a birthday; I turned 25! I haven't rented a car yet, but soon... soon.

We also celebrated Jesus' birthday, AKA Christmas.

I had a great Christmas. My husband is definitely getting better at this whole gift giving tradition. He grew up in a small town in China where Santa didn't visit and birthdays were forgotten. The very first time he ever opened a present was on his 21st birthday, and it was from me. (It was two pairs of boxing gloves so we could box, and this year I got him a nerf gun set so we could nerf; what's wrong with me?) And you remember the story of his first birthday cake when he turned 12; it was a wedding cake with a bride and groom on top that he thought were action figures; poor kid. Anyway, the first two Christmases we spent together weren't celebrated at all because we lived in China and most of the people in China don't know about Jesus and wisemen and shepherds and angels and Mary and Joseph and stars and gingerbread. So I was so excited for our first American Christmas; I decorated the house, made some stockings, trimmed the tree and bought a bunch of gifts. Christmas morning came and we all opened our presents, well I should say they all opened their presents; I didn't get anything, ANYTHING! He didn't get me ANYTHING!

The next Christmas was a teeny tiny bit better, he got me a machine that melts the cheese in my sandwiches.

That's all.

I got him a playstation 3.
Yeah.

I was kind of used to spending my Christmases crying tears of greed. I remember one year when I was a kid all I asked for was a trash can with a lid that opens when you step on the pedal. That's all I wanted, A TRASH CAN! I was an awesome kid. Anyway, Christmas morning came and there under the tree was my trash can, my lidless foot pedalless trash can.

Life stinks!

So this Christmas I was expecting a pillowcase or maybe a big box of TIDE, so imagine my surprise when I opened a brand new something special!

Thank you sweetums; I really loved it, even though I returned it.

That pretty much brings you all up to speed. Oh wait there's one more thing. The kids and I moved in with my parents because Z quit his job and moved to China.

Here's the Story

I was on the settings page, thinking about adding my blog to the listings and changing my settings so search engines could find me and wondering if I should enable transliteration, when the microwave beeped.
The corndogs were ready.
I got up from the computer, leaving the settings page on the screen.
Meici was in the kitchen staring at the microwave.
I got the corndogs out and then placed them back in the freezer to cool off.
Meici and I started counting down, 10-9-8-7-6-5-4 -3-2-1... CORN DOG TIME!!!
No not yet Meici, now do it in Chinese, yi-er-san-si-wu-liu-chi-ba-jiu-shi!
Okay now they're ready, here's your corn dog, but where's Evan, he never misses the corn dog countdown.
I walk down the hall and find him at the computer; he better not have posted some of my unfinished drafts, that would be terrible.

Little did I know that he could do much worse than post my draft about how Chinese cab drivers asked me to teach them naughty English words, and all I could come up with were poopsicle and jabberwocky.

He could do much worse.

Have you noticed that the DELETE THIS BLOG button is big and blue and one of the only clickable buttons on that settings page?
Well it is.
I know he's only 3 and a half but he can work a mouse like a four year old. Probably because he spends hours and hours every day popping virtual bubble wrap.

I keep telling myself that he didn't mean it, that is was only an accident.
He knows the word "Dog" starts with a D, so maybe he thought by clicking the DELETE button, he would get a puppy.

But I can't help but think he knew exactly what he was doing. Maybe this was his way of saying, "Mom, that's enough!"

So, I'm going to take this as a sign and see what my life would be like without blogging.
Part of me is saying, "But Mary, a blogless life is not worth living!!!"
But the other part is saying, "Yes, she's absolutely right; you listen to her Mary! BLOG, NOW! "
But the two most important parts of me, the parts that are pulling on my arms and legs right now demanding to be fed, are saying "Feed me!"
Maybe I was spending too much time in front of the computer.
Do you want to know what we had for dinner last week?
Sandwiches, cereal and leftover cereal.
I think it's time for me to start getting my priorities straight. My family deserves a little Pasta Roni every once in a while.

I'll be back, I promise.

Blog Suicide Perhaps?

Suicide? Are you kidding me? That glob of blog was a rising star.
Had you noticed how many followers it had up until it's death?
Thousands!
And every single one of it's posts had at least a couple hundred comments; even that post announcing the return of egg nog.
I even heard it was approaching it's 200th post and had something so amazing planned that all the other blogs would be telling their blogkids about it for decades to come.
This blog was so weak and in love with attention, it never even thought about thinking about committing suislog.

No, this blog was... murdered!






I'll tell you all what happened someday, but right now it's too hard to type through the tears.
I should really get back to my crying corner.