These days we've been happily busy while my aunt Lou Ann and my cousin Jeremy are here to visit.  They're currently on their own in Xi'An, where the Teracotta Warriors are and with the exception of traffic woes and date mixups with their return train tickets, I think they're trip is going well.

Tristin was able to go out with us one day, after having put in extra hours on several weekends.  It was nice, because we went to our second favorite park in Beijing, the Temple of Heaven.  Our favorite is probably the Summer Palace because it has so many lotus flowers and because it's much closer to where we live.

Despite the heat of the summer days and our constant inability to leave the house before 11am, we have successfully made it to nearly every main tourist spot in the city.  Granted, there are ALWAYS more places to go, but no matter how much time you have, you just can't see everything in this enormous city. 

Some highlights have been a trip to the Beijing Planning Museum, where there is a miniature model map of the city of Beijing in 2020.  Tristin found our apartment building and I found a park that I'd never been to.  Attached to the entrance of this museum is Canada's Olympic Exhibition hall.  As many of you probably know, Canada is next in line for hosting the winter Olympics in 2010, so they've set up an exhibition to introduce people to what Canada is all about. It was really interesting and it seems as though Tristin and I are both drawn to Vancouver as a possible future living place: but, that all depends on what the job situation is there, anyone know how the pharmaceutical research business is in Vancouver?? 

Bowen is doing well, talking up a storm and learning some words, but mostly still babbling.  He's learning mostly Chinese, since that is the main language he hears.  He can say che/car, da/big, huo che/train, hu die/butterfly, deng/light (although for this he usually says dou instead of deng) and I think that's about it so far, well, besides mama and baba.  He's a very energetic little guy too!!! If only someone could bottle up the energy that kids have, the world would be sooooooo productive!  or, maybe, too distracted!
Bowen loves to throw the ball now and can make the animal noises for a lion, horse, cow and dog.  That's his favorite thing to show off to people, which takes most of them off guard as they come up to this cute little baby boy and say hi and what they get in return is this deep throated lion growl. 

The only problem we're having with Bowen is getting him to eat.  He just doesn't seem to want to eat much these days, which we're pretty sure, is related to the fact that he's teething.  He has three teeth now, two on the bottom and one on top, with more on their way.  These days the only thing we can get him to eat is bread and macaroni and cheese.  I guess he is a pretty typical toddler!

Well, that's it for this edition.  Until next time!!!