In Memory of Karen Rachel Jane Porter

We received word that Jonny's sister Karen died suddenly this morning. Karen was the wife of Richard, mother of Rebekah, 12, Erin, 10, and Ethan, 9 months, daughter of Sidney and Caroline Dallas, sister of Jonny, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, aunt, niece, cousin and friend to many. She was my inspiration to stay at home with my children. She will be missed by everyone whose life she touched especially her family. Please keep us in your thoughts as we travel back to Northern Ireland tomorrow.

11 years later...

Today is a very special day for us. 11 years ago Jonny and I were married in Nebraska amongst 150 of our family and friends, 21 of those people traveling from the UK. It seems like time has gone so quickly and it is crazy to say we have been married that long, but it has been a great 11 years and hope to have many more fabulous years!

Today we are going to Rai Ra Spa for the Honeymoon Spa package for 2! I don't really think Jonny knows what he is getting himself into, but I am sure he will enjoy it. We also have dinner reservations for two tonight at a restaurant over looking the ocean. It should be a good day!

Elephant Trekking

After our scooter outing we went back to the villa and picked up the kids and headed on a mini-safari on elephants. We went on an hour trek in to the most beautiful jungle area. There were pineapple plants, banana and coconut trees, spiders and snakes in the trees. The elephants were very gentle and took their time strolling us around eating and drinking almost everything in site.



Here is a group photo. Sadie and Rock both were able to ride on their elephants neck.



Here is Namueng Falls.



Jonny with the kids after our little adventure.

Just call me Crash

Yesterday we thought we would join Sadie and Rock in the tour of the island on scooters. We had done this while we were on our honeymoon 11 years ago, so I thought this will be a piece of cake. Unfortunately it wasn't as easy as it looked and as we were getting ready to go on our tour I crashed my scooter into a ditch across from our villa. This may not surprise many of you as I have never been known as a good driver. Luckily I wasn't seriously injured, but I do have a huge bruise on my right thigh from where the handlebar landed, a scrapped up left knee and a small chunk of my toe is missing.

After Dr. Jonny fixed my foot I climbed back on to my scooter and gave it another shot. We went to the tomb of the Mummified Monk. Here is an exert I found on the web about the the monk:

The mummified monk is located in a smaller building in Wat Khunaram. The monk known as Dang Piyasilo also Phra Kru Samathakittikhun. The venerable ex-abbot of Wat Khunaram on Koh Samui. A native of Koh Samui he enjoyed a long prosperous family life until he was 50 years old when he decides to devote the last part of his life to the monkhood. After being ordain in,he became reknown for his meditation practice for about 20 years. He was also able to foresee his own death in 1973 when he was 79 years old. After his death his body remained undecomposed so his family and disciples decided to place his body in an upright position with in the casket as requested by him in written instructions. To keep as a symbol to aspire the future generations to follow Buddhist teachings and be saved from suffering.

Here he is in his glass coffin. He has decomposed, but he looks pretty good for being dead for over 30 years.

Wat Khunaram

I needed to be blessed after my little accident.

After our visit to the temple we stopped at a scenic view to see the ocean. Here is a picture of Jonny and I at the view.

As we headed around the island we stopped at a British grocery store called Tesco. On Wednesday I went to a Thai cooking course for half of the day to learn how to cook these beautiful dishes we have been eating. I was very happy to hit a grocery store to try and find some of the ingredients to make Thai food to take back to the 'Du since the ingredients in Thai food is very hard to find in China. I found lots of different goodies like different curry pastes to make a few of my favorite Thai dishes.

Our next stop was Big Buddha.

This was an enormous Buddha! Here is the story of Big Buddha. It was a very impressive statue with other statues of Buddhas all around.

Here we are with a sleeping Buddha.

Big Buddha is located on a penisula and has spectacular views. We are standing directly in back of Big Buddha.



Here are pictures of our personal Buddhas, Jonny and Rock!

Sadie and Rock behind Big Buddha.

I had one other mishap with the scooter. As we were driving back to the villa I drove right into the bushes. I was very happy to turn in the keys when we arrived safely home.

A Day in Chaweng

On Monday we hired a taxi to take us into town for a day of shopping. Sadie and Rock chose alternative transportation, scooters! Here they are getting ready to ride their hogs!



We were hungry when we got to town. We stopped at an Indian restaurant and had lunch. While we were sitting there we saw Sadie and Rock drive by on their scooters. They stopped into say hello! They had ran into a rain and were soaking wet!




We did quite a bit of shopping along the main road in Chaweng where there are lots of resorts. There are quite a few of Frangiapani flowers along the streets and they are my favorite!





There were also lots of places that would braidyour hair for very little money. Here is Gemma in the process of being braided. I thought she looked great with the braids.





After Gemma's braids we hit the very popular Chaweng Beach. It was quite a nice beach, but very crowded. Here are some pictures of the kids paddling.





Of course Angus always ends up in the raw!



While we were walking along during the afternoon we found a South African BBQ. We ended up staying in town and having dinner there. Here is a picture of Jonny and the kids with the whole pig they BBQ!



At dinner we met this great couple from England! They sat and entertained Gemma. Here we are with them at the restaurant.



We are having a lovely and relaxing time here in Koh Samui. We plan to come back in the near future. I highly recommend it!!! Thailand is an incredible place with extreme natural beauty! A definitely must see!

And this is what I woke up to today...

View from outside our villa.

We arrived safe and sound in Koh Samui on Friday night around 11 pm. We had a couple of tired kiddos, but they did fantastic on the journey. We haven't done much other than eat, drink, and swim. We have the luxury of having a Thai chef at our disposal and have used her every evening for dinner. The food has been utterly AMAZING!!!! Tonight we hired the babysitter and we are heading to Chaweng Beach for drinks. This is an incredible place and everyone should add it to their list of places to see.

And this is what I saw before I went to bed last night.



I promise to take more pictures and post them soon!

A SPECIAL HAPPY BIRTHDAY WISH TO MY DEAR FRIEND JILL! HAVE A GREAT DAY GIRL! XOXO

Koh Samui, Thailand!

We are getting ready to leave tomorrow afternoon for 10 days in Koh Samui, Thailand. I am so excited I can't hardly stand it! I am in need of a break from China. I feel that I get quite agitated at the littlest thing about Chinese culture and the way that most Chinese people think. I am sure it is nothing a few days on the beach and loads of Thai food won't cure.

We are going with the kids, Sadie and Rock and staying at Headland Villas. The villas were highly recommended by a couple other expat families living here in Chengdu. They also offer a Thai chef and babysitting services which we plan to take advantage of quite frequently.
I thought I would include some other photos of our accommodations for you to enjoy.









I plan on doing quite a bit of blogging while we are in Thailand, so stay tuned! We are also going to be meeting up with a woman from my MOMS Club in Chandler that relocated back to Koh Samui this past year. It should be nice to see a familiar face and get a locals view of the island.

Cooking Fest!

For a while now my friend Asma and I have wanted to get together and cook. Asma was born in Pakistan and raised in Saudi Arabia and makes the most fabulous Indian and Pakistani food. I have been so lucky to try her delectable tidbits, but to learn how she puts everything together was the ultimate treat for me! I was also flattered that Asma wanted me to teach her a few things that I make.

Today we made paneer (Indian Cheese), homemade yogurt (which is near impossible to find in China, anyway the stuff without sugar is hard to find) and whole wheat bread. We tried making the paneer with skim milk and used apple cider vinegar instead of distilled vinegar. It turned out alright, but the apple cider vinegar didn't work too well because the cheese had a strong vinegar taste. I think next time I will try making the paneer with low fat milk and the right type of vinegar. It is quite easy to make and not very time consuming.

Since moving to China we have found it quite difficult to find decent bread here. The whole wheat bread doesn't have a whole lot of wheat flour in it and it is packed with sugar! I found a great little recipe on the internet which we altered, but I have to say it turned our very yummy.

Here is the recipe with our modifications:

5 1/2 Cups Whole Wheat Flour
2 packages of Active Yeast
2 tsp Salt
1/2 cup Honey
1 Cup Skim Milk
1 Cup Warm Water
3 TBSP Oil

preparation:

In large bowl, combine 3 cups whole wheat flour, yeast, and salt and mix well.

In saucepan, heat milk, water, honey, and oil until a thermometer reads 120-130 degrees F (warm).

Add liquid mixture to flour mixture and stir to combine. Beat this batter for 3 minutes. Then, gradually stir in rest of whole wheat flour and enough remaining all-purpose four to form a firm dough.

Sprinkle work surface with flour and knead dough, adding more flour if necessary, for 5-8 minutes until smooth and satiny. Place dough in a greased bowl, turning the dough in the bowl to grease the top. Cover and let rise in a warm place about 1 hour, until double in bulk.
Punch down dough and divide into 2 pieces. On lightly floured surface, roll or press each piece of dough to a 14x7" rectangle. Starting with shorter side, roll up tightly, pressing dough into roll with each turn. Pinch edges and ends to seal and place dough, seam-side down, into greased 9x5" bread pans, making sure short ends of bread are snugly fitted against the sides of the pans. Cover and let rise in warm place until the dough fills the corners of the pans and is double in bulk, 30-40 minutes.

Bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 35-40 minutes, until bread is golden brown. Remove from pans and cool on wire racks. I like to brush the bread with butter when it's still hot from the oven for a softer crust.

For lunch I made Lemon Chicken with Brown Basmati Rice from the Chinese cookbook I picked up in Australia called A Little Taste of China. I have made it about 3 times now and it is a hit, so I will share recipe with you.

1lb of Skinless Boneless Chicken Breast
1 TBSP Light Soy Sauce
1 TBSP Rice Wine
1 Scallion, finely chopped
1 TBSP Ginger, finely chopped
1 Egg, lightly beaten
3/4 C Cornstarch
Olive Oil for frying

Lemon Sauce
2 TBSP Lemon Juice
2 tsp Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Roasted Sesame Oil
3 TBSP Chicken Broth
1/2 tsp Cornstarch

Cut the chicken into slices. Place in a bowl, add soy sauce, rice wine, scallion, ginger and garlic and toss lightly. Marinate in the fridge for at least 1 hour or overnight.

Add the egg to the chicken mixture and toss lightly to coat. Drain any excess egg and coat the chicken pieces with the cornstarch. The easiest way to do this is to put the chicken and cornstarch in a plastic bag and shake it.

Add olive oil to your wok and heat. Add chicken and fry for 3-4 minutes or until golden brown.

To make the lemon sauce, combine the lemon juice, sugar, salt, sesame oil, chicken stock and cornstarch.

Add the lemon sauce to the wok and stir constantly until thickened. Add the chicken and toss lightly in sauce.

I hope you enjoy this recipe. I slightly modified the recipe as asks you to deep fry the chicken, which although it tastes yummy, it isn't necessary.

The last thing we made is yogurt, which is still setting in my oven. I hope it turns out well! We are planning to do this again soon, so I can't wait to see what goodies we find to make!

The Finished Goods!

Last Wednesday I received the furniture from the furniture refinisher Nui Wei. Here are some before and after shots:

Before

After


Before

After

Before

After


Before

After


Before

After


Before

After


I am very pleased with the pieces that we bought and had refinished. I think by far the armoir and kitchen cabinet are my favorites! I am looking forward to another trip out to Mr. Wong's and Nui Wei's in the near future. Nui Wei had also told me that he can make me anything from a picture or catalog, so I am thinking I might have him make me a couple sofas and a coffee table out of a Chinese shutter. We will see!

Shanghai Girls Week-end!

The week-end before last my friends Sadie and Asma headed to Shanghai for a girls only shopping week-end. I have long awaited the day when I would be totally comfortable to leave Jonny with the kids, but it does help to have a fabulous ayi to help too!

We left on Friday morning after I dropped miss Gemma off at school. She didn't seem to be upset at all, but man did I cry like a baby when I left the house.

We arrived in Shanghai and checked into our hotel. We were all starving and looking forward to the shopping we were planning to do right when we arrived. We headed to the The Portman for lunch at Element Fresh and to do a little grocery shopping at the Western grocery store located in the hotel. I found some great things like organic peanut butter, organic brown basmati and jasmine rice, and organic oatmeal. I so miss the wonderful selection of organic foods back home!!! What a treat it was to find these things!!! I think my best purchase was a small bottle of Clorox 2 that cost me almost $10 US. I swear by Clorox 2! I takes stains perfectly out of colors and I have always used this as a stain remover. If you have never used this stuff, you should!



Here is Sadie and I relaxing for a cuppa at Starbucks! They are everywhere in Shanghai!!!

After lunch we decided to hit a yarn store, which we were really looking forward to visiting. Unfortunately it was a big disappointment. The prices were ridiculous and their was not a great selection of imported yarns like they advertise. The did however have a great stock of Addi needles for a very reasonable price. If you are a knitter you know how great these needles are, but I actually controlled myself and didn't buy a thing. After knitting we hit Zara, a Spanish clothing store that I like to frequent when I go back to Northern Ireland with Jonny. They have trendy styles at excellent prices. I was so excited when we walked into to the store. They had such a wide selection of clothing in every color you could imagine and the prices were cheap, cheap, cheap!!! It was so nice to be in China and actually find clothes in my size. I have never thought I was a really big person, I usually wear a size 6 US, but the women here are so narrow I have never been able to get pants, skirts over my hips. I guess I will have to make quarterly trips to Shanghai....

Here is Sadie with her knitting needles purchases! She is in knitting heaven!!!

After taking our goodies back to the hotel we headed to dinner at Simply Thai. Here we are at dinner. We had a great dinner and ended up going back to the hotel to get a good nights sleep for our early start the next day.

We all woke up really early, probably thanks to me. I woke up earlier than I normally, but we had shopping to do and I guess my body wanted to get an early start. We headed to breakfast and then to the Xiang Yang Market. Xiang Yang is the very famous, gigantic knock-off market that is soon to be closing in July. We walked in a did a little browsing before we decided to split up. We were just getting ready to separate when I looked in front of me and saw a friend of mine from Chandler, Arizona! I couldn't believe, my friend Amy Kirley from my MOMS Club was just arriving at Xiang Yang for a day of shopping. The Kirley Family moved to the Philippines shortly after we moved to China as our husbands both work at the same company. I knew they were going to be in China for a vacation sometime soon, but I wasn't sure when. It truly is a small world. We exchanged numbers and planned to meet for dinner before they left for Beijing and we headed back to the Du.

Here is a picture of me with Amy, James, Maria and Catalina (on James' back).

After the market we headed to Dragonfly for a little pampering. If you are ever in Shanghai you must visit this place. It is such a lovely experience for very little money. I had a 1 hour top to toe massage where two people massage you at the same time, one at your head and shoulders and one at your feet. The next hour I had the Chinese massage which was an all over body massage. What a little slice of heaven!

We did more shopping the rest of the day mostly at IKEA. We decided to go out to dinner in a trendy little area called Xin Tian Di. We ended up eating at a Turkish restaurant which had the most amazing food! I highly recommend Iskendar kebob if you have never had it! It was so good, I had it at least 3 times of the course of the week-end. After dinner we hit the Simply Thai for Mangos and sticky rice and drinks.

Here is our Asma with her mocktail! What can we say we tried to corrupt her, but she was a good girl!

Sunday it was more shopping at the same places we had already hit the last too days. We just couldn't help ourselves. In the evening we met the Kirley's for dinner at the Shanghainese restaurant 1221.

Me, Amy, and Catalina.

After dinner Asma, Sadie and I decided to go out for a few drinks at one of the local Irish pubs (yes, they are everywhere!). Asma kept getting calls from her driver in Chengdu asking when her husband, Mazhar would be back from his trip to Malaysia. Asma was worried so she left Sadie and I to fend for ourselves, which we did quite well. When we returned to the hotel and Asma was very upset. Mazhar had not called her to tell her where he was, but she emailed him and found out that he missed his flight from Malaysia and wasn't coming in until the next day. She was super angry and asked him "What kind of normal person misses their flight?".

You are probably wondering why I told you the above story, right? Monday morning we leisurely got ourselves ready for our flight in the early afternoon. We grabbed a cab and headed to the airport. About 15 minutes into our cab ride I asked everyone what time our flight was and Sadie looked at her ticket and said 1:10 pm. I looked at my watch and it was 12:15 pm with about 40 minutes to get to the airport. I couldn't believe that not one of us bothered to look at the tickets. Sure enough we missed our flight and had to stay an extra day. It wasn't horrible, but I was really looking forward to seeing Jonny and the kids. We did a little more shopping and eating and made sure we were up and on time for our flight the next day.

That night when Mazhar called Asma to find out where she was she had to tell him she was still in Shanghai. We all burst out laughing when she told him this because "What kind of normal person misses a flight!" We think it was her karma that made us miss that flight, but we sure did have a good laugh about it!