Our Easter Celebration

This year's Easter plans were set up to fail. :-)

I say that lovingly because I had this awesome idea of how Easter would go. We would get back from our family vacation to Taiwan (more on this later with future blog posts!) Friday at midnight, sleep and recover on Saturday, then get up bright and early Sunday morning to head to Mass, have an Easter egg hunt in the backyard, and spend quality time with my family (as we will be celebrating Easter with Nate's family in a few weekends). It was such a perfect plan that flitting butterflies and dancing hearts celebrated these plans with me.

Then reality hit.

Abby and I landed at midnight (Nate's flight got him in a few hours earlier) but by the time we'd gathered our luggage, picked up dinner and ate it, and sat around enjoying our house it was closer to 2am by the time I was in bed and asleep. I found out the next morning that Nate stayed up with Abby until 4am when she finally conked out. (Taiwan is approximately 15 hours ahead of us, so we were basically flip-flopped on the clock for time. Trying to go to bed when you feel like it's 5pm is tough.) At 12:30pm I heard a "Momma! Momma! Get Momma!" and peeled open an eyeball. Ugh. Saturday was starting out as ugh. The day did improve to the point that we were able to unpack all the suitcases, start laundry, and get a few outside Spring-time chores done like getting the sprinklers turned on but we were nowhere near recovered from our adventures. It was again another late night as Abby didn't fall asleep until 2am so we were once again up until almost 3am. I set my alarm for 10am thinking that that should give us enough time to sleep but still get up in time for the 11:30am mass.

At 10am my alarm went off all chirpy and crap. I turned it off and thought that I'd stay in bed just a few minutes before getting up. Next thing I know Nate is jumping out of bed beside me and yelling at me that we've locked Abby in her room for hours. Huh? What? My brain was just recognizing the cobwebs, having not made any moves to sweep them away, when he sheepishly comes back holding Abby who still looks dead to the world. Turns out that Nate glanced at his phone and saw that it was 1:30pm (yes, 1:30pm) and freaked out thinking that Abby had been up for hours and was just chilling in her room waiting for us to get up and let her out. (We have a knob lock thing so that she can't open the door from the inside of her room.) When he went to get her he actually had to shove the door open as she'd fallen asleep behind it the night before and still wasn't up when he'd gotten to her. (After a week of sleeping in the bed with us we are having to reteach her that her big girl bed is awesome and she will be much happier sleeping there.)

So here we are...1:30pm on Easter. Masses have all been said (at least that I knew of for our local churches), no eggs have been hidden, no yummy breakfast (or any meal for that matter) planned, and I'm still in my bathrobe and desperately need to brush my teeth. Hmm. Yeah, this day isn't going as planned. :-)

I ran outside and scattered the eggs on the ground (thankfully I'd filled them up the night before as well as putting together her Easter basket) then got some food for Abby while Nate and I enjoyed sipping on caffeine. Once everyone's cobwebs were clear we went outside for Abby to experience her first Easter egg hunt. She was so adorable! At first she had no clue what to do. She saw the eggs and was holding her basket but hadn't put the two together. So Nate grabbed her hand and led her to an egg then put it in the basket for her. And with that she was off and running. She thought it was so fun looking for the eggs and picking them up and tossing them in her basket.

Abby got a little help from Daddy then was off and running.

It was cute how, even though the eggs were just lying on the ground, she'd walk completely past one in order to get to whichever egg she'd zeroed in on.

My first thought was to actually try to hide them a bit, but when thinking of her age and how tired I was, I figured just dropping them around the yard would be fun enough.

It was pretty cute when she realized that the other side of the yard had even more eggs. Run, run, run in her goofy little way.

Then midway through egg hunting a change in activity came about. Someone discovered that the eggs held chocolate!

It was here that she shook the green egg upon picking it up and realized there was something inside the eggs. So she dumped them all out of her basket to see what was up.

Chocolate!!!

And with that, hunting eggs was over. 

She then began working on opening up all of the eggs and dumping their contents (M&Ms) inside the basket.

She got pretty good at opening the eggs as well. Only broke one egg from squeezing too hard. Considering I broke two trying to put the M&MS inside she did much better than I.

Once she'd run out of eggs nearby to open she went in search for more.

After she ate entirely too much chocolate I put on my "Bad Mom" hat and took the basket away and gathered up the remaining eggs so that the chocolate could be eaten later. Nate decided that this would be a good time to buy some spray for our trees (last year we didn't spray and got fruit which ended up making a HUGE mess of our yard when all the fruit fell - we didn't realize that before we bought the house the previous owner had sprayed the trees and that's what kept them fruit-free for our first two years in the house), as well as return some items to my parents.

It was at my parents house that we introduced Abby to the joy of dying eggs. I wanted Nate to see this which is why I didn't do it before we left (as it would have had to have been done the first week of March) and I wasn't prepared on Saturday and had to go out and buy eggs to boil. So after Easter dying it was!

Here Abby is tossing eggs in the dye cups. And I do mean toss! 

You can see that her little hand is a few inches above the cup when she lets the egg go. Thankfully we were outside where the messes were easier to clean up. 

Trying oh so hard to wait patiently until the eggs were colored.

I'm thinking that next year she'll really get into dying the eggs. :-) This year she was very interested in dropping the eggs into the dye cups from a high distance as she enjoyed the splash they made when they dropped, as well as banging the eggs together to hear them crack. She had no interest in the stickers. She did also enjoy dumping out the water onto the rocks, though. Like I said...hopefully next year she'll be really into this activity.

It was at this time that I remembered that Bethel had an evening Easter service that we could attend which started in less than an hour. But after looking at Abby yawning and realizing that it was time to go home for her nap, and knowing that we still would require a shower before getting the family all dressed up I talked to Nate and we agreed that our Easter this year wouldn't include church attendance. Which felt weird. But like Nate kept reminding me we'd just gotten back from a whirlwind family vacation, were still completely off on our time zones, had major jet lag, were still adjusting to the food back home, and overall all of us were showing signs that we were just done with the day.

So my sunshine and rainbows Easter plans didn't quite work out the way I'd intended them to. But in thinking back on our day, and looking back at pictures, we had a lot of fun and were still able to include Jesus in the day with Abby's new Easter book and telling her about what the day means beyond the bunny. For the happy memories and the fun day I say this Easter ended up being a success in its own special way.

Our Trip to Taiwan - Day 8

Our last day in Taiwan had finally arrived. We were sad to be leaving the Kuo Family and sad to know that our days of seeing exciting, new things was over. But we were also looking forward to our own beds, American food, and being on our regular schedule. Tim showed up at our hotel to help get Nate to a nearby bus stop that would take him to the airport for his 1pm flight. Since he'd booked through work we were unable to get on the same flight home, so the rest of us wouldn't be leaving until our 11pm flight. We waited at the bus stop for almost twenty minutes before it became apparent that my back had had enough of carrying around a 30+ pound toddler all week. While having Nate hold Abby did help alleviate the pain it soon got to the point that even just standing was causing me to hurt. Since Abby wasn't content just sitting in our arms (and we weren't going to let her down to run as we were on a very busy street) I asked Nate if it would be alright for us to say our good-byes now and then head back to the hotel with Abby so I could lay down and she could play. I wasn't in the hotel room but ten minutes when Mom showed up. She was worried about me and also a little bored of just standing there. :-) So we decided to take Abby to a park two blocks up from our hotel so she could get lots of wiggles out. Yes, it did mean that I had to carry her again with my protesting back but I knew that we were facing hours in a small apartment and then even more hours in a cramped plane. I knew that freedom to move was priority one for Abby.

Saying our good-byes before Nate heads off to the airport.

Once again, playing phone.

A view of the street that we walked up to get to the park. It was pretty amazing how we'd go from concrete jungle to city park with trees and bushes in just a few steps.

Abby had a blast on the "bouncy" rides. She started rocking so hard she almost hit herself in the face with the handle bars.

This is actually one of the two adult exercise stations that were at the park. You are supposed to stand on the yellow circle, put your hands on the red bars, and then twist your feet right and left to work your core muscles. Abby thought it was a great hanging bar.

Here's the second exercise station. You grab onto the ends of one rope (there were multiple ropes of varying lengths) and pull one arm down (which forces the other up) then the other arm down for a good bicep/shoulder workout. I thought these were neat additions to the park.

   

Here's another look at a cement slide. The kids walk up these steps and then slide down the other side. While we were at the park there was another family there who was originally from London but were visiting family (well she was from London, he was from Taiwan, and they were currently living in Brazil!). I thought they had two twin boys and then the girl in this picture but it turned out that the girl was some random other child in the park. No idea who she belonged to!

All too soon we got the word that Nate was off to the airport and we needed to get back to the hotel to meet with up with Tim and Dad. The plan was that we were all going to hang out at Tim's place until it came time to leave for our flight. Then we'd travel back to the hotel where our luggage would be held (as Tim had given the van we had borrowed during the week back to his Aunt and Uncle and was now driving his Camry), meet up with a shuttle bus who would take all of us and our belongings to the airport, and then meet back up with Tim (who would be following the shuttle bus) to make sure we got through the gate okay. At first I was worried that spending almost eight hours in the small apartment with nothing really to do would be a hardship of trying to keep Abby entertained. But the reality was that when we got to the apartment I decided to try and lay down with her to see if she'd take a nap and then she and I passed out for almost three hours. When she did wake up she was still super cuddly so we spent the next hour just sitting and watching TV with the rest of the crew. The remaining four hours in the apartment went just as smoothly. Abby was content to play with the hide-and-seek coffee table, watch TV with us, or quietly roam around.Then it was time to make the drive to the hotel, then to the airport. Iris surprised us by showing up at the hotel to help send us off in style. She hadn't gotten to see a lot of us due to work and wanted to make the effort to see us one more time before who knows when we'd see each other again. 

At the airport I was once again thankful for having a small child to speed things up. Having natives also helped! We were quickly ushered into the premiere line with no waiting to get our boarding passes and check our luggage. When Tim and Iris got us to the security line we said our good-byes and began our long flight home.

Abby chilling in her carseat rolling contraption. She was more than content to people watch as we headed off to our gate. 

As soon as we sat down in our boarding area we got the bad news that our flight was delayed. I had horror images running through my mind of how horrible this delay could be. Thankfully it was just for an hour so we were able to maintain peace. Abby and I went up and down the stairs a lot, played with the public telephones, and looked out the window to see the various planes nearby.

When a boarding call came for small children our family shot up and practically ran towards the boarding door. We wanted out of that waiting room! I was able to book all four of us in the same row so it was nice to know that I had easy access to help as well as knowing that if I leaned too much in one direction I wouldn't be molesting some stranger. I got Abby settled in her seat and within a few minutes she was out like a light. I had learned my lesson about skipping a meal on the flight over so I made sure to stay up until food was served by watching the new Jack Reacher movie. It wasn't bad, but the book was way better. Isn't that the case with most movies made from books? Once the movie finished I put in my ear plugs, put on my eye mask, and planned to sleep for the next seven or so hours. Yeah, that didn't happen. Our turbulence was just rough enough that Abby's poor little head was bouncing all over the place waking her up time and time again. It eventually got the point that she'd woken up enough that she was awake. Only three hours into our ten our flight. Ugh. Well, I grabbed the Ergo and she and I went to a bulkhead section to rock and try to get her to fall back asleep. After twenty or so minutes it became apparent that this plan wasn't going to work. So we settled back in to our seats with me holding Abby (as she wanted nothing to do with her seat) and I turned on one of the free cartoons from the airplanes entertainment section. A little bit later I realized that Abby had gotten pretty heavy in my arms so I looked down to find a sleeping angel in my lap. I tried following suit but it was darn hard holding on to her and laying back to rest. I eventually gave up and turned on SkyFall and then once that had finished Rise of the Guardians. I also read through a good portion of a book on my Kindle app. Just as the pilot turned on the seatbelt warning sign for landing Abby woke up. She slept almost seven hours in my arms. Yay!

Now we had to battle through customs. Going through customs in Taiwan was super easy. We just walked right up, spent a few minutes handing over papers, and went on our way. Not so in Seattle. First we had to wait in a long line to get to the customs agent (and by long I mean almost an hour), then we had to wait for our bags to be on the baggage carousel, then we had to go through a second custom's agent for a baggage check, then we had to go out to the main terminal to recheck in with our connecting flight, and finally we had to go through security to get to our boarding gate. Two hours later we were finally in the security line to get to our boarding area. Abby was so not happy. She desperately wanted to be let down but I knew that as soon as I let her down she'd want to run off and play and this wasn't the place for that. I'd had to hold her through the first customs line and then, since we were trying to see if we could make an earlier connection, I'd held on to her as we raced towards the main terminal. She got to be down for a little bit as we waited in line to get our boarding passes, but she was up in my arms again for going through the security line. Abby had had enough. She was crying, wiggling, sobbing, and fighting my hold. Eventually she put her head on my shoulder and we began to snuggle as I continued to tell her over and over that as soon as we were done with the line I'd let her down and play. It was about half-way through the line (as EVERYONE was in this security line) that I felt her little puffs of sleeping breath and realized she'd fallen asleep in my arms. She remained asleep as we finished going through security, as we made our way down to an airport bar and grill, and as we ate dinner.

Abby sleeping in my arms at dinner. I feel like I look at this point.

I should have known that mention of food for Abby would have woken her up because as soon as I said we should head to Wendy's so I could get a to-go order for Abby for whenever she woke up, she woke up. And that's when I discovered that sleeping on Mom for almost ten hours leads to a nasty heat rash.

My poor baby was covered in this tiny red welts from her head to the middle of her back and chest.

We got Abby fed and then headed over to our boarding area for the final leg of our flight. This last flight was good in that it was short and sweet at around 40 minutes, but bad in that Abby was DONE being on planes. She didn't yell or scream but she did get in trouble for kicking the seat in front of her after being told no. Thankfully she was pretty satisfied playing games on my phone until I was able to point out the lights of the Tri-Cities as we came in to land. Gathering up our gear we departed the plane, walked through the boarding area, and saw Nate! It was so good to see him after such a long day apart! He was excited to see us as well. Once bags were gathered we said good-bye to my parents and drove for home. The pizza he got us for dinner was the best pizza I've ever tasted. American food! Yum! At around 2am Pacific time we decided that we should probably get Abby to bed and then ourselves as we knew we were in for a tough time getting back on 'normal' time. Falling asleep was the easy part. Staying asleep was also managed. Getting up was another story. We didn't get up until 12:30pm! So much for getting back on schedule as soon as possible. :-)

All in all I can say that our trip to Taiwan was one for the memory books. We had a blast seeing Tim and Iris again, had a great time meeting Jane, Jen, and Grace, saw amazing sights, experienced new things that we wouldn't have been able to experience otherwise, and had a generally fantastic family vacation. We were so glad we made this trip!!! 

Our Trip to Taiwan - Day 7

The next morning we woke up refreshed and ready to jump back into touring the sights. Well, at lease I thought we were. The family headed downstairs for breakfast where Abby was just not acting her happy self. She didn't want to eat, wanted me to hold her, then didn't, and was just generally in a grumpalumpigous mood. Eventually I gave him to her desire to sit on the floor as I was getting more and more frustrated with her behavior and she was getting louder and louder with her desire to be down. At home Nate and I are pretty particular about her not getting on the floor when we're at restaurants because for a time we didn't mind, which turned into her always wanting to be on the floor. We eventually agreed that no floor sitting would happen. So I totally gave in on this one and admit it. As soon as she got on the floor she became very calm and just sat there. Then she went into the child's pose and began to talk to the floor. After a few minutes I realized that I wasn't hearing her chatting away but figured she was just happily pretending or what-not. A few minutes later I realized I was hearing an unexpected sound. Abby snoring! She'd literally been up an hour after having a fantastic night of sleep (she slept straight from 10pm until 7am without waking up - her best night of sleep since we'd arrived in Taiwan so Nate and I figured she was finally getting the hang of the time change). I'm guessing now that my poor baby was just exhausted and even a good night's sleep wasn't enough to catch her up. After we finished breakfast Nate picked her and took her upstairs without her waking up, then proceeded to lay her on the bed (poopy diaper and all, which normally would bother her enough to wake her up), covered her with the down blanket, and out like a light she was. The adults conversed and it was decided that Nate (who had been in Taiwan for two plus weeks and was feeling a little run down) would stay behind at the hotel with Abby while the rest of us continued onto the travel plans for the day.

My poor baby is all tuckered out. 

Our first stop was at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial. Wow! Talk about a grand entrance. The grounds of the memorial were comprised of four separate buildings. To enter the grounds you first had to pass through the Entrance Gate which was a gate on steroids. Once through the gate there were two large buildings on either side of the walk-way in the shape of temples. These buildings were the National Performance Hall and National Theatre where concerts, plays, and operas were held. Directly in front of us was the memorial itself.

We walked through this gate and then I walked and walked and walked until I could get back far enough to get the entire gate in the picture.

The National Performance Hall. The National Theatre was an exact copy just on the other side of the main grounds.

Chiang Kai-shek's Memorial. As we got closer we could see that there was a huge statue of Chiang Kai-shek sitting on a chair (located in that block oval in the middle of the memorial). It really reminded me of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Both ivory statues of somber faced men sitting in hard-lined chairs. I don't know if this was intentional (as the Lincoln Memorial was built first) or just an interesting coincidence.

The group in front of the memorial. Gives some perspective on how big the memorial really was!

Unfortunately for us there was restoration work being done on the steps leading up to the statue of Chiang Kai-shek so we weren't able to get a closer view. We were able to go inside the memorial hall (basically the green fence behind us in the picture above is actually the outside wall of the exhibition inside) and learn more about what Chiang Kai-shek did for the people of Taiwan as well as see actual articles of clothing, weaponry, and documents from this life. One of the interesting things was that there was no mention of his first two wives or his concubine. Madame Chiang-Kai shek was the only wife mentioned in any of the pictures or descriptions of artifacts in the entire hall. I know that the people of Taiwan (at least in her time) had a great love for her, but I thought it was interesting that this love basically erased the historical truth of earlier wives. We also got to see a different version of the Changing of the Guard at the memorial. 

Same slow step routine, but these men were from the Air Force as indicated by their blue uniforms.

After the memorial is was time for our second adventure of the day. Souvenir shopping!!! Both Mom and I wanted to pick up various items to bring back to family members as well as get our own travel gifts. Many years ago Mom began the tradition of buying Christmas ornaments from every place she visited. While my Dad was still active-duty in the Marine Corps they traveled to a lot of places in a little time and she wanted something tangible to remember those fun days. There was a dry spell of traveling after Dad became a Reservist, but once I was out of college and able to save up my own money for trips we began to travel frequently again. I so loved this Christmas ornament tradition that I continued it with my own travels (beginning once I got my own little Christmas tree for my apartment). Since we had only stopped at the gift shops associated with the place we were seeing (and many did not have even a small gift shop) we were sadly lacking on gifts to bring home. Jane brought us to 'her' gift shop. Basically all the small business owners try to help each other out by giving kick backs to the store that sends customers to other stores. In Jane's case she gives out voucher cards to people that visit her shop so that when they visit the local souvenir shop around the corner these people get a small discount and Jane gets a percentage of their sales. The souvenir shops do the same so people visit Jane's juice shop. I was impressed at the size of the shop when I first walked in, but then I learned I was only on the first of four floors and was blown away. Imagine any type of souvenir item you might want to buy and this shop had that and then some. Dad quickly found a chair (followed shortly by Jane and Jen) while Mom and I browsed, and shopped, and browsed some more.

Scooter parking lot. If you look towards the back of the picture you can see that some scooters are parked up on the sidewalk on the right side as they ran out of room on the left! 

A local McDonald's. The McDonald's that we saw were much more upscale quick eating restaurants than the kid focused ones we have. While there were still plenty of kids their the tables, atmosphere, and general feel just seemed more "kids are welcome but aren't our marketed customer". 

A Christian church! I wasn't able to get close enough to see which denomination and, unfortunately, the symbols I did see don't really help. The cross on the left looks like a Presbyterian cross, but then they have a Crucified Jesus on the cross on the green panel indicating Catholic, the small cross at the top of the building indicates another form of Protestant denomination, while the Alpha and Omega Greek letters seem to correspond to everyone.

Once we completed our shopping we headed back to the hotel to pick up Nate and Abby and head downstairs for lunch. I'd like to say that I was able to enjoy the festive atmosphere and yummy food, but instead I have to say that I spent the little time I was at the table wrangling a small toddler who had no desire to sit, wanted nothing to do with the food, and couldn't be made to be happy for anything. So shortly after food arrived I grabbed Abby and we headed back to our room to feast on peanut butter crackers and apple juice.

Desperately trying to keep Abby happy. The wait staff was so nice to us! They brought Abby her own special plastic plate, cup, and spoon as well as cooled rice. 

After the rest of the crew finished eating we regrouped and then decided what to do with the rest of our afternoon. Nate still hadn't seen Jane's juice shop and really wanted to stop by there while Dad's leg was hurting again so he was more inclined to hang out at the hotel and people watch from his room while working. You can take the job away from Dad, but not Dad away from the job. :-) Then Jane and Jen thought it's be fun to take us to Tamsui, which is the northern most part of Taiwan that the MRT will take you too. They thought it would give us an idea of what the night markets were like, but with having Abby with us, a more family-friendly version. 

After finishing lunch but before Jane and Jen picked us up for our afternoon excursion I decided to try and begin packing up our suitcases since Nate would be leaving us right after breakfast the following morning. We almost didn't fit everything! Nate had brought over three suitcases with him (one with clothes, one containing gifts for his students, and one containing his teaching materials) so we thought he'd pretty much be coming home with two empty suitcases that we would fill with our gifts. Little did we know how generous the Kuo family would be! We filled all of Nate's extra suitcases then ended up using a suitcase from the Kuo's that they never used. 

Back to Jane's shop we went! Here's a view of her shop standing on the edge of the sidewalk in front. Most of the shops spilled out a bit onto the sidewalk and were also very tiny when compared to America's strip malls. 

Here's a better view of the size of Jane's shop. The fruit stand was just outside the front wall and the "Fruit Juice" sign is the back wall of her shop. Literally just enough room for four tables.

Mom trying Bubble Tea. Basically it's tea, milk, and tapioca balls. Mom took one sip and promptly passed the glass to me. :-) I tried it and it wasn't so bad once you got used to sucking up a chewy, round thing. I actually ended up liking it so much that it became my second favorite drink.

Here's a view of the riders of a tour bus that parked right in front of the shop to let its passengers debark to head to the souvenir shop around the corner. Yep, Jane and the tour company are "partners". We would literally go from us being the only customers to suddenly there being 20+ drink orders to fill.

After having our fill of yummy juice it was time to get back on the MRT and head up North. I will admit that I'm glad I didn't know how long the trip would take or I might have balked a bit about taking Abby. It turned out that the ride would be over a half hour and we didn't have a stroller or carrier to help contain her. So I sang lots of songs, passed her off to Nate then got her back a lot, pointed out all the kids on the MRT that she could wave/talk to, pointed out the sights we were quickly passing by, etc, etc. Finally, we arrived! 

Mom working that turn style like a pro. :-)

This little girl saw Abby and immediately ran over and asked to have their picture taken together. Abby wasn't too receptive so that's why I'm in the picture holding her down. :-) After the picture was taken the little girl got her camera back and then proceeded to take candid snap shots of Abs as she walked along the boardwalk. Too cute!

Tamsui is like a mini Atlantic City boardwalk. On one side was the sea and on the other were various food, game, and amusement shops. Lots of lights, people, and a general fun atmosphere. Abby had a great time watching birds, looking at the ships, talking about how the water "pooped" as it was stinky salt-water, and playing with the kids that would interact with her. 

Nate is holding a famous chicken patty here on the boardwalk. It's a fried slab of chicken that has hints of cinnamon. Jane said it was the most popular food item to buy. I'm holding squid. No, I'm not eating it. Jane wanted Nate to try some as there was a shop that literally sold freshly skewered squid and octopus. Abby's thought the chicken tasted pretty good once it was cool enough for her to handle.

Jane in front of the squid shop.

Mom saw a girl walking by with this and jumped up to buy one herself. It's fresh potato chips! The shop take a potato and puts it into some machine that cuts it spiral cuts the potato, then they put it on a stick and deep fat fry it. You could get it plain or flavored. We tried plain and cheese and decided that plain was preferred.

We were enjoying our walk along the boardwalk when the path took a turn and then a 180 and we found ourselves one street up from the sea. Since it automatically dropped us off facing the direction to go back to the MRT, and it was already 8pm, we decided to being our walk back.

Notice Abby's hat. As we were walking by a shop that happened to have little kid's hats in a bin outside Abby reached over from Nate's shoulders, grabbed the hat, put it on her head, turned to me and said "My hat. I so pretty". And just like that we bought Abby the hat. :-) How could you turn down something so precious?

On our way back to the MRT it started to rain a little bit. We figured we all (but Nate who didn't mind) had some type of outer layer and would survive just fine through the drizzle until we made it back to the station. Little did we know that the drizzle would soon turn into...

A horrendous downpour! See how soaked my coat is, how wet-plastered Mom's hair is, and how wet-shiny Nate's face is? We were still blocks away from the MRT station when the skies opened and we experienced a real Taiwanese rain storm. No wonder people carry umbrellas with them wherever they go even if it's not raining. As quick as it turned from clear skies to a downpour I wouldn't want to be caught empty-handed either.

We made it to the station safe and sound!

 

Abby showing off her train riding skills on our way back to the hotel.

We got back to the hotel and found out that Grace was stopping by to say goodbye as we were leaving the next day while she was at work. Plus, she'd been promising Mom a chance to sit on her scooter and hadn't had an opportunity to have that happen yet!

The girls of the trip! Jane, Jen, Abby, Me, Grace, and Mom. Iris was missing but we would be seeing her the next day as she wanted to see us off at the airport.

Abby talking on the phone base. She started out talking on the phone but that soon grew to boring, so onto the phone base it was! She's just so precious!

After learning that Nate still hadn't tried Stinky Tofu Jane and Grace (Jen had left to go home by this time) grabbed Nate to go around the block to an eatery nearby. After a while of him being gone I decided I wanted to see what he was up to and asked Mom and Dad to watch Abby for me so I could run out and meet up with him. Here he is eating Stinky Tofu. Yep, that's actually it's name. Yes, it stinks. But Nate said that the taste was pretty good. Once the tofu is cooked it looses whatever property makes it smell so bad, so it's really only the fresh tofu that's the stinky tofu.

When the four of us returned to the hotel it was time for Mom to get a chance to sit on Grace's scooter. Originally Grace was going to take Mom for a spin but the rain made both of them a little uncomfortable with having a newbie on board so they were both happy and satisfied to have a stationary experience. 

Grace and Jane heading home! 

Whew! What a day. By the time everyone had left and we had Abby down, Nate and I just collapsed into bed. We had had an AMAZING trip but we were both ready to admit that we were tired and missing home.  But as this had been our last day in Taiwan we were both glad it ended on such a great note.