Nana and Pappaw

I'm so grateful my girls know all 4 of their grandparents. Now, we don't get to see them every week or month or even every few months, but my girls still know our parents well. Skype visits on the computer are a beautiful thing. And when our parents visit, we get lots of quality time together. Kevin and I realize how fortunate we are that all of our parents are willing and able to make the long haul over here to visit. Let's face it; international travel is not for wimps. But leave it to family to endure the expense, time, TSA screenings, bad airline food, and hours of waiting in airport lobbies just to get some hugs from their grand kids. And I think Kevin's mom deserves some big kudos this time because even though she had a total knee replacement surgery a few months back, she was able to make the big trip. Nana and Pappaw were really flexible with whatever we threw their way. They brought us goodies, gave Kevin and me some date times together, were my constant dishwashers, and played "Hi-Ho Cherry-O" for hours on end with the girls! Hooray for grandparents! We were excited to show them our new city. Of course, we had to make it to Old Town one evening. And unknown to us, the city was hosting a huge dinner at Old Town to celebrate the new year for the Y minority on their lunar calendar. The funny thing is most Y people don't even celebrate this holiday (because they generally celebrate the Han Lunar New Year), but the local gov't wants to encourage business and tourism so they threw a big bash. The main street, which normally has cars hustling and bustling through, was closed down and instead hundreds of people were sat down to dinner.

They also had several stages and performances going at each stage. Most of the songs they danced to or sang had drinking as a big theme.

Folks would also walk around and sing to various tables. Again, most songs were drinking songs. Basically, they were singing, "Bottoms up!"

Back at the house, in preparation for Thanksgiving Nana and Pappaw were able to help us work on our Thankful tree.

Here's just a little bit of what we're grateful for this year. You can tell my 5 year old contributed quite a bit to the tree.

Thanksgiving Day 2011. You have to love the camera timer. And the seriously intense face on my 2 year old. Don't let these pics fool you...she is a HAM to the CORE and as crazy as the rest of us!

We had lots of time for pretend tea parties, reading books together,

morning snuggles on the couch,

and good old play time at the swings.

One day Kevin's dad got to join him in seeing some of the countryside, and on another day Kevin took his parents up to Dali to enjoy a little cormorant fishing.

We also headed to the big city for a few days of vacation and showed them around the big zoo. Nana's new knee held up well with all the stairs! I was really impressed!!

We hoped to hold a tiger cub again, but when we got to the "animal kindergarten" these were the only cubs we saw. And no one was going to be holding these big beasts. Do tiger cubs really grow that quickly in 4 months or are these different ones altogether? Guess we'll never know.

But you can always count on some fun Chinglish signs to add to the day's entertainment.

At the panda exhibit we had to bust out our best Kung Fu Panda imitation. Pappaw threatened to make this our next p....r card, for those of you who know what I mean. :)

Nana and Pappaw, thank you for blessing us and making the trip. We are certainly grateful for your support and encouragement. We love you!