thank goodness for internet tv

I know what you all must be thinking... "Where has Heidi been?"

I'll tell you where I have been....

with this stud.

I've been catching myself up on seasons 6 and 7 of 24 while I have the time.

Does anyone remember when I was mildly obsessed with Jack Bauer? Because I was. It's the show. It's him. He just makes you believe ya know?

Whew. Anyways...

Kevin came home a few days ago, so things are getting back to normal. And one of our jobs as his co-best friends it is to make sure he is well fed.

So tonight, when he came home for dinner we had a treat waiting for him.

Now, they're no Eric Reeves no bake cookies, but they were darn good. (my brother makes the best no bakes I have ever tasted)

Little delicious drops of turds.

We finished the evening with Michael Scott.

Robin supposedly comes home tomorrow. I might stake outside his room all day waiting for him. I miss that crazy Chinese man.

5 days till weekend retreat in Beijing with the team.

7 days till classes start

I wonder how much more internet tv I can watch by then...

kisses.

Beijing Blog-Off 2010

Tim is back and being a bum like us, so we decided to head out to visit him for the afternoon and make lunch.

He still has his Christmas tree up. I'm already looking forward to Christmas next year.

We were like a restaurant, like a team today.

I was on the dish pit. My personal favorite part of the kitchen.

Kylie was in charge of the mac & cheese.

Her mac & cheese is always delicious.

And she was in charge of the biscuits, just add water!

Tim, our chicken wing man.

Beautiful mess to clean.

MMmm delicious! Just like B Dubs.

And then it was time to eat.

We were a family again, with our true American meal.

Chicken wings make your hands dirty.

After lunch I got right back in that kitchen and got to work cleaning. Just something about being at the sink that calms me...

We spent the next few hours transferring (stealing) movies and TV series from Tim. We're so cool.

BUT finally after a long long trip, and sleeping in the Beijing airport overnight.....

They made it back home!

Oh how happy we are! We were missing social interaction. But she immediately left us to go take a nap and shower. We understood.

So, as most of my 6 readers already know, Kara is a very excellent, faithful blogger. We love to blog and share our crazy experiences with others. Well Tim also blogs, gives us the male perspective of his China experiences. So Kylie decided today to have a Blog-Off. In a few weeks we will be in Beijing for a retreat with our team and leaders. She is going to judge our blogs based on that weekend in Beijing, she even made a grading rubric for how she will judge us.

How can I compete with Kara's? I'm sick just thinking about it. I am just hoping that after spending the past 6 months with Kylie, I will know how to appeal to her senses, while staying true to my blogging self.

2 weeks, competition begins.

kisses.

does everyone know how to do this?

This post may embarrass me, bore you a little, but it will definitely showcase my lack of domestic skills. I am also hoping it makes you wish you could hang out with me because my life is so cool...

Ever since we got back from Thailand we have been craving pineapple, oh the goodness of the freshly cut pineapple. We had to have some and we see them at the supermarket but the only thing that holds us back from making the purchase is we just don't know how to cut that darn fruit.

So we took the plunge and brought one home. First step.. google.... "how to cut a pineapple"

and ya know what... there is a site just for that...

Tools:

Sharp knife

Cutting board

Pineapple

Put the pineapple on its side and cut off the stalk.

Good job Kylie

Cut off the top of the pineapple.

Please notice the giant knife I had to switch to, those are my hands now btw

Cut off the bottom of the pineapple.

Put the pineapple on its side and cut the skin off of the sides

Good job Heidi

Continue cutting around the pineapple until you have cut all of the skin off of it.

Depending on your knife skill you will most likely have some nasty brown skin left, you can remove these with a potato peeler.

Place the pineapple on its side and begin cutting slices. (I know, there is still skin on it, we were too lazy)

Cut cut cut until the entire thing has been sliced up.

And the last step, which we didn't do.... so I took a picture of the computer screen instead

The cutting of the core.

Okay so this isn't a food blog, obviously I don't cook, and the thought of me in the kitchen makes my stomach hurt, but ya know what... I am one step closer to being that domestic girl I dream of one day. Thank you howtocutapineapple.com. I learned something today.

I don't have a whole lot going on these days....

kisses.

what if America didn't have firework laws?

Chinese New Year's Eve... I didn't really know what to expect. But then I was woke up at 7 am by fireworks, and for the rest of the day, it continued. It sounded like we were getting shot at, like a war zone. I knew it was going to be a memorable night.

So later that day we headed downtown...

The city was dead.

All we could hear was the 360 degree fireworks show that was happening around us...

Every direction you looked there were huge fireworks going off.

Adam and Kylie and I were going to dinner downtown to meet Steve. Steve is a 55 year old British man who teaches at my school. He was bringing some of his friends, whom I have never met, but was assuming were interesting people...

Steves friends included Octavio age 35? from LA, Alberto age 40? from Italy, and Tom, age 33 from Australia. I think you can imagine how strange the conversation was.

But we got fancy bottles of Snow. And we had the whole restaurant to ourselves.

We don't hang out downtown unless it is to eat McDonald's or shop. We know nothing about downtown Qinhuangdao after daylight. But after dinner we met at a cool bar that apparently all the foreigners go to. We also didn't know we had other foreigners until a few months ago, so we are learning all kinds of things about QHD.

We went to this place and met up with some more people that I did not know.

I know them.

There was a stage that was not being put to its potential.

And seeing as how Kylie and I were the ONLY girls, we became the entertainment.

And at midnight we all ran outside and... KISSED. Just kidding, they don't do that here.

We all went outside to watch the fireworks. It was even bigger at midnight!

It ended up being a very... interesting night, but I survived my first Chinese New Year...

However, I woke up this morning again at 7 am by the sound of fireworks, and it hasn't stopped yet.....

Happy Chinese New Year!

xoxo

February 14th... Special for many reason...

Today is my sister-in-laws birthday, Valentine's Day, and The Chinese New Year. Since I am currently in China celebrating the New Year, I have to celebrate the other 2 over the inner web.

Happy Birthday sister Teri.

You have been apart of our family forever!

And If I were there right now, I would babysit your kid so you and my brother could go get it on! Okay sick..

I love you sweet sister!

And speaking of love...

I know I don't really celebrate V-day... but...

Happy Valentines Day Marsh.

The only thing that could top last years Monster Truck rally....

is actually being together. One of these days we will make that happen.

I love you!

So if you have a loved one and you think Valentine's Day is lame (because it is) still go spend time with that person anyways and tell them how much you love them. You are lucky you get to be on the same continent together...

Happy Birthday Teri!

Happy Valentine's Day Marshall!

p.s. sorry for the mush

kisses.

QHD is getting cooler

So as all 5 of my readers know I am back home... my China home. And for those of you who are wondering why I am not at Winter's home in Ji'an lets just say, it didn't work out! Millions of people trying to travel out of Hong Kong... it was a bit difficult. But it has been great, while we would have loved to get to spend time with Winter and her family, we have loved just being home doing NOTHING. We needed it. Kylie and I realized we aren't really the "live out of backpacks for months" kind of girls. I think I already knew that about myself though...

We are enjoying being bums, but it is kind of lonely, no one is here, the stores are closed down for the holiday, and Robin isn't here to take care of us and make sure we are safe. Except there was something exciting we found out when we got home.

Downtown there was a new shopping mall built and it finally opened while we were gone, it has the typical strange Chinese stores inside and a HUGE supermakert on the 2nd and 3rd floor stocked with turkey flavored Cheetos and chicken feet, and a few western items we can't get at our supermarket. And the exciting part, get ready for it, on the 1st floor of this mall... is..... a.... PIZZA HUT!!!!!!! Big NEWS! And the grand opening... 2/12/2010. That was today.

We didn't eat a lunch so that we could pig out on pizza... Adam, Kylie, and I headed downtown at about 4:30 to check it out... we just didn't know it was going to be such big news to the rest of Qinhuangdao....

We were wrong....

Who knows how long these people were here for....

Of course no one spoke English to help us figure out what to do, but they pushed us over to this

The host stand? They wrote your number down and then you just waited....

This guy, the caller of the numbers, was given a megaphone.... bad idea. I think he wanted to punch me by the end because I kept yelling out our number 2 5 1 and he would say in English "I know"

The Chinese would laugh at us for taking pictures.

Adam somehow pushed his way to the inside where he was waiting in warmth...

We checked out the menu and would get trampled as the lucky ones whose numbers were called would push through the crowd with a victorious look on their face.

And finally we made it inside to the warmth to wait with Adam.

This little girl in the red somehow made it inside while the rest of her family froze outside and read the menu over her shoulder through the window.

Interesting.

And after an hour and a half we were finally seated!

This precious girl was our server.

Pizza Hut is fancy in China.

We ordered a giant pitcher of 7-UP.... Why 7-Up? Why not?

And we got bendy straws... (and it looks like my straw is eating Adam??)

Kylie and I first each ordered a large pizza each... we wanted leftovers, and our server was very surprised and said we should not order so much because we "looked thing" but we said we wanted to take it home.... So after about 5 minutes she comes back and tells us that we can not get the large.... because they were "out of ingredients" ??? Whatever that means.

So we ordered smalls. And don't ask what that thing in the middle is because I don't know.

Mmmm... cheese lovers.

Adam ordered a large... apparently there was enough ingredients for his large but not ours? Anyways, it was taking forever for his pizza to come out, so when we asked our cute little server she said "the big machine was broken and to wait 10 minutes" I just love their strange reasonings/excuses for things.

It finally showed up and it was LARGE. Stuffed crust, that's the way to do it.

I got dessert since I didn't get my large... and since I'm a fatty.

Yup... that's a brownie log.... I made the jokes you are all thinking.

And at the end we got free Pizza Hut discount cards that gives us 8.5% off our total bill everytime we go....AND we got...

This. It's a bag, but it's all folded up, but when you unfold it, it is AWESOME. It say PIZZA HUT in gold letters really big and has a strange pocket. I am going to look so cool at the supermarket. My green Chinese supermarket bag just blends in with the rest of the hundreds of people who use them at the market. Now I will really stand out... because being a foreigner gets no looks....

Total time spent at Pizza Hut.... we got there at 5:00 pm and left at 9:00 pm. Pretty eventful night. So don't worry about me being bored with no one to hang out with, we find ways to have fun.

The Chinese New Year Eve is tomorrow night... fireworks have been going on and they are insane. Seriously, if Cathy Cesar was here right now she would be scared to walk outside. They let them go anytime of the day, and you can't see them in the sky, just the noise. It is scary, but lots of fun! Who knows what my Chinese New Year Eve story will be like.... tune in for that.

kisses.