Kenstone Factory Year End Party

We went to the Kenstone Factory New Year party and as always it was an evening full of karaoke, interesting food and booze. The kids had fun dancing.

Mr. Roy from Shimano. He was seated at our table and surprised us with his fantastic karaoke voice. Turns out he is in a band.

We are pictured with Clarke and the president & owner of the Kenstone factory.

And for the interesting food...

And wine from California of all places

Crab, corn, asparagus and beansprouts topped with mayo and sprinkles. Ethan tried to pick the sprinkles out of the mayo...yummy! It was hard to watch since I don't care for mayo.

Seafood soup

Clarke and Ethan

Eive and Colleen (the owner's daughter). Evie has no stage fright.

Ethan wasn't sure about going on stage but since Evie was on stage it must be okay, right?

Evie, Colleen and a production manager at Kenstone

Nuts...

You know when you're at the grocery store and you're having one of those indecisive days and just don't know what kind of bread to buy or what kind of cereal...well, I was trying to decide what kind of nuts to buy and then all of a sudden it was obvious! Of course you buy the kind with the squirrel on the package, right?

A visit from the Wilde's

We had a visit from the Wilde's today. The Wilde's live in Canada but visit family in Taiwan once a year. We are lucky that our trips happen to be the same time of the year. It has been fun to build our friendship so many miles apart and also see Edward grow and change over the visits as well. He is a sweet little boy and only 5 months older than Ethan.

The guys went to the factory to shoot photos and the kids and Jesse and I went to Metropolitan Park. It was a perfectly warm day.

The kids had fun feeding the ducks. I think they eat more bread than the ducks though.

Ethan and Edward had fun tickling their bellies with flowers.

Edward and Ethan were cute together. They are sharing leaves...

...and a hug

Jesse and Edward

Evie was throwing leaves up in the air and letting them fall on her head. She had so many leaves tangled in her already tangled hair.

After lunch Ethan and Edward took a nap while Jesse and I got to catch up. It was a nice treat to have visitors. Usually when Joel is at the factory it's just the kids and I.

Cute little Edward.

When the guys got back from the factory the kids were ramped to see their daddy's. Stephen is helping the boys into their XXL helmets.

Pictures like this make me realize how big my baby girl is. She looks so long here. Clarke and Dylan flew Evie countless times in the air. She is heavy too! She has no idea what kind of a work out she gave them. (or the backache either)

Edward and Ethan. Edward is using so many words. It's fun to think that in a short time Ethan will be having conversations like Edward also. Hopefully.

Ethan with his Nerf gun launchers stuck to his forehead.

Too cute; Edward and Stephen are off on a motorcycle ride

Providence University Night Market

We went to the Providence University Night Market with Clarke. The kids have a good time at this market because they have lots of fun games and rides

choo choo

The train was powered by battery and no, it wasn't sketchy at all...well, maybe a little...

Poor Evie, she gets motion sick like Joel does. After a few times around the track she was ready to get off.

Our little squeezer

This game is perfect for the kids. They can easily load balls into the gun and the trigger button is easy to push. The kids always win a prize also.

Dylan's birthday at A-PRO

Dylan's birthday is January 20th. Joel surprised him with cakes at A-PRO factory. Joel wasn't sure if he would be okay with it or not -Dylan is one of those special guys that is always taking care of everyone else but doesn't like the attention on himself or rarely lets anyone do anything special for him. He looked happy though.
Since we have been in Taiwan we have celebrated birthdays for almost everyone at Tomac Bikes. (Joel, Dylan, Clarke...even Evie and next month will be Ethan's birthday)

Happy Birthday Clarke & Hot Mama

We had a fantastic weekend away in Puli to celebrate Kate's mom's 50th birthday. Kate is Dylan's fiance. We didn't know what to expect of our weekend as it was planned by Kate's family but everything turned out better than we could have expected. The most fun was spending time with Kate's parents who were very nice and quite fun.

Ethan loves to put his sticky finger prints all over our glasses

This is the bed and breakfast we stayed at compliments of Kate's family. The view was so beautiful.

We had a rare surprise to see a Solar Eclipse. It is hard to see the circle of color around the sun but Kate's dad took some fantastic pictures with his big-daddy camera. He said he would e-mail us the pictures. I'll re-post them if he does.

Cheers.

Evie has been patiently waiting for cake since this afternoon. Ethan went to bed a half hour ago and Evie who was almost falling asleep at the table said she's not tired, she can wait for cake. She brought the cakes in to show Clarke and Hot mama (the nick name for Kate's mom who is pretty)

Happy Birthday to Hot mama who turns 50 and Clarke who turns 32. Evie tipped the boxes a bit when she was carrying them so they are a little beat up. Beautiful none the less. Dylan did a good job picking them out.

The gang. Kate is in the purple coat in the front. This is her family; one sister and one brother who is married and expecting his first child soon.

We found out that Kate's mom has a fantastic voice when she started in on Karaoke. Check out the video at the end of this post. The evening was fun. The way the hotel was situated we were able to put the kids to bed and join everyone for a few shots of whiskey, followed by lots of tea and munchies. It felt like Joel and I were on a date (and young again).

VIDEO: Ethan alone in the car with out Evie...

VIDEO: Hot mama singing karaoke