Moganshan Tri

This weekend I was able to compete in the Moganshan Triathlon. It was stunning. It had been rainy, and was drizzly the day of, which meant slick roads, and mud! for the trail run. Awesome.

When we started everyone took off in the swim. They took off fast. I couldn't figure out how everyone was going so fast! Especially since I was feeling so good in the water. We had to do 4 laps in the reservoir pictured below (1500 m). Isn't it beautiful though? The misty mountains I just love.

I got out of the water 2nd to last! Super bummer, but I just had to chuckle because that's oh so typical.

The bike was 2 loops (40Km)  in the mountains. Lots of uphill, lots of downhill. Dodging dogs, triathletes, cars, and bamboo in the road. I felt so strong. I was passing everyone like they were walking! I felt amazing. I passed all the women, and many men. 

The run was off road (10Km). Isn't it beautiful? I loved just letting it all go in the rain and mud. There was a major climb we had to do twice, and two deep descents that was hard on the body. There was one stretch through a village that was spectacular. Through cobblestones, past rivers, in hidden alleyways, through a few people's backyards, over fallen bamboo, over bridges...stunning. I felt pretty good here too. I passed many men like they were standing still. At one point on single track I caught up to two men and had to bite at their heels to let me pass. I thought they would try and keep up with me but they didn't even attempt. 

I felt on fire, and had a blast doing so. At one point I remembered a Nickelodeon show I had seen a LONG time ago where they were filming a summer camp. They were doing races in the mountains in the US somewhere. The one who dominated was a girl who was flying through the trails. I thought then, "WOW, I want to do that!" I thought of that as I was running through these mountains and thought, "I am living out my dreams! I am doing what I want to do!"

It was a beautiful day, and a beautiful race. My friend and her husband did the sprint the whole way together. She did absolutely fantastic. She is so strong! As I was running I could hear her loud cheer voice echoing through the mountains. She is great.

I think I need to work on my swim!!! 

Taylor raced today in Hangzhou. It was a 30 Km team Time Trial. They took the win!

I'll say it was a good weekend all around!

 "V" for Victory!

 Tay was able to cheer me on and ran with me for a bit. That was fun.

CNY, HK, daily life, and a field trip

 June's first ballet lesson. She loves going here especially since her good friend, Miriam, also is in the same class.

 Will insisted on wearing these while riding his bike one day. He said it was a mask to protect him from the "bad air". Haha! It actually was a pretty good Air Quality day, but funny that he's observed he should wear a mask on bad air days.

 Monkey June.

 One of Will's art pieces at school.

They had been learning about Antarctica and the penguins, and they actually got to make a penguin too. Very clever.

 June and her crew. We pulled out the pool and put it on our back balcony when the air became summery hot this past week.

 After the kids at school made their penguins this is what we found at pick up... It was pretty funny to see a yard full of penguins. 

 School photo. This is his art backdrop that he painted. More on that later.

 June with Will's backdrop.

 We got to go to Disneyland for CNY. Best CNY ever! We met up with good friends from China. They now live in CA. When kids were in bed she and I met up at the park and had 3 hours of really great fun! Love this lady! We had a blast.

 June with Mickey! 

 On the new Cars Land ride.

 June's favorite ride. Thanks for taking out the binkie for the photo!

 Will and June both were really happy to see these Disney characters from afar. We thankfully didn't have to wait in any lines to get individual photos from most of them. We did wait for Mickey and Minnie though.

 San Diego Zoo. June connected with this baby polar bear. She really has a special part in her heart for the babies of the world. Baby animals, baby humans, anything small.

 In the polar bear cave they have a speaker with a growling bear. When it growled at her she thought it was a real bear cave and one was after her. Terrified!

 baboon Will

 Monsters Inc. Door. 

 SD Zoo. 

 Will and friends after school at the park. These are happy kids.

 Will's school took a field trip to one of the neighborhoods in Shanghai that's being ripped apart to make way for modern construction. Most of the families have been moved to new and better apartments, so this neighborhood was pretty much vacant, but not completely. The kids were able to pick a spot on any wall to paint and write a message of what they wanted to leave behind. It was very special. Will drew a flower and said he wanted to leave behind a flower because they make people happy. This flower was a beautiful pink until he added black. But it is a flower. Then he wrote his name on the wall. I loved that he chose a door to paint on. We picked a door and some neighbors were like, "Ya, that's okay you can paint there no one lives there."

During this same field trip the kids were the ones who were supposed to take the pictures of these old neighborhoods. So Will was photographer for the day. He loved the underwear hanging out to dry and took numerous photos of these. Then on his choosing, they printed it out large, and painted over it for their school photo back drops, which is what you saw earlier. Amazing, isn't it. It took weeks for their backdrops to be complete. They really worked hard on them. They are all very fantastic.

His teacher then put together and bound a beautiful book titled, "Writing on the Wall". She compiled everyone's painting and message from the wall, and then quoted them on what they chose to leave behind, and why. Perfect.

 Completed painting and message. Can you believe this was someone's home only months ago?

 Our lovely friends who moved on to Singapore. We are so happy they are still in Asia. We adore this sweet family. Gus is a fantastic athlete and his wife is one of the neatest ladies I know.

 Another friend's farewell dinner with friends. We miss them tons! 

 June and K. are best buds. We are sad to see her go! But super excited to see them this summer!

 Writing on the Wall field trip. Boo!

 Will's flower.

 Women's Conference in HK. Jaime was able to join. It  made it so so so much more better to have my sister there. She reminds me of myself in so many ways. But the better version of myself. 

We know what each other is thinking. We can read each other's minds like it's the same brain! Love her.

 Shanghai sisters in HK.

 Beautiful, Will!

 Will took this photo. Pretty good job. This was the basis for his back drop painting.

 field trip photo. Someone's kitchen and utility closet right outside.

Exploring HK by foot, tram, subway, bus, taxi...

Updates

It's been awhile since our last post, a bit of an understatement.  I think we finally figured out a solution with a VPN etc to be able to do blog posts.  Here are just a few pictures from some recent events.  

Jen did a local triathlon and ended up winning!  1st place prize was a nice GPS triathlon watch. very cool!  Her next race is in two weeks.

Will & June on Easter morning.

Will made a penguin at school and brought it home.  The kids love it.  When walking through the house in the mornings it can be startling at times!

During May holiday we went to a hotel on the outskirts of town and the kids loved the breakfast buffet, especially the meat!  They don't get too much of that at home...  

Will likes to be a photographer.  Loves to take pictures.  

This is at the hotel we went to the past two nights in Shanghai.  They had a man made beach that was fun for the kids.  We enjoyed the best weather of the year to date.  It was a great day.

June on Easter.

Plenty of attitude in this 2 yr old.

Prince William.

My cycling team at our team launch press conference.  We've had good results so far this year.  I was 4th place in a rain soaked race last weekend.  We have a big 5 day stage race in West China near Tibet at the end of the month that should be a lot of fun.  

Halloween-Christmas

I think we're behind on blogging. We just got back from a wonderful trip to the US, but I'm not even going to post about that today. I have to play catch up. The sad news of the month is Will's better-than-words-can-express pre-school is closing it's doors for the final time this June. :( I don't know what I'm going to do, but we'll figure that out soon enough, I suppose.

I took Will into school late this past week and they were already heavily into their music circle (we humorously call it the drum circle). All the kids were dancing in a circle with their drums, and they were singing to the Earth. "Now Children, the Earth is a circle, and everything in life is a circle. The Indians would dance around the fire and pray to the Earth". Then the teacher had all the girls circling one way, and the boys circling the other, and they were singing and drumming, "The Earth is our Mother. We must take care of it..."

I dropped Will off and left in tears. Gosh, I just love this gem of a school. 

Each month his school has a family day, and we eat together and do some sort of activity. This was the Halloween Family Day. Will's good friend is sitting behind.

 I pictured the desserts above because I made the spider cupcakes on the right with the licorice legs. The The kids really appreciated that.

 playing games in costume. He was Batman with an added touch of creativity-nacho libre cape and mask. 

 I don't W. think liked how to play this game so he made his own rules-grab the donut with your hand.

 W. with his buddy. They are best friends.

This is Taylor's best friend. Look how happy they are together ;)

We are sad that these good friends of ours are relocating. In our expat community it's not uncommon for this to happen-people come and go as their work dictates. We know this, but it's still hard to see good friends go. We are thankful this family is from CV, so we will see them in the summer.

 bowling with a gourd.

 Full costume. I forgot W. added in a pirate sword to complet the look.

 Then the kids paraded around the complex in their costumes for all the see. One teacher had his guitar and was leading the kids in rock songs.

 Princess J.

 parade

 We were able to witness this race and cheer him on. Thousand Islands. 4 hour drive for us.

I was so proud I almost cried when he crossed the line in 4th place. I could not have been prouder. This guys got some talent. W. was so happy to see Baba 'win the race'. He is a great example to our kids that when you have a dream, you go after it. You set goals. You work hard, and you accomplish those goals. And you never quit. Good life lessons. 

  Looking at a fountain overlooking one of the thousand islands.

 At school W. enjoyed being a member of the sewing club. There were about 5 clubs offered during the fall. I asked Will which one he chose, and he didn't know, so I asked him to describe. He said he was in a room upstairs and they used sharp things, on flowers...Ha. I just thought it was the cutest thing. And this is his final product. Pretty impressive. He was very proud of his accomplishment.

 doing hair with a friend.

 On the way to the big bus. They had a field trip to a large park where they were on a hunt for fallen leaves for Fall crafts.

 At the gates of the park. W. is back row 3rd from left.

 Leaf hunt.

 biking to school. W. loves doing this when the weather permits. He lifted his arm up 'like Baba does when he wins races'.

 he's got good control on the bike. Future cyclist in the making...?

 These kids love to paint. I thought it would be a great activity for them to do while I prepared dinner. 

 It quickly got out of control. That's paint on the floor. It's black because they mixed many colors.

 Thanksgiving feast at our most favorite, splurge of a buffet. All very happy.

 Best quality food ever.

 Early December we had the luxury of H. visiting us for 10 days while I saw another hip doctor in Thailand. Thankfully we were back in time to have some fun time to play with H. We had a lot of fun. H., do you remember these shorts? Ha ha! Good laughs.

 We explored part of the city, and I found something I've never seen before--a fruit and nut cake, made purely of dried fruit, nuts, and honey, I think. Very creative. It was huge! We bought a small piece, and realized he took advantage of our foreigner faces and overcharged us. Typical. It was yummy, though.

 Bro and sis

 W. loved having Auntie H. They had lots of fun. I enjoyed having a running friend for a week. We went out quite a bit, and got some wonderful running in. 

 Exploring a water town. I took Tr. to this same town, and H. bought the same comforters, at the same stall. Good price!

 For my birthday we went to one of my favorite restaurants. I loved seeing a flower in my salad, and the red crunchy quinoa was super tasty. A work of art plate of food.

 Making gingerbread cookies, and house for the holidays. My favorite cookie. It was my birthday month, remember?

 Remember how I said good friends come and go often?...well, this beautiful lady on the right is one of them. She is simply fabulous. I am so grateful I had the opportunity to mingle and make friends with this beautiful lady. She was my faithful visiting teacher, and went above and beyond what was required. She taught me a lot. She was firstly my friend, then my VT. I was so sad to see her go. The lovely lady in the middle will also relocate in the summer, and I will be equally sad to see her go. 

 Christmas stockings!!!

 This is the mandala W. made for us at his school. This was his gift to us. He worked so hard on this piece of art over many days. Super special, and super beautiful. 

 happy!

 happy!

 joy!

 joy!

 LOVE!

 Oh Christmas tree!

 quickly getting carried away in their painting project yet again,

 But having fun.