Hotel Getaway And Sydney With Darts

Sorry about the long delay in posts, we’ve been busy lately, but I’m gonna post more in the next week to get people caught up.

So a few weeks ago we as a family got to go and stay a night in a hotel near the mountains here in Xian. It was a great time of chasing our kids in a different environment. But seriously, I think Heather and I both had this revelation that we will not get to officially go on a vacation for a long time. Because you never take a vacation from parenting your kids. So even though we were away from home we really didn’t get to relax much. But they had a heated swimming pool and it was a blast taking the girls there to play. Sydney did find a frog and beetle in the pool.

Also, a couple weeks or so ago we discovered a Carnival here. This was an incredible find and nothing short of amazing. We were the only ones there (practically) and we took Sydney on 5 or so rides, we even took Aubrey on one. One particular ride was pretty funny. We saw this monorail type ride that was about 15 feet in the air and went around the park. So I took Sydney up to the ride to go on it and I asked the guy “Does this go fast or slow?” and he replied “Both” (or something like that, it was in Chinese so I was not 100% certain about what he said). So as I’m walking to it I realize why he said that. You moved it by peddling. So here’s Sydney and I crammed into a car that is designed with the perfect 5’9’ Chinese couple in mind… not me. It was difficult and being suspended 15 feet or so in the air only to have your wife laughing at you as you struggle to peddle yourself and daughter around a Chinese Carnival was embarrassing and funny to say the least. They also had a dart stand where you threw darts at balloons. What was amazing was they got Sydney to play it and she dominated! The first 6-7 darts she threw all popped balloons. She won some stuffed animals. After seeing her deadly accuracy with a dart we decided to place a cup full of darts next to her bed at night, in case we have a break in. That’s a joke.

Check back soon for a new post,
The petersons.

If You Have 2 Mintues... Read This Post!

So this has been a recent event that happens nearly every week and each time makes me laugh. Usually the family will be going somewhere in a Taxi and at some point the driver will start a conversation with us. Obviously since he’s Chinese the conversation is in Chinese. And at some point the driver will usually be confused at something I’m trying to say or I will be confused by something he’s trying to say. And no doubt each time my wife will either tell the driver what I’m trying to say or she will tell me what he’s trying to say. This always leads to the driver saying “Her Chinese is better than yours”. I’m happy for my wife, but I’m also happy that in a Shame based culture where preserving face is the most important thing, that no Xi’an taxi driver is afraid of making me lose mine.

So the other day I was walking with Sydney and I said “Sydney I’m so happy to go on a Father/Daughter date with you, I love you” to which she replied “I love my backpack.” What makes this even cuter is that she pronounces backpack, pack pack. But in say this she put me in the impossible situation of “how do I respond to that!” Do I say “On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the highest, where would you put pack pack? And where would you put me... your Father?” Or do I say something like “If Pack Pack and I are drowning in the ocean and you could only save one of us, who would it be?” Well I couldn’t think of any of this at the time, so I didn’t say anything… but my heart was far from silent.

Till Next time,
Matt, Heather, Sydney, Little Aubrey and of course "Pack Pack"