Watch, Read, Listen

3 May 2014 – Good morning!  Here's a view out or hotel room window…very little happening at the moment. Here comes the bread lady!  Check out that heavy load she's carrying on her back: These two look like mother and child (in traditional dress?): Breakfast…yak yogurt, toast, yak butter and scrambled eggs.  Yum!!! We checked…

17 May 2014 – Mark came home last night!!!  He rearranged his flights so that he could return from his monster South America whirlwind tour (Peru and Argentina) and North America ONE DAY EARLY.  He was gone for nearly a month!  It's amazing how just that one additional day made such a BIG difference to…

2 May 2014 – After loading on the bus – and now it's becoming a running joke to make that I'm on the bus as well (sigh…at least it's better than getting left behind!) we wound our way through the fairly large city of Lanzhou and then out to the countryside.  We're making our way…

7-9 May 2014- The fifth graders are a bunch of lucky kids!  They get to go on a two-night, three day trip to a place called Goose and Duck.  I think it's actually more of a resort than a camp but I'm not sure as I've never seen it.  The trip is part of their…

1 May 2014 – So…this is supposed to be entrance #2???  Julia said it would be a long ride to the next entrance and it only took ten minutes to get here.  Something tells us this isN'T what Julia had in mind.  However, since we're here let's go ahead and take a look.   Our…

30 April – So…here's the scoop.  Mark is out on a super doooooooper long business trip to Peru, Argentina and the USA.  His trip will last about one stinking month.  (yikes!  That's a long darn time) To keep the girls and me from going stir-crazy AND our friend Julia offered us spots on the tour…

12 & 13 April 2014- It's time to go home.  It's been fun.  It's been amazing.  I doubled..almost tripled…the number of dives in my log book.  We got to see sharks in a calm manner.  We read lots of books, swam in the ocean every chance we got, and got a few VERY PAINFUL massages.…

11 April 2014- Today we're doing the biggest, coolest dives we've done yet (okay…maybe Mark's dive with the whale sharks might be on the same par).  We're going to head to Apo Reef!  It's a national park – underwater – which hasn't been fished for over a decade.  That means that there should be an…

10 April 2014- Annika missed a chance to see the sea turtle on one of the recent dives Mark and I did (without her)….so we're going to go in search of one this morning with our dive master, Marvin.   Sadly, no sea turtles but still a fun, relaxing, easy dive.  Annika and Marvin went…

9 April 2014- Today…we're not doing anything.  And when I say we're not doing anything I mean we're going to sit on the beach and play in the water, snorkel and read our books. All. Day. Long.  I think everyone can use a break like that from time to time, right?   Okay…just to change…