Family Time

**I wrote this post on Monday and didn't get a chance to publish it until now... Sorry! We've been away on a trip to the mountains, which I'll hopefully get a chance to blog about tomorrow. **

In case you didn't know, I am the oldest of 3. My brother, Peter, lives in Calgary, about 2 1/2 hours away, and my sister, Sarah, has taught in Taiwan for the past 2 years. We haven't been together since last summer. Peter drove up for the weekend with his fiancee, Teresa, and Sarah returned from Taiwan late Friday night. Jason stayed home with our sleeping kiddos so that I would be able to go out to the airport to welcome her back!

My dad turned 60 this year! We didn't celebrate until this past weekend, when all of us were able to be together again. One of my dad's favorite dishes is Peking Duck. It originates from China. Basically, a duck is cooked and served in a variety of ways. The restaurant we went to served us 3 courses. For the first course, you placed the duck meat, onion, cucumber, and carrots on a Chinese pancake. You'd drizzle a sweet hoisin sauce on it, then roll it up. Jason calls it a "Chinese burrito." The second dish uses the duck in a soup with tofu and other vegetables. The rest of the duck was served with noodles for the third course. We also ordered other dishes to round out the meal. Well, Teresa, my brother's fiancee did. It turns out that at this particular restaurant, there was a Chinese menu and a separate English menu. Everything cost more if you ordered in English. Luckily, Teresa speaks Chinese! We are heading off to Calgary tomorrow to meet up with Peter and Teresa, and then will go on to Banff on Wednesday morning. I'm kind of dreading the traveling because Grace and Jeremy still haven't adjusted to being here yet. Jeremy is typically a really laid-back, easy going kid. Grace is also usually a pretty good kid. It hasn't been that way since we got here. We've really tried to keep their schedules as close to how it is when we're in Fresno. At first, we thought it was the heat, but not much has changed even now that it's cooler. The kids share a room (they don't usually), so they are having trouble falling asleep, Jeremy continues to wake up throughout the night, both kids aren't eating well, Grace has decided to start testing us by developing an attitude, talking back, doing things she knows is wrong, etc. As great as it has been to see everyone, it has also been really frustrating. I think it'll be good to have some time with just the four of us!