We haven't posted in MONTHS! Here are some photos of our time in the USA. We have had such a blast so far, and we are SO excited to see Tay this week. 

Will loves the snow! 

 June and her 2nd cousin, born 3 days apart. June and Ariella both have German blood running in their veins, but June was born with her Dad's olive coloring, and Ariella was born with her mothers South African coloring. June and Ariella became fast friends.

 I was so excited to take the kids to Temple Square. Will was excited that 'his' temple was the same as the one on his pass-along card. 

This is such a beautiful temple. It was pretty darn neat to hop in the car and drive a short 20 minutes to this beautiful place. They were setting up the Nativity that day on the grassy green as we were walking around, so we got an up close view of this peaceful scene.

 Halloween with Jaime and her kids, and my dad. Buzz Lightyear's favorite was the can of soda someone gave as a treat. He sipped that can the entire trick-or-treat walk. He didn't seem to care much about the actual candy he was so involved in that soda. 

"To Infinity, and Beyond!"

Papa B. with June Bug

Will helping June get her final touches on her costume. 

 Since we landed in SL, and for the first 2 weeks we were here, Will was obsessed with the mountains. I still am. After not having mountains for so long, flying into Utah was nothing short of spectacular. Will kept asking me to take him to the mountains. We finally went with a friend to lunch in the mountains in a cute, little secret cafe we found. This didn't fill his mountain craving, so after we went on a short hike up Olympus. We climbed until he was done. He's one strong hiker.

We went to the Red Barn in Santaquin with my sister the first week we were here. We took a tractor ride to a pumpkin patch, a corn maze, huge slides, kids sandbox, etc. Being out in this crisp, fall weather was just the Utah welcome I had wanted.

Bill and June

Will is thinking, "Where is everyone?" He's used to seeing crowds of people, and high-rises instead of empty fields.

While we are having our UT fun, this is what Taylor is doing...Look at that focus in his eyes. 

Lookin' good! And fast!

At our home, reading to Will. Will loves to be read to. There are some books in our home, like these, that can only be read by Taylor or our nanny, Xiao Wang. I don't read Chinese.

 This October our family was really fortunate to be able to travel to Taiwan. The lady pictured below runs this rice shop. When Taylor served his mission in this area, he would get his rice lunch every day from this sweet lady and while eating he would run through his Chinese flash cards. Her shop is called Peng Ge. On our way back to the airport we stopped here for lunch, and of course, to say hi. I was outside taking a picture of her stall when Taylor walked in. All I could hear was her screaming inside she was so surprised and excited to see her good foreigner friend again.

In the pumpkin patch.

In Taiwan, on the beach. Will LOVES the beach. No surprise since he loves water.

Will and June, relaxing on the beach together. I kinda chuckle at these couple photos. They look like an old married couple enjoying the warm sunny weather, shaded by the umbrella. June's namesake comes from Taylor's grandma, and Tay's grandpa's name was William (Bill). I never met either of them, but I can picture them together on the beach just like this.

Lookin' good, as always :)

When we first got to our hotel we hurried out the door for a quick walk on the beach. We should have changed into our swimwear, but didn't think we'd swim. Will had to get in, of course. We didn't mind letting him swim in his undies, this is common in this part of the world.

View from our hotel. You can see the pool where I would swim laps, and then just beyond you can see the ocean. There is a road running between these two bodies of water where Taylor would pass every morning on his early morning bike ride. If you were to drive 10 min. south you would hit the Southern tip of Taiwan. 

Here are the kids in front of the Grand Hotel, Taipei. The Taiwan mission was re-dedicated at this same hotel when I taught English here in 2006. Taylor was also visiting me in Taiwan at that time, so we attended the dedication together.

The Taipei city view from our balcony at the Grand. You can see Taipei 101 in the distance. Isn't it a beautiful place?

Wills birthday gift. Specialized was able to help Taylor get a Will sized jersey to match his Dad's. Will is proud to look just like Dad.

Will-3 years old.

Will and I on a bike ride. We live in the 'suburbs'. There is space to run, bike, and swim! Through pretty landscapes too, but as you can see, still lots and lots of buildings, and high-rises in the distance.

This past summer-heading to our pool for a quick swim.

Quick Update

I'm in the Hong Kong airport and have about ten minutes before I board my flight.  Here are a few pictures.  

Will and friends in their Batman costumes.

Jen did a triathlon last weekend in Shanghai.  She got 2nd place!!!  awesome!  great job Jen.  She was very excited to get back to competition after a few years of having babies.  

June somehow strategically got a Cheerio on each cheek.

Me and Will in Taiwan.  You can see that he has two full hands of french fries.

June on the phone in Taiwan.

We visited the home of Elder Ruan (8th quorum of Seventy).  I taught and baptized his nephew Roger during my mission.  Many of you have met Roger.  In the photo is also Roger's mom.  Was great to see them again.

Will and June in front of the Grand Hotel in Taipei, Taiwan

I got 3rd place in the final Shanghai series race Individual Time Trial.  The winner was a pro from France, not sure why he was there but he was only a few seconds ahead of me and my teammate Simon!  I finished the Shanghai series overall in 4th place after 8 races.

The was the "iGrow" machine that I saw in a store in Hong Kong.  It is supposed to make your hair grow.  It's been a couple of weeks and none grew...

Jen and the kids head back to Utah tomorrow for six weeks.  Will miss them dearly but so glad we have Skype and phones.  It will be great for the kids to experience their first Halloween and first Thanksgiving.  We are all REALLY looking forward to Thanksgiving in the US.  We've talked about coming out to it for a couple of years and finally this year it worked out and we are thrilled about it.

Sri Lanka, Thailand and more

I'm sitting in the Bangkok airport right now watching Bill Clinton's speech at the DNC.  He sure gives a good speech but....on to more important things.  We've been busy recently.  Last week I made my first trip to Sri Lanka for a few days.  Very interesting.  I've been in Thailand this week and both trips have been a big success.  

Below is Will on his bike wearing his Tour de France shirt.  He loves his bike.

Jen signed Will up for gymnastics and soccer.  Below is a picture from Will's first gymnastics class.  

This is a picture from the bike race I did in northern China a few weeks ago.  It was about an hour from the Russian boarder!  it was a 50km race around a lake.  The winning prize for the race was a $3,200 new bike and the team classification prize was a $300 helmet.  I had a good day and won the overall and our team won the team classification!  Perfect timing as we had just started looking at bikes for Jen.  Because the bike was provided by Specialized they were nice enough to let me change the style and size to fit Jen.  Now Jen is all set with all the gear :)

Here is June just being happy!

Will showing off his new hat!

Jen's new bike!  black and pink!

Jen and her new biking gang.  They all just got their bikes and are ready to tackle this new sport.

Here is a picture in Shanghai from last weekend.  We went to this cool rooftop place on the Bund for a friend's 50th birthday.  

 This is a picture of the coast of the capital city of Sri Lanka.

This is Miss Sri Lanka at our Nordictrack brand launch there.  She is our new brand ambassador in Sri Lanka.

Things have been going well for us.  June is starting to speak a few simple words and running all over. We are now getting ready for Will's 3rd birthday next week.  Not sure yet what we will do but it's hard to believe that he's 3!  

Tour de France

 

This is the route of the race that we rode.  Plenty of mountains to climb. 

The blog is not cooperating and I can't get the pictures and text to line up where I want them.  Oh well. It is what it is.  Where to start this post?  Probably with a big thanks to Jen.  She is awesome.  The past two weeks I've done things that have previously just been a dream.  A big thanks to her for letting me come and fulfill this dream.  There have been a few nightmares along the way in this trip but you have to take the good with the bad.  There really is no way to do a proper blog post for this trip but I'll try to give some highlights.  

I've been in France for two weeks.  My Aussie cycling buddy Gus and I decided last year that we really wanted to go watch the Tour de France.  Something I've always wanted to do.  It turned out that I had meetings for work in France starting the day after the Tour so it worked out perfectly to come before and follow the race.  

One of our main objective was to ride in the Etape du Tour race.  This is where they let amateurs race one of the stages that the pros will ride a few days later.  The route that we did is nicknamed the "circle of death" by the pros - for good reason.  It is 201km (130ish miles) with about 15,000 vertical feet of climbing over four mountain passes.  over 8,000 riders set out to tackle the stage.  Shortly after starting the rain started coming down and as we climbed up the mountains the temp dropped and we entered the clouds.  At the top of the first mountain pass it was 45 degrees, we were socking wet and the fog was so thick you could hardly see.  With the rain and wet roads and the cliffs on the side of the road it made the descents very scary - especially since the decent was so cold it was unreal. I've never been so cold and miserable.  The shivering was uncontrollable and the temptation to stop was great.  Many did.  Of the 8,000 + riders that went to France to race only about 3,800 finished!  It was the hardest day I've had on a bike.  After every climb we were dreading the descents.  We finished in 9 hours and then after warming up reflected on what we had accomplished.  A blog post is not sufficient to describe the day and the experience.  As miserable as it was it was an epic and unforgettable day.  

The following week it was one bad hotel after another, and one night of sleeping in the car - long story!, as we traveled around Southern France through the Pyrenees mountains following the Tour.  On the race rest day we drove down to the beach in Spain which was awesome.  We then headed up to Paris and toured around the city for a day or so and then watched the final stage. The whole experience was just awesome.  

While Gus and I were riding our bikes around France Jen was touring Beijing with her sister and her mom.  They came over to China while I was gone.  Her mom stayed for several days and her sister stayed for 11 days.  They had a great time and Jen really enjoyed spending time with her mom and sister.      

 The Col du Tourmalet was the biggest and most famous climb that we did during our race.  A few days after our race the pros came through the same route and we rode our bikes up before them and took some pics. 

 This is on the top of the Tourmalet.  Amazing scenery and a very blue sky.

 Eiffel Tower - after seeing all of the buildings in Asia this was a bit of a let down.  But considering when this was built it is a very impressive structure.  Gus is a builder so he explained to me just how incredible of a project it would have been to build it.

 The Louvre.  Didn't go in.  Biggest museum in the world.  I'll go inside next time with Jen.

 This is the beach in San Sebastian, Spain.  Really beautiful with great water.  I went for a mile swim while Gus did 2.5 miles!  He's getting ready for the Ironman in Canada next month.

For the final stage of the Tour we had some VIP passes, courtesy of my company's partnership with the Tour organizer, so we got to so to a very nice lunch on the Champs Elyesee and then one of the Tour hostess girls held up this sign and guided us to the VIP grandstands at the finish line.  It was about a 20 min walk where she held up the sign the whole time as we followed.  There were surprisingly very few grandstands for spectators, just a few hundred seats.  The rest of the fans lined the course on the side of the road.

Now I'm really excited to get back to China.  Most days I skype with Jen and the kids.  Will is a handful and June is getting more and more vocal and is no longer a little baby but is a full blown toddler now.  They are so fun to skype with.  It's very late, off to bed.

Long Time No See

To say that it has been a while since our last blogpost is a gross understatement.  It's been a very long time. My VPN doesn't work like it used to so today is actually the first time I've been on blogs in months. I'm in Japan at the moment and thought I'd do a quick post to try to keep somewhat of a journal of our past five months.  

This is the family at Moganshan, about 3 hours drive from Shanghai in the mountains in the bamboo forests.  It was tomb sweeping festival (Chinese memorial day) so we took advantage of the three days off and went to the mountains with to other families.  

Happy June.  She loves to smile.

Me and some friends out for a ride in Moganshan.  Rode about 110 miles through the mountains, on purpose.  Great fun.

My new bike.  This is the bike that one of the pro teams, Saxo Bank, uses for the Tour de France.  Specialized, bike company, has a racing team in China that they've asked me to be on.  They sponsored me a bike and gear so it was an easy choice to say yes.  The first race of the season was this past weekend.  I got 10th place, 1st foreigner, in the Elite race (yes, there were more than 10 people in the race).

In January over Chinese New Year we took the family to Hawaii to meet up with our great friends Tyler and Sarah. My mom came to spend time with us, help with the kids, and help Jen with the kids on the flight back to SLC - I had to go directly back to China while they enjoyed a few weeks in the US.  This picture is on the top of a volcano, Mt Haleakala (sp?).  Tyler and I thought it would be a good idea to ride bike up the volcano.  It goes from sea level to over 10,000 ft in 36 miles.  Mom followed me up in the car and drove me down.  This was an amazing ride.  Longest climb I've ever done with amazing scenery.  Took 3hr45min.  Was a great accomplishment but was very tired at the top!

This is us in Hawaii watching the whales.  Will is taking the picture - j/k.  He was asleep in the car.  At this look-out spot there was a family speaking Shanghainese (yes, that is a language and it's very different from Chinese).  They were pretty surprised when I spoke to them in Chinese and asked what part of Shanghai they were from.  Pretty funny.  We took turns taking pictures of each other's families.

My favorite food!

My favorite little girl!  June and I at Moganshan enjoying the nice spring weather.

In March I did my first 70.3 Ironman Triathlon race in Singapore.  It was quite the challenge.  The temp was 95 with 98 percent humidity.  Heat index was at 104. Makes for a long day... I finished in one piece and had a great experience. This race had 1,600 competitors from 63 different countries.  A group of us from Shanghai went to the race.  This picture is the ocean harbor where we swam 1.2 miles before biking 56 miles and running 13.1 miles.  Those are all cargo ships in the distance.

This is the transition area with everyones bikes in Singapore.  

I took this picture this weekend inside our complex.  Looks like someone wanted to get away from the big city and go on a camping trip - with 50,000 people looking out their apartment windows at them...

Will fell asleep sitting up.  He's getting so big.  

Jen standing next to tree in full spring blossom in our complex.

For my birthday Jen got me a massage table.  Now we don't even leave the house to get a massage.  We call them and they come in and work on Jen then work on me.  Then we fold up the table and they go.  It's fantastic!

This looks like an aquarium but it's actually a restaurant.  I ate here a few hours ago.  That lady is taking our order.  We had squid, first half raw and then they took the 2nd half to cook it tempura style.  We had blowfish, which can only be prepared by a master chief that knows how to kill it properly so that the poison in it doesn't taint the meet and kill you.  We also had lots of raw fish and a bit of cooked steak.  Regular surf and turf.

There are a few highlights from the past 5 months.  Hopefully we can post more