Tiger Cub Hike

This is the first of many layouts I'll be doing about our hike at Ratidian on January 20th.

I really liked this KI memories paper, and we never really have a fall here, so I thought it would work for our hike in the woods. The layout isn't really all crooked like it looks, but my scanner has been tempermental and I finally got it to work after fighting with it for 2 days, I wasn't going to chance trying to get another scan.

learning to skate

I'm not happy with this one at all. I didn't want it to look like all the other skating ones I've been doing so I decided to try using 2 4x6s instead, but it's just blah to me. No focal point, blah blah. What's the saying, if it aint broke don't fix it? I should've stuck with the one large one small photo.

Rollerskate Diva

I'm noticing that I'm using less and less "stuff" on my layouts. Not sure why, just another phase I'm in I guess. I really thought with these bold papers it didn't need anything else.

By the Lanterns Glow

Sk8r Boy

It's fun to stay at the YMCA

I don't know what I thought of the YMCA's but this one here in Hong Kong is awesome. I'm sure they're not all this nice, but this one rocks! Are the rooms as nice as some of the more expensive places we could've stayed? No, but for the price it's much more than I expected. We have a view of Victoria Harbor, pool, two restaurants, a small shop and we're only 2 blocks from the Star Ferry. I would definitely recommend it to anyone traveling to Hong Kong.

Wow is all I can say about the shopping here! Every brand name you've ever heard of and thousands more can be found. Last evening we went to Harbor City and it was gigantic. It covered a few city blocks with over 700 stores. Of course the kids favorite store was Toys R Us, and they were spoiled with toys to bring back to the room to play with. Dave bought a gorgeous purple Chinese style jacket, I can't wait to get home and take photos of him in it.

Yesterday afternoon we walked through the antiques district where there were hardly any tourists. It was really nice to get out of the touristy district and see authentic Hong Kong, to see where the residents shop and how they live. While there I bought some tea (can't wait to share it with you Kerrie!) and Dave bought me a tea set like they use here., complete with slop bowl. We also found a beautiful mini screen with hand embroidered flowers and mini vases with scenes painted on them. I have o idea where these are going to go in the house, but I see hanging shelves in Dave's future.

Another great find was new glasses for Hannah & Elijah. We decided to go into the optical shop on a whim, just to see how long it would take them to get glasses for the twins. We ordered them yesterday and they'll be done this afternoon, and they cost less than $150 a pair. In Guam we pay at least $200 a pair and have to wait 6-8 weeks for the lenses to arrive on island. Plus they're getting better lenses this time, they're getting the light plastic ones that are scratch resistant, this is great because right now Elijah's lenses are about as thick as coke bottles and they're so heavy that no matter how we adjust his glasses they constantly slide down his face.

Well, looks like everyone's just about dressed and ready to start the day. Time for a good breakfast so we have energy to do some more shopping today. Today is electronics shopping, I'm looking for a pink ipod and a remote for my camera.

WOW Disney Rocks!!!!!!!!

Ok, we're a part of the Disney Vacation Club, which is basically a timeshare. We pay a certain amount every month and receive points to use for nights at disney hotels. It's always been cool, member receive discounts at parks stateside and on admission. Well here at Disney Hong Kong they took it to a whole new level! When we went to check in the woman at the front desk told us that she thought our reservation included our tickets. It was 1am when we got here, 3am Guam time, so we were a bit out of it, told her we didn't think so and she said she'd check into it. Come to findout yesterday Disney Vacation Club gave us 2 days of free tickets when we used our points to reserve a room. How cool is that? On top of that people staying at the Disney hotels here get a free days ticket for everyone that they buy, so for 4 days at the parks we only had to buy one day's tickets. And the tickets for the park here are much cheaper than stateside. We paid $1200 HK for the 5 of us which is about $150 , w usually pay at least that a day for 1 adult ticket. Off to breakfast and another day at the park!