Long Haul

I thought I'd do a quick update since we haven't posted in such a long time.  We plan to get a vpn set up at home soon so we can blog over/under the great firewall of China.  I'm currently in the airport lounge in Bangkok, Thailand.  This has been a busy week.  On Sunday after church I flew to Johanessburg, South Africa.  Spent a day and a half there then flew to Durbin, SA.  After 20 hrs there I flew to Cape Town, SA for a day and a half.  Actually spent a day doing some sightseeing in Cape Town.  It is a beaufitful place and you really are at the bottom of the world.  The plan was to go swimming with the Great White Sharks but the boat was already full that day.  Next time.  (you go down in a metal cage and they through food into the water to attrack the great white.  SA has the largest population of the great whites in the world! 

After the African run around I took a red eye to Bangkok. Landed here at 6 am and had a meeting here and now I'm catching the 12:30am flight back to Shanghai. Two red eyes two nights in a row is not my idea of fun. But I'd rather get home earlier than later.

this is where the two oceans meet (Indian and Atlantic)

these signs are everywhere around the cape.

these are wild baboons!

These are the reason for the red eyes two nights in a row.  I miss my little wild baboons!

Arrival of June

Yesterday on June 20, 2011 at 9:53 am June Elizabeth Price was born in the Logan Regional hospital. Here's how it unfolded. Jen has been dilated to a 4+ for the past week or so. However, when I got in town from china I asked if she could hold it until the 20th because last week was extremely busy. Since my company is based in Utah there are often a lot of meetings when I do come in town. Last week had a bunch of them slammed into 4 days with people from France, new Zealand, Taiwan and Malaysia all coming in town for the meetings. Turns out I have a new boss. He is French and is based in our office in Paris. He's a great guy and things should go well. After the meetings I had Ragnar. I ran on the company team, Nordictrack. It was a lot of fun and I realized these events are much more pleasant when you lose 20 lbs.

But back to the important stuff. Jen is a saint and kept the baby in so we now have a full week together with family without interruptions of meetings. June is so cute and such a joy to have here. The delivery went very smooth. We arrived at the hospital at 7:15 am scheduled to induce. The broke the water around 8:30 and then started the pitossin around 9:00. She thought about going without an epidural until she dilated very quickly and started to be in a lot of pain. They quickly did one at 9:30 which brought instant releif. She started pushing at 9:49 and out she came at 9:53!! The cord was wrapped around the neck twice but the dr didn't seem concerned so I wasn't either. He asked if I wanted to cut the cord to which I responded "um, no. That's what I paid you for". June was 7lbs 5oz and 20in long. She has dark hair and long fingers. She is a very good baby so far. Jen stayed in the hospital for just over 24 hrs and then we brought her home. We rented a place a few blocks from then hospital which has been great. Both of our moms have already made trips to Logan to see baby June and a couple of my sisters have come as well. It has been a lot of fun so far. Jen and June are both doing great.

The Chinese character for "good" 好 is made up for two characters put together. The two parts are boy 子 and girl 女. Together they form 好 meaning good. So a man and a women together is a good thing and having a son and a daughter is also a good thing. It's a good pair. We've got a good pair now.

Pictures to follow. They are probably already some on my moms blog.

Will is nearly 21 months!

I guess it's time to post. I forgot my camera cord so I have been slow about downloading all the fun pictures we've been taking.

I went to the dr. last Friday. I am dilated to a 4 and 50% effaced. Taylor is supposed to return home next Sunday. I am a bit nervous he'll miss the birth if I suddenly start contractions more powerfully, so I asked him to change his flight to Thursday. He's been busy and I hate to ask him to come earlier, but I'd hate it even more if he missed the birth.

Will has learned many new things while here in UT. He learned from Sage that he can 'sleep' on the steps. It's really more of play, but he'll lie down and do a fake snore (intake of air). Really funny. How did he learn that snoring accompanies sleep???

I took him swimming the other day. He LOVES to swim but we haven't had a chance since we've been here, so it's been over a month since he swam last. I told him in Chinese what we were doing, and he excitedly repeated back, in proper Chinese, that we were going swimming. Instead of 'ye you', he said, 'you yong'. Good job little buddy, but at the same time, I realized he's growing up too fast!

The other morning when he woke up and entered my room I said, "Hi Buddy!", and he said back to me, "Hi Buddy!"

He has learned so many new words. It's so fun to have a small conversation with him now. If he's crying he can communicate to me what hurts, and if he gets hurt he'll tell me what happened which is a lot of animated babbling, followed by a few detection words like, 'fall', or 'tou' (head), which he often says when he hits his head.
One of his favorite 'just learned' phrases is "howdy do!". He learned this from cousin Ambree. He repeats so much now that it's hard to document the new words. He's speaking more and more each day. Some of his favorites are, 'mamma', 'Chi fan' (eat food), 'see ya', 'mamma', 'hello', 'play', 'waimian' (outside), and 'mamma'. He is a chatterbox! A lot of it baby talk. Often people will look at me and ask, "what did he say?" since they assume it's Chinese. Sometimes it is, but most often it's just a bunch of baby babble.

Will loves his C. cousins and LOVES to play with them. They are great play-mates for him. When I tell him we will see them that day he'll repeat their names to me over and over. Yesterday they were driving into SL for a soccer game later that evening. I took him to the pool for a fun distraction and he would often repeat their names to me out of the blue. He pronounces their names 'Torrine' (in a mix of tones), 'Bitton', and 'Jenna'.

When we pray at night he'll usually make his little bear fold his arms and bow his head also. He'll grab the bears head and shove it down to its feet. He has started losing interest in his bear, but now he'll fold his arms, then take one hand and grab his own head and bow.

This child is just so full of life, and teaches me more about love, life, patience, and more love each and every day. I can't get enough of his smiles and laugh.

Lagging

It's a little after 5am Utah time and I've been up since 2am.  My luggage didn't make my connecting flight so they delivered it to the house at 3am, how kind of them.  I'm here in the States for just a couple of days before going back to Shanghai.  Then I'll be back again two weeks later.  With Jen and Will here I don't like to stay away for more than two or so weeks at a time.  Thankfully my job has been accomodating to let me come back and forth until we have the baby and we can all go back home. 

I'm hoping that Will will wake up soon. I got in late last night so he was already asleep. I want to go wake him up to play but I'm pretty sure Jen would kill me if I did. This week she signed him up for gymnastics classes. It's a class for kids 19-30 months old so he just made the cut off. Apparently he totally loves it and is always the one to volunteer to try the new moves. We will have to get some pictures posted soon. He's had two classes this week with another one on Saturday. Jen got a 10 class package and it seems like it is a hit with Will.

This is a picture from my bike race last Saturday in Shanghai. I ride on team Slice now which is made up of a group of expats from the US, Australia, France, and Belgium.  We've competed in two races now and have done well enough that we are now getting sponsored! Sponsors = free gear = happy me.  We are now sponsored by Oakley sunglasses, Giro helmets, Champion Systems uniforms, Lake shoes and NordicTrack :).  The uniform attached is cool but the new ones on the way are REALLY cool.  Our team captian used to work for Nike and for Trek and used to lead tour groups to ride at the Tour de France.  He used to attend the training camps and ride with Lance Armstrong (who is still the greatest rider whether he doped or not).  Our sponsors are all coming because of his awesome connections but I still would like to think it's because I ride a bike similar to the way Lance does :).  I love having a team to train with again and races to look forward to.  About half of our team also does triathlons.  We were all singed up for the China Ironman at the end of this month.  But of course 'China' had to happen and the race was cancelled at the last minute.  Most of the guys now will opt for the Ironman in Jeju, Korea on July 3rd but I'll be in Utah at that time.

Will should be up soon!  Time to go play.

TP's conference

TP says he's so busy at this weeks conference, and he's working really hard...

Yes, it looks like it, doesn't it? :)

He says that the Aggie-ette dancers never paid him any attention in college, but now that he's the boss they think he's cool enough for a photo. Thanks to these dancers though, his booth is the most exciting, and the one people want to visit. Good marketing idea.

These pictures I am posting for one of my friends. This is a typical supermarket, wet market, and outdoor market. In our last two apartments this is how our neighborhood was. It made for very interesting walks. Since we moved we now are surrounded by places to run, and bike. We do have a small wet market near our house, but it's small. 

TP's cycling group

He is a dedicated cycler every Tues., Thurs., and Sat. They do their quick speed stuff on weekdays, and long, tempo rides on Sat. (like 100KM+ long). This pic. is taken on race day. He is prepping for a 1/2 Ironman in China at the end of this month. TP, you look the best and the fastest!