Happy Easter!

Hope you've had a great day celebrating the most important event in history! We've had a full but fun day.

This evening, some friends invited us to join in on an Easter egg hunt they planned for some neighborhood kids. I was really glad for the opportunity since I had not planned ahead to dye eggs and there are no plastic eggs to be found anywhere in town! And of course, it's more fun to have an Easter egg hunt with lots of other kids!

The adults actually hid the eggs twice. The first go-around Grace enjoyed finding the eggs, but the second time she was too busy looking at the bucket-fulls of candy that were out. I think she had her first offical sugar-high tonight. It was a beautiful day today!
A little friend came by to add to Grace's basket.


Of course, egg hunts are unheard of here, so many onlookers were very curious as to what was going on. Some elderly grandmas saw what was happening but didn't understand it was just for the kids. They grabbed some hard-boiled eggs for themselves, too, and started stuffing them in their pockets! :)

time to celebrate

And now we take a break from all things Asian-focused to celebrate with those we love dearly in America. Here are a few things we're excited about:

• Today is my dad's birthday. Everyone in blogland, say "Happy Birthday, Jim Gerlt!" We love you Dad (aka Papa) and look forward to celebrating with you in person next spring.
• My sister Angela's 3rd child, baby Ava, will be making her debut in May. Can't wait to meet her! Fortunately, Ava will still be small when we get to meet her next fall, so we won't miss out too much on that baby stage.
• My brother, Chad, just got a major promotion and is now owner/operator of a Chick-Fil-A store in Oklahoma City. We're so proud of you, Chad, and Erin too! (His wife Erin was also a part of the interview process.)
• My best friend, Kristen, is pregnant with baby #2, and I could not be more thrilled that I'll get to be in Lubbock, USA when this baby is born. PERFECT timing. I missed out when her firstborn Carter arrived, so I have much catching up to do.
• And last but not least, Mom and Dad Godin arrive to our city this coming Tuesday, and Kevin's sister Kimberly is flying all the way from North Africa a week later! Yay for family who will travel!

family day

Since Kevin has to be gone for the next SEVEN days (sniff, sniff), we decided to have a big fun outing and head to the zoo. It was Grace's very first trip to the zoo, and she was so excited. She loved it more than we even thought she would! Seeing animals live was thrilling to her. She had to say goodbye to all the animals as we went from one exhibit to the next. She even got to ride some rides for the first time. Guess we'll be doing this again!

She loved the bunnies but didn't want to get too close.
"Can I get in those cages?"
When we stopped for lunch, WE became the zoo exhibit. We're used to it, though.
"Hi, tiger!!!"
"Aunt Kimberly, do the camels where you live look like this?"

hamming it up...
She had to stick out her tongue like the giraffes did.
This ride was thrilling to her. She kept yelling, "how fun, how fun!" in Chinese.
"Hey Dad, I'm on a ride!"

burn, baby, burn

Kevin has been quite the biker these days. Who can blame him? The weather's been great. And it sure beats taking the bus or spending more money on cabs. He recently got a new gizmo for his bike. It includes an odometer, speedometer, calorie-counter, measures average speed, etc. You name it and this thing's got it. (It really deserves a name; too bad I don't know what it's called.) Today alone Kevin clocked one and a half hours on the bike and went just under 20 miles while out and about taking care of business. Then, he still went to the gym and worked out tonight. Makes me tired just thinking about it. Way to go, Kevin!

out came the sun...

and dried up all the rain!

We took advantage of beautiful Saturday weather to spend several hours outdoors. I think everyone in our city was thinking the same! We went out for sushi and dumplings, enjoyed walking in the sun, and went to our favorite drink place.

You can't tell from this picture, but Grace absolutely loves to ride the bus. Which, of course, calls for lots of singing "The Wheels on the Bus." This particular day, although it was sunny, she still insisted on wearing her hat.

Fortunately, we had a seat, because a few stops later it was standing-room only.
It was a beautiful day for sitting outside to people-watch...
or to be watched.
While we were out, Grace scored a shopping cart and food accessories. It was only about $3 and will probably fall apart soon, but we have been doing much pretend shopping the last 2 days. According to Grace, everything you might want to buy EVER costs 7 rmb. She goes around telling us that everything costs, "qi kuai qian! qi kuai qian!" (which means, 7 local dollars.)