Beach 2

This is another one by the wall... but I love this picture. I think it is so cute. This was pretty representative of our trip. I was usually holding Bennett, so Austin and Chris had a lot of father-son bonding. They had a lot of fun together...making jokes, saying funny things, singing funny songs, digging holes in the sand, Chris carried Austin a LOT since we just brought the single stroller. Now that we are back Austin asks when Daddy is coming home about once an hour throughout the day- he misses him when he is gone.

This was Austin's "big boy hotel bed"- 2 single beds pushed together. Notice the wonderful wallpaper strip right by his bed- its almost as good as an ocean view room (ok, not at all). But he slept great and would talk away quietly as if we weren't even in the room before he fell asleep. Now we can officially travel with only one portable bed (we brought Austin's tent and the pack and play, afraid he wouldn't go for the bed but we only used the tent on the beach).

Remember my post called The Green Island back in May when Chris and I had our weekend away at the beach? Remember all the couples getting their wedding pictures done? Well, this beach was no exception. And I completely predicted this scene...that someone would want two cute little white kids in their wedding photo. Well, it happened. Austin even agreed to pose, I don't know why (though it doesn't look like it here). I wonder what they will tell their kids, I mean kid, one day about this photo?

Austin and his watering can. Austin loves to play in and with water, so the beach was lots of fun. He spent lots of trips filling up this watering can and dumping it on the sand, in the pool, on Bennett's head...wherever seemed fun.

One of the few moments where Bennett was not trying to eat something. He stayed in the pool (see behind him) a little bit, but nor for long. By the way, the only bucket this one store had was pink, so we have a nice pink bucket. Not that boys can't play with pink...but I thought I would mention it. :)

One totally unrelated thing. If you do not live in the country we do, this will not seem funny or make much sense. But today I got a notice today for "停奶 ” (which means literally "stop milk"). Now i have seen lots of ting shui (stop water) and ting dian (stop electricity) signs in my years here, but never a "ting nai". It made me laugh for some reason. Basically, our yogurt delivery service (we just started getting yogurt delivered to our door. In little glass bottles like milk in the 1950s in the US. They put them in a little box outside our door around 5 pm every day and pick up the previous day's empty bottles. It is great!) will not be delivering yogurt because of the holiday tomorrow, b/c no delivery trucks will be allowed in the city for security. Today was one of those days I wanted to tell Bennett I was "Ting nai"- I am still nursing but today was ready to quit. I won't all at once, but he still likes to nurse but is SO active it is annoying. Ask me tomorrow though and I will probably be sad at the thought of quitting.

If you are wondering what holiday, October 1 (other than being the day we will NOT be seeing U2 in concert in Virginia) is the national holiday and this year is the 60th anniversary since this country began in the system it is now under. A really big deal. No one will work or go to school. There is a huge parade in the big square downtown. The airport is shut down all morning. Many roads are closed. And the partying goes on for 7 days. I will be staying home and possibly not leaving the house at all (I might go to my neighbors to watch the parade on TV. But that is as far as I want to go out...people will be everywhere). More on that tomorrow.