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Text of the page (random words):
like karen with an m like karen with an m sunday july 8 2018 4th of july 2018 by the numbers number of amarenca t shirts i made 6 number of people who noticed the pun 0 number of adults 47 number of teenagers 15 hard to keep track they kept coming and going number of kids 60 also hard to keep track of number of weeks it s gonna take my lawn to recover from the kid wash at least 5 pounds of candy shot from the candy canon 6 number of injuries sustained during the candy canon stampede surprisingly 0 number of times i thought to take decent pictures pretty much 0 although this one of bennett is pretty cute number of times the lights fell down 2 which is a first they usually stay put couldn t think of a number to go here i just liked that the teens tended to move around the party in a pack temperature that day 97 105 heat index dew point that day 8293 or something like that number of tables full of food 3 and we ran out of space this year s collective fireworks budget 500 number of hamburgers consumed 60 number of hot dogs consumed 50 length of fireworks show 20 minutes amount of ash that fell on me during the show lots number of times i feared for the safety of the fireworks lighters especially the teenagers 5 number of cases of water drunk 24 pack 7 number of sodas drunk at least 125 number of times i heard my kids exclaim this is the best 4th of july ever 5 tess twice posted by maren at 7 23 pm 1 comment sunday july 1 2018 taipei 2018 day 8 church and going home sunday morning was kind of a bummer because it was our last day in taiwan last days of trips are always a bummer it s so depressing to pack and stuff however since our flight didn t leave until the evening we were still able to do some cool things like go to church look the church is even on the mrt exit sign which wasn t there 4 years ago the ward we went to met in a chapel in the visitor s center next to the temple we went to a mandarin speaking ward because the english speaking ward met when we had to check out of the hotel it was a decent sized ward only there were probably only 15 20 kids total everyone else adults with a smattering of teens there were a few deacons and it was fun to see that deacons 12 13 year olds are awkward all over the world a nice guy sat next to me and translated the meeting for me which was cool he had served a mission in manchester england a few years ago and was happy to practice his english which was really good i love going to wards around the world and seeing how the church is the same everywhere we only stayed for sacrament meeting because we had to go check out of the hotel on the way back i snapped a picture of this odd ad that was near our hotel and that we saw every day still can t figure out what it was selling we checked out of the hotel but left our luggage decided to go to a cafe i had read about online lance and randy needed to do some work stuff and i just wanted a place with good food and good wifi the wifi at our hotel had been acting up a lot we almost missed the entrance to the cafe it was kinda hidden and we definitely raised the median age by quite a bit it was pretty much a hipster hang out but the ac good and wifi were great so we ended up staying for about 3 hours i ordered this really yummy berry smoothie and udon noodles with veggies and peanut sauce my handsome husband worked the entire time but that s okay i had fun just dinking around online and posting to instagram eventually i got super antsy and needed to get up and out and move around only it was raining hard so we found an underground mall and walked for a bit the mall itself wasn t that interesting other than being underground but it was nice to be moving again i got used to walking several miles a day we eventually picked up our bags and took the train out to the airport lance and i decided to have dinner at mos burger which is a chain we had seen all around it s fast food burgers but definitely with an asian flair i got a burger with an egg on it and some sort of secret sauce i don t really remember but what i do remember is that instead of fries on the side you got chicken nuggets and there was this little rosemary spice packet you could put on the nuggets and they were the best chicken nuggets ever we had a couple of hours to kill at the airport so we wandered a bit taipei s airport is amazing at showcasing taiwan s culture about every 3rd gate has some sort of exhibit or theme this one was all about steamed dumplings and was super cute we had a little cash leftover which wasn t work exchanging back to american currency so we bought a magnet and this giant bag of mini kit kats the orange flavor was super good the kids ate most of these when we got home here we are right before getting on the plane we didn t look nearly as good 15 hours later the flight home was uneventful which is i guess the best you can hope for on a long flight like that getting through customs went amazingly quick but it took over 45 minutes to get our luggage gah and then we had the 3ish hour drive home we got home just before 2am and even though it should have felt like 2pm to us we didn t have any problem collapsing into bed and now it s been 3 weeks since we got home it s always hard to get back into the swing of things after an amazing trip the jet lag was way worse took me over a week to get back to normal and the kids let us know in several ways that they much preferred the good life with grandpa and grandma but it was totally worth it i m already scheming and trying to figure out where we can go next posted by maren at 7 19 pm 1 comment taiwan 2018 day 7 elephant mountain taipei 101 lance and randy didn t have any meetings on saturday that s the problem with this kind of trip when we found out we were going lance hadn t yet solidified all of his work meetings and stuff but we had to buy the tickets because they were going up in price or selling out so we ended up staying longer than absolutely necessary but i think we were all okay with that since we had a free day we decided to hike elephant mountain which had been recommended to all of us by several people elephant mountain is located to the east of taipei it s kinda crazy because it s just solid city for miles and miles and then all of a sudden nature nature with amazing views it was of course hot and sticky but amazingly not has hot and sticky as it had been although we all still sweated a ton the hike was more like ultra stair master it was just one staircase after another we asked randy to take a picture of us with taipei 101 in the background i mean i guess he did it but i was thinking the entire building and lance asked him to take one to make it look like he was touching the top um no um maybe no sigh there were lots of great spots to stop and take pictures and there were lots of friendly locals to chat with i use the term loosely their english wasn t always great and our mandarin was pretty much non existent but we could always smile and say hello see city city city and then lush mountain part of the trail no clue what was carved on the stone once we were done we decided to go over to taipei 101 although lance and i had visited it last time randy hadn t been to the top and it was cool enough to do again the views from the top were great it was a really clear day see those two skinny towers in the center our hotel was right next to them that green area is da an park which was right across the street from our hotel the obligatory selfie we visited the big damper again it was still pretty impressive this time they had videos playing that showed the damper moving during typhoons and earthquakes in one there was a typhoon blowing and the damper was moving but people were still in the building and taking pictures in front of the moving damper nope nope nope nope i don t know why but that kind of freaked me out who goes to the top of a skyscraper during a typhoon they had some cool infinite mirrors in one of the corners this time and i thought that twisty building was pretty cool we went to the observation deck but it was super bright we had started the day pretty early hiked a mountain and spent quite a bit of time at the top of a skyscraper by lunchtime we were starving we decided to take randy to the same place we had been to the night before it was a great choice because he loved it and it was still delicious i ordered a different kind of shrimp dumpling this time there were shrimp on the top and i think pork in the bottom part makes me want to break out my bamboo steamer just thinking about it we crashed after lunch i think we had really worn ourselves out but by evening lance and i decided to venture out again we did a little googling and found the guang hua electronics bazaar since this was lance s 40th birthday this seemed like the perfect evening the bazaar was this really big building stuffed full of little shops and all those shops were stuffed full of all sorts of electronics and such i don t think taiwan believes in one stop shopping like wal mart or target it s all about small shops for different things it was just cool to walk around and look at everything some shops were so full of stuff there was only room for the owner standing in front i have no idea how they found anything lance looked around but didn t find anything he wanted to buy but i bought an earbuds converter for the plane ride home for only 2 most of the prices were pretty comparable to what you d find in the states but 2 was a pretty great deal so then we googled a bit more and found what we really needed nearby the guang hua electronic plaza which was basically a night market just for electronics so cool lance found some key caps he wanted so happy birthday lance during the day i had been giving him pictures of the kids holding different birthday presents waiting for him at home because why bring them all the way out i also gave him the pen i had bought a few days before i think it was a good birthday since it was our last night in taipei we decided to head back to our favorite night market raohe only we forgot just how stinkin crowded night markets are on the weekend so crowded you could barely walk or move so we d dart into shops here and there to cool off and escape the herd we found one with a bunch of odd shirts like this one that was a child s shirt i loved this one energetic new york jerns i almost bought some for my upcoming trip to nyc i don t know if i ve mentioned this before but night markets also have lots of games apparently the taiwanese love games think like carnival games and those claw games that grab stuff balloon popping games and things like this you can catch goldfish i don t know what happens with the fish but those kids were so happy about getting to play the lady on the side eating is the owner of the game totally casual at the night market it was stinkin hot again and we d had a big lunch which meant we didn t have huge appetites but it was still fun to look at all the cool food like these ginormous french fries cole our resident french fry addict was disappointed we didn t buy those there were lots of conch shells on the grill at most night markets too we did get some tasty grilled chinese sausages and this amazing crepe thing stuffed with chocolate mousse ice cream mango and brownie thingies delish i loved this sign it tickled me for some reason run run spoon it was so crowded it just wasn t as fun as it had been earlier in the week but i m still glad we went posted by maren at 6 53 pm no comments older posts home subscribe to posts atom what the funky blog name what d you call me about me maren lafayette in united states in raising my children i have lost my mind but found my soul lisa t shepherd view my complete profile blog archive 2018 20 july 3 4th of july 2018 by the numbers taipei 2018 day 8 church and going home taiwan 2018 day 7 elephant mountain taipei 101 june 6 may 1 april 10 2017 102 december 7 november 11 october 32 august 2 july 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