We spent the Chinese May Day holiday (May 1st) with our neighbors and their friends at a beautiful park just a few miles from our college. Albert has no classes for over a week, so we've been glad to be able to have some fun family time, as well as spend time with some of our new friends here. This is a view from the entrance to the park. It really was breath-taking.





These are some of the great kids we spent the day with. The fellow in the striped shirt in the back row lives just across the little driveway from us in apartment building 4 (we live in building 5). He is a little older than Brooks and they like to spend time together, but he goes away to school during the week so they aren't able to spend much time playing. When this photo was taken, Brooks was off skating on the concrete (not particularly safe, unfortunately!), or playing on the playground, or eating watermelon, or doing something else fun -







The twins had a great time on the playground at the park with some of the older girls. It was warm outside so we all enjoyed the sunshine and mild breeze.













Here's Albert eyeing the food that was being cooked. In this particular park, you rent little grills and stools for the day and then bring lots of good things to cook - kind of like July 4th in some places in America. We had potatoes, zucchini, green onions, cabbage, pork and beef pieces, Chinese "hot dogs" (kind of like vienna sausages), and a few things we didn't recognize. It was delicious (for the most part), and a good time was had by all! We felt so honored to be invited to spend this special holiday with these families -


















Just in case you couldn't see Albert very well in the last picture, here's a close up of the latest beard. He decided that since he has the freedom to grow something on his face without having to go through the "ugly" phase while still working his desk job, he wanted to give it a good old college try. I've compared him to Grizzly Adams and Santa Claus, while Nikki Jones thinks he's turned into the Wrangler man! Here comes Wrangler, He's one tough customer . . . .
When he's wearing earth tones, I think he really does look nice and sophisticated. BUT it's beginning to get a little too itchy, he says, so before it goes away for good I thought you'd want to see it.


















We'll give you another update on our adventure soon - Take care in the meantime! We miss you!