USA pictures

I'm so cool! He really does think he's the coolest... He's right.

On a walk.

3 generations of Williams! This was in January when we visited. 4 generations!! Just yesterday we visited with my Grandma, Will's great grandma.

Here he is with his girlfriend, Sage. She sure is cute, Will.

Love at first sight... Or not...

We stayed with Tay's sis. while Tay was working. During that week he bonded with his cousin, Korinne. He's happy when we take walks in the nice, clean, Springtime air.

Will loves the bath. He learned how to stand up on furniture a few days after crawling. He was motivated to get the laptop sitting on the couch, just out of reach. He can stand up holding onto the tub as well.

He saw all his toys floating, and wanted to join, it looked like so much fun.

Photo shoot of Big Will--Big Willy style

Will loved his photo shoot today at Target. He's such a fun smiley boy.

A childs prayer

While staying at my sister's house this past week, I got to take part in their family prayers, which is always so fun considering her girls say the darndest things.
My niece Ambs, gave one of the nighttime prayers.

"And please bless the people in Haiti, that the storms will go somewhere else....like Salt Lake....Er, not Salt Lake... like somewhere off the world".

She was so sincere, and kept pausing to think it through. We couldn't help but laughing out loud before the prayer had ended. Bless her faithful little heart.

Hello Taiwan

This blog post actually starts down below about mid way through but then I added a few more pictures and then ended up on the top instead of the bottom and I don't know how to switch them....

This is Logan. One of my companions taught and baptized him. He used to go on exchanges with me all the time and was a big help to the missionaries when I was there. He is now a returned missionary and we got together for dinner tonight. It was so fun to see him.

PETA is no where to be found. This dog is for RENT. You can also give donatations to the dog in his tip bucket.

These are more dogs for rent. You can also rent to own one of these puppies. I'm not sure if the dogs are extremely well trained or sedated but they all were there laying in a row with lots of people around and lots of noise. This is the fist time I've seen dogs for rent. PETA would love this.

Once again I'm on the road sitting in a hotel with a few minutes before my next appointment so I thought I'd do a quick post. The past three weeks have been bit of a whirlwind with stops in SLC, Shanghai, Xiamen,Beijing,Taipei etc. Right now I'm in Taipei. Every time I come back to Taiwan it remindes me just how much I like Taiwan. The people are so friendly and polite. The food is amazing. It's just a great place. Whenever I'm here it also reminds me just how different Taiwan and mainland China are. They really are two different worlds. Below are some pictures from the past week.

This is an outdoor food court in Taiwan. Some of the best food on the planet can be found here. Some of the worst food can also be found here - stinky toufu!

This sign is for my sister who laughed at all of the translations in China. This one was on the Great Wall.

This one is also for my sister. When she was here it was so foggy that none of our pictures turned out. You can photo shop yourself into this one!

This is the Taipei 101. It used to be the tallest building in the world. Now it is #2 behind the monster of a building in Dubai. I went to the same tepanyaki restraunt in here that my parents took me to on my last day in Taiwan after my mission. The food was amazing.

This is an old, unrestored section of the Great Wall. It is mind blowing to even think about building such a structure, by hand nonetheless.

I guess the new cool thing is to wear a panda on your head. We saw so many that we finally stopped someone to get a picture.

Clayton, a colleague from New Zeleand, thought they were so cool he wore his panda at everywhere, including the packed subway.

Another random panda sighting. Do these remind anyone else of the mouse hats my parents used to have???

These are two guys I work with, well sort of - one is based in Australia/New Zealand and the other is in the US but always traveling in Latin America, I took them to eat the real local food in Taiwan. They were sceptical at first but ended up loving it all.

My sister wanted to get pictures of the Great Wall winding off into the distance but it was terrible weather the day I took her so I took a few pictures this time. The pictures aren't great though because they were taken with my phone.

Mei guo

The other day was sunny and warm enough to help G-ma and G-pa out in the garden.

We are enjoying the USA. In Cache County we enjoyed a week visit with TP's sister. We watched a movie, watched our nephews soccer game, witnessed the annual Cub Scout Pinewood Derby competition, laughed while watching a movie, enjoyed a Slurpee, went to lunch with great friends, and attended the Logan Temple. It is such a beautiful Temple, sitting high upon a hill in the most beautiful valley. You can see the sky for miles! I savored every moment. I have come to love this city so much.

Now my adventures bring me South to my sister's home. It is always an adventure here, and Will is loving the walker she has here. He loves to zoom around, running into everyone's achilles.
We have to be quick when he comes around.

Will is on the verge of crawling. He can get up on all fours and rocks pretty hard. He started to scoot backwards the other day. Sometimes, when on all fours, he'll lift himself off the ground, on tip-toe, and army crawl a few paces. He has a strong core. He also started picking up his food with his thumb and pointer finger and putting it in his mouth. He's been feeding himself with a spoon since he first started rice cereal at 4 months. He's full of tricks.

Will loves wearing his 'Too Cool for School' glasses.

My two handsome boys. We are sure missing you TP!

USA

I'm sitting in the airport in San Fran right now waiting for my flight. This is the first free time I've had since we got to the states a week ago. Jen, Will and I got to Utah a week ago but have been up north because I had to be in the office all week. This was a very busy week. I've probably slept about 8 out of the past 72 hours, not fun. But coming to the US is always enjoyable and it's always fun to see friends and family.

Here is Will and one of Jen's former coworker's son. They were so kind to invite us over for a home cooked meal. Will is about the same size as this little fella but half his age. This kid can walk! Will is getting close to crawling, and has obviously perfected eating.

Will doesn't have much hair compared to a lot of other kids but if you look at his genes that is something he should just get used to.



Here is Will hanging out with Great Grandpa. He is 96! Glad we were able to go down and visit him. Jen doesn't know I took this picture but her and Will looked so cute. Wild Bill had some serious jet lag, which made ours that much worse.

This is the week before we came back to the US. This is on the newly reopened BUND in Shanghai. This is a 5 min walk from our apartment.

Jen and will sporting their sunglasses. He loves to wear them!

I'm going to get on a plane soon but Jen and Will are staying in the US until the 4th of July. Now is the time of year when our branch starts to empty out because many of the families head back to their home countries for the summer. It usually goes something like this; the whole family leaves together for a week or two and then the husband comes back while the family stays home for another month or two. Fortunatley I already have a few friends in the branch that are in the same solo boat as me and they usually get together a lot to keep each other company.

I'll be in Taiwan next week and should be able to blog again then.

Quick update

I'm in Japan again so I thought I'd do a quick update and post a few pictures. Last week when I was here I bought Will a little shirt from the Nike outlet. It fit him perfect so of course we took a few pictures.


Here is Will sporting his Nike Track & Field shirt. If you look close you can see that it says 1972 Olympic Trials, Eugene, Oregon. To my fellow runners it is really cool. To those who aren't fans of running this shirt probably doesn't seem cool at all.

Will hanging out at the dinner table in the Buff. Decided not to post the family photo.

Pulling a face for the camera. They learn so young!

Enjoying the fact that he can sit up now.

I head back home tomorrow. Can't wait to get there to see this little guy again, and Jen of course.