Thanksgiving was fun and lively. Jeremy cooked two 20 pound turkeys and a ham. We had 35 people over. I spent most of my time with the children. It was especially nice to see Jane and George. Marty made a very long and amusing toast. We had so much food leftover, we could have fed another 35 with our leftovers. It's too bad because all of us are leaving this house very soon. Maybe Donald can eat some of it.

Yesterday we took the train to DC. Donald picked us up from the train station and we talked for the 1.5 hours it took for us to get home through the horrendous DC rush hour traffic. Had a nice homemade meal and slept early and well. For breakfast we went to Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts and now we are planning dinner!

On Sunday, we got up early, early and had a nice family get together at 4 am. We had brunch with a bunch of people affiliated with IBM and IEEE and went on a tour of the new performing arts center designed by Gehery. Today Jeremy went to Princeton, we went to Toys R Us and bought a boat and tonight had dinner with Satia who works at IBM.

We made it to New York! Vince slept the whole way. It was interesting to switch from Chinese back to English. It is nice to be in the Martin household again.

Jeremy came home early to pack for tomorrow. I'm very moody these, I think going home is causing some reverse culture shock. I am excited. We moved Luther the fish downstairs to the realtor's office for the next two weeks. Spent the afternoon watching Legally Blonde. I'm starting to like the DVD issues of movies. I like listening to the director's comments and the extra scenes and stuff like that. It's really just my addiction to celebrity gossip. Jeremy still has a bit of his stomach bug and Vince has had a bloodshot eye for the past few days that I'm hoping will clear up soon. If not, we'll see a doc in the US.

Today is my mother's birthday! Happy birthday Mom :) I'm glad I will be seeing you soon! I found someone else in Taiwan who has breastfed their babies. Woo hoo! This woman in my yoga class has breastfed her children both for 1 year each. The class is still facinated by my breastfeeding. Everyone here gets the shot to stop their milk production right away after giving birth. They are afraid of their breasts shrinking and sagging. I figure if ever I get tired of the way my boobs are, I'll pay a plastic surgeon to lift them for me. Today I met a man from Kashmir in yoga class who said that all Americans were snotty, unpleasant and arrogant. He's been in Taiwan selling all these beautiful scarves, I saw one that the yoga teacher bought which was one of the less expensive ones. But some he was selling for $6000 NT ($180 US) were absolutely beautiful, hand stiched and knotted.

Eating leftovers to try and leave the fridge empty for our 2 week vacation. I rented Harry Potter and I'm listening to it in Chinese with English subtitles. I'm hoping to pick up some key words this way... I tried to listen to it in just Chinese with Chinese subtitles, but it was too hard.

Well, it looks like we might sell the house. Got a resonable offer today so hopefully it will stick. We'll just have to wait and see. I'm not really holding my breath because so many things might happen between now and closing. What am I talking about? We haven't even entered the option phase. Whatever. I got all nostalgic about our time in Austin, very homesick today.

I made coq au vin with the 2/3 bottle of red wine left over from yesterday's dinner. First time for me, eating purple chicken. Ha ha. The wind really picked up today, actually kind of chilly. The yoga teacher today told me that I shouldn't run anymore or drink cold sodas. Sigh.

We had a lasagne dinner tonight and we played to a full house! Leah, Ms. Liu, Mr. Lin, Helen, her nephew, Droopy and Man-Fai all came over and we had a great time. Dinner was over quickly, but it was really nice to have everyone over. We had salad, bread, butter, cheese, wine. We had a Dunkin Hines cake with frosting out of a can which actually was pretty terrible, so sweet. We made it because we were feeling sentimental, but really we should have made a cake from scratch. We are really limited by our oven space. Our ovens are getting crumbier and crummier.

Everybody felt better today. We thought we were going to take it easy today and rest, but it turns out we were on the go all day. In the morning, we went to the doctor to have a follow up check up on Vince. We got three more days of medication and assurances that the croup would pass quickly. Then I had breakfast at a little stand about 3 doors down from the doctor. I had the sweet hot soy milk and three pot stickers that were so hot they burned my tongue. We had lunch at a tea house where I ordered my first slushy (coffee flavored). We saw Ms. Liu who said that Leah had gone to the new Warner Village that opened in town to see Harry Potter. I mentioned that I was surprised because Harry Potter opened in the US this weekend also. But she said that they were showing an one hour edited version of the movie so they can have more showings and make more money (the ticket prices aren't edited). The regular version comes out later. We went to the Orange Mart to buy cake mix and wine. Spent the evening watching Phantom Menace and baking a cake for the dinner party tomorrow.

So everybody except me, Doris is sick today. Jeremy has the stomach flu and Vincie has the croup. Didn't do much today except watch the boys. We cancelled the lasagne dinner for tomorrow night.

So today Vincie is sick. We went to the doctor and he's received a diagnosis of croup. A bit of a dry cough, low fever, sneezing, and general grumpyness. We got some medication that they mix together into a powder concoction. When we are ready to give it to him, we mix the powder with a yellow liquid and give it to him. He seems cheerful for a sick baby. Mr. Hung helped me hold Vince down while I gave him the dropperful of medicine. We had salmon and mashed potatoes for dinner which were especially yummy. Salmon I finally got from the RT Mart and potatoes we got from Costco in Taipei.

Went to yoga, where the teacher commented again about the size of my boobs. I explained, that yes, I was still nursing an 8 month old and no, my enlarged boobs don't hurt. I met Delia, a South African who is teaching English in Hsinchu and plans to be here until next June at least. She has found a Chinese boyfriend and is quite happy. We went out to dinner with Yuru, one of Jeremy's coworkers who is very sweet. We went to a seafood restaurant and she ordered and excellent set of dishes! Yum.

Went to Miako's house today for tea and lunch! She was very, very sweet. Cute little treats from Mitsukoshi, breads and teas. Then lunch was curry and salmon. Wendy and Lucia were there also. Laura is being cared for at the Holland Village day care center and today was her first 3 hour day! Vince apparently was remarkable in the sense that he didn't fuss too much. Hmmm...

We went to see Droopy and ate the rest of the hot pot leftovers. It was pretty good. Man-fai came and joined us because we had gotten him Cheerios at Costo and he wanted to pick them up...

Saturday, we drove to Taipei and camped out with the Smiths. Asuka and Carrie were pretty busy taking care of their ailing cat, feeding it and soothing it. Eppie is getting (or got) surgery on Sunday to have a feeding tube placed in his neck so that the food can be directly placed in his stomach. We went with the Smiths to their parent/teacher conference and played on the playground with Mattie and Dakota. Then we went to Subway for lunch. The remarkable thing this time with visiting Taipei was how remarkably like America it was. The TAS was completely English (of course) and the Subway, the Babalooo ice cream store was all English friendly. Even the want ads posted on the street had English. We hadn't seen so many white people in ages! I said that we didn't have to go to America anymore, we just had to hang out in Tien Mu in Taipei. We drove up to Yangming San and walked a while, climbed quite a bit and had a nice view of the mountains of Taipei. Then we went back to the Smiths and had a dinner of pizza and they went out and we put the kids to bed and watched the Father of the Bride. Sunday we shopped at Costo, and some American markets. We are planning on making lasagna for Ms. Liu and Helen this weekend.

We had a delicious hot pot with Ms. Liu and Helen. Turns out that Helen changed her Chinese name last November. I couldn't believe that she changed her name. Apparently, an astrologer told her that the old name was no good and that the new name will insure prosperity in business and in love! Crazy. Also went to Zephyn's 2nd birthday party in the lobby downstairs. Gave some M and Ms in a Japanese box.

So my Chinese lessons are taking a more serious twist. I'm tackling the grammer sections of my textbook, not only just reading the passages at the front of each chapter. Mr. Hung is a very good teacher, he makes me practice even when I don't want to which is quite often these days. Jeremy went to Tainan today on a bus with a bunch of his coworkers to see the UMC fab down there. Also today, there was a kid who got hit by one of the nursery school buses in Holland Village. It was a bit scary hearing the ambulance and such. Inside the apartment complex, there aren't too many cars compared with the regular street, so people just let their kids run around, but there are still some buses and cars. I think the kid was on his bike and both he and the driver weren't looking out for each other. I hope he is OK.

OK, so things are weird here. AMD management is going wacky. I don't want to put too much in my web log because Jeremy says it's a BIG SECRET. Whatever. Let's just say that our future plans are uncertain. I tried to buy pork from the wet market pork vendor but I wasn't brave enough. They have slabs of pork on the table and I'm not sure which one I want and do I have to buy the whole slab? It's all very strange.

Worked out for 15 minutes, cancelled my Chinese class, saw a dog be tormented by a guy on a scooter, had a woman talk about me in Chinese in front of me to her friend who was having a conversation with me in Chinese. But everything ended on a good note! Ms. Liu says that next week Droopy's parents are going to America and we might get to take care of Droopy at night next week! And Vince went to sleep at 9 pm tonight!

I went to yoga class with some Japanese women I met a little while ago. The yoga class was *nothing* like the ones I've been to in the US. First of all, there is chatting throughout the class, who has the best hairdresser, how Japanese ladies have the palest skin and the nicest language. Also, the teacher has a militaristic, drill seargent-like voice, none of this "relax into the pose, breath deeply, slowly" etc. from the teacher. Also gone was my natural advantage of being more flexible than the average American. The class did pose after pose of very complicated spine twisting poses! There was a 70 year old lady doing all this stuff beautifully right next to me. There was foot massages by walking over them, etc. Yeow! Also, I'm learning English from my Chinese/English children's program. Did you know that DDR is Dance Dance Revolution?

Spent the morning going to McDonalds to breakfast, on the way there, we saw a parade complete with drums, tall gods, and firecrackers. Couldn't really figure out what they were celebrating, but we had a fun time watching. There was also a fire engine, rescue truck, safety thing going on in the RT Mart parking lot, we couldn't figure out that one either. After breakfast, we spoke with our families, then went out to lunch near Sogo did some shopping. Then in the evening, we went out to dinner with some of Jeremy's coworkers, Scott and Christine. They are Scottish and have been living in Paris for the past two years. They are really enjoying their adventure and are looking forward to spending time in Singapore.

We had a nice day today. Got up a little late and ate a leisurly breakfast. Then went to the flower shop and bought some flowers to take over to Linda's house. We were quite impressed with the flower shop girl who spent so much time wrapping the flowers all up so beautifully. Then we drove into the "country" near the port of Hsin chu to find Linda. We saw her daughter again, and met her husband. They have a really nice house. It's been occupied by her husband's family for at least 4 generations. They have a nice, large kitchen and beautiful marble floors (not like in the US, all fancy and polished, more functional and old-hotel like). They cooked and cooked for us a wonderful, wonderful lunch. I can't even explain all the dishes she made in about an hour. And they were so nice and fun. Jeremy took so many pictures. Jeremy is slowly learning how to cook and what to put in everything. Then we had a quiet evening, had some buns and also watched a pretty funny movie, "Kissing Jessica Stein".