Chicken Foot

It was a good week.  We opened two new Best Buy Mobile Stores so we have a total of four.  We will open two more this week.

We went over to our neighbor's house Saturday night for dinner.  They have a daughter that is just younger than Trevon.  Her name is Alice.  Lately in the evening after Alice gets out of school the kids have been playing together, so they invited us over for dinner.  Alice's mom, Xiao Chen, asked us what the kids liked to eat.  The kids told her and when we got there almost everything they said was on the table.  It was really good food.  They have a lot of vegetables growing around their yard so we had fresh beans, cucumbers and greens from their garden.  They also had an egg dish with eggs from their family farm.  It reminded me being home and eating from the garden.  Back home we would have many meals that we or someone in our family grew.  Between our garden, Brian's eggs and honey and Craig's beef we could make some pretty good meals.

Xiao Chen did have a chicken dish that had the entire chicken cut up in the dish.  I know most of you are thinking ok the breast, thighs, and drumsticks.  Don't forget the chicken feet.  One foot was sticking out and the kids were a little freaked out about this.  I told the kids that I would pay them 100rmb ($15usd) if they ate  chicken foot.  The Chen's don't speak English so they didn't know the kids were getting bribed.  Tiana was strongly considering it and Brannon recognized this.  He realized 100rmb was a lot of money for him and this seemed to be a pretty easy way to earn it.  So he jumped on the opportunity, grabbed his chopsticks and plucked the chicken foot out of the pot.  He then asked how to eat it.  He wasn't quite sure what to do.  He did make a good effort to eat the skin, tendons and what little scraps of meat might be on a chicken foot.  He even shared a bit with me.  He did a great job eating the whole thing and was even very Chinese in the way he spit out the bones.  Surprisingly he fished through the pot to find the other foot and eat it as well.  And no, he didn't get another 100rmb.

We are feeling the summer heat in all it's glory the past few weeks.  It has been at or above 100 F/37 C every day the past few weeks.  It's also a bit more humid than Utah so the sweat glands are working overtime.  We took a quick trip to the zoo and the sun was beating down on us.  The zoo is nestled into some small hills.  This provides a beautiful green backdrop for the zoo and a great workout walking up and down the hills pushing a stroller in the heat and humidity.  I completely sweat through everything, and I mean everything.  Trevon even knew he was sweating a lot because his "sweat was squishing in his armpits".  The amazing thing is that there are a lot of Chinese that don't seem to sweat at all.  I guess when you are raised in the heat you acclimate to it.  We did see some sweating just as bad as us and that makes you feel a bit normal.

It has been good to go to church here in Nanjing.  Today when church started there were only 12 people there and 8 of them were our family.  Within a few minutes another 10 people arrived.  That was a big contrast to when we went to church in Beijing a couple of weeks ago and there was probably 300+ people there.  Today I prepared and blessed the sacrament and gave a talk.  Mikayla led the music and said the opening prayer and Alauna played the piano and taught primary (just our three boys today).  We have enjoyed serving in our local branch and it always brings a lot of joy and perspective.

The kids start school in two weeks.  I think they are getting really excited for this.  A lot of the expat families are making their way back to Nanjing.  The kids have started making some new friends.  They will meet a lot of new people in the next couple of weeks.  The kids school requires everyone 6th grade and higher to get a Macbook.  So the three girls got their Macbooks.  They are loving having their own Macbook.

We hope all that read this enjoy hearing about our adventures.  We are having a great time.  There have been many challenges and hard times but overall we are doing well.  I know the kids still wish at times they were in Utah, but they also are grateful for the experiences they are having here.  We missed being home in Utah this summer, especially seeing Steve, Priscilla and Nick.  We always have great summers in Utah and it was tough to be away.  Oh well.  We'll be back in Utah at some point and until then we will have great summers in Nanjing.

Boyd