Esteemed Eighth Graders

Like clockwork, autumn takes us to the front porch for that first day of school photo. It will be a good year. We are the oldest in the school. We know the drill. We get the back of the bus. Extra special is the fact that after eight or so years Sam is finally taller than his twin sister. It will be a good year.

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The Fortunate

Our return to Maryland brought us face-to-face with 3 strangers squatting in our backyard. What happened to our lovely little guinea keets?? Well, in a nutshell- the resident fox nabbed three birds, a red-tailed hawk flew off with one, and our dog Ed made a raid too. But with an extrafortified coop the remaining three fowl grew by frightful proportions. Our dogs now keep their distance and the turkey-sized creatures roam free during the day keeping our yard pest-free...at least for now. Notice 2 of our darlings enjoying a nice fresh dust bath!
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Good Fortune

The final week in Asia was spent getting reaquainted with Hong Kong after a 9 year absence. Scott dropped by to take in the sights too. We were so pleased to see that our favorite home was still the same, yet much more squeeky clean, likely due to the past health scares. A typhoon followed us onto the island offering a bit of excitement. We hiked our favorite trails at Tai Tam Resevoir, and received fortunes at Wong Tai Sin, the largest Taoist Temple in the area.
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Shoppers Paradise

"Is your Christmas shopping list completed?" This was one of the first things my mom asked me when I called home. Given the amount of goods imported to the US from China, one could imagine Beijing as a bottomless Target store. I dreamed of finding a complete set of Louis Vuitton luggage, while Ana was hoping to secure something a bit more practical- a 220V hair straightener to use while in China. We know straightening irons exist in Beijing, but with a culture of straight hair it can't be a big seller. We'll just browse for now.
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Inner Mongolia and more

The kids and I ended the mainland China portion of our trip with a visit to Inner Mongolia. Highlights included camel riding in the desert, with a night in a yurt in the Mongolian grasslands. Ana and Sam have become much more comfortable communicating in Mandarin thanks to the absence of English speakers. Ana found the marketplace an excellent training ground to hone both her Putonghua (Mandarin) and negotiating skills. On the other hand, I offered our group a good laugh when I instructed our taxi driver to "make a left at the 3rd noodle"...

Beijing Street Foods

In the eyes of Sam Clements food is not just sustenance, it is a mulitdimentional, time-occupying pleasure. Beijing street vendors offered us new levels of creativity with questionable hygene to boot. The Jianbing, or Egg Mc Mao as we called it is a huge egg-coated crepe. It is made to order often from a make-shift griddle on the back of a bike. Costing about 25 cents, this delicacy became Sam's breakfast fave.
And if balloon animals weren't already cute enough, they have competition. Street vendors heat up bowls of molassas into taffy. A small piece of the taffy is stretched and air is blown into it to create a snack that remembles a blown glass sculpture on a stick. Could this be the perfect summer internship for Sam??!
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Wo Ting Bu Dong (I Don't Understand)

Ana, Sam & I arrived early last month in Beijing, China for an intensive Mandarin language camp. The kids have been studying Chinese in school since 3rd grade, so we thought now was a good time to put that knowledge to practical use. The camp, located at Beijing Language and Culture University is primarily for the kids with me acting as part laundry service, cheerleader and keeper of the passports. The dorm living is certainly not fancy, but gives the kids a taste of managing themselves in a college atmosphere. There are about 60 students here from 12 or so countries. Like me, 10 other parents/grandparents have accompanied their children on this adventure. While the kids are in class my days have been filled with varied cultural activities, amazing meals (often costing $1-3 per person), oh and yes, a bit of shopping too. Everyone knows about the fifty cent DVDs, but Ana and I will return with a nice stash of Tiffany jewelry instead. Take note of the copy Burberry rain coat with the sales clerk sewing in a Max Mara label!
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Nana Retires

After 35 years at The Wooster Daily Record newspaper, Maria's mom Ann Gasbarre has officially retired. Ann was the Family Pages editor for many years and will still continue to write a weekly column for the paper. The kids threw Nana a party to mark this special retirement milestone. Coccia House restaurant, a Wooster landmark, served up all our favorites while we all celebrated the night away! All the grandkids helped Nana have a most memorable evening.
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Sweet Keets

At 3 weeks of age our guineas finally needed to move out of the kitchen and into a larger run. We are all entertained by the interesting guinea way of life. Taming the birds came highly recomended, so we started off offering small amounts of white millet from our hands, while singing "a la casa". Hopefully this routine will make it easy to get the birds back to their coop at night once we allow them to free range. Millet is suposedly guinea candy, but we've also found lettuce just as enticing. Every afternoon the keets have had a bit of time to investigate our flower beds while eating every moving speck in sight.
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New Mother of Multiples

We've researched, prepared and waited. Finally, 9 Pearl Guinea keets arrived last week. WHY IN THE WORLD, you ask? Guinea fowl eat primarily insects. We have a pretty significant woods to the rear of our property which translates into plenty of deer ticks. These birds will free range on our land and in the trees (and likely at our nice neighbors too) and help us naturally rid the place of problematic bugs. We've purchased a dog house that the birds will roost in at night to protect them from preditors. The first few weeks of life require the keets to live in a box in our kitchen so that we can tame them as much as possible. Long term we want the birds to come to their house easily when called at bed time. We shall see how successful we are....
We had a little problem a few weeks ago when our original litter of keets arrived at the feed store and a German Shepherd came in and ate every one of them! Our dogs Arrow and Ed are watching our keets with that big-bad-wolf-licking-his-lips look. We are certain things will change as the birds grow and let the dogs know who is in charge. Pictured is one of the babies nesting in Sam's nest-worthy hair.

Clements' Holiday 2005

Our Christmas Holiday was spent in Bend,OR with old Hong Kong friends John & Trish Hartner and family. Ski activities were top priority. Scotter made a visit to the ER after a "Double Release Yard Sale" (blindly wiping out and losing both skis and poles) on the slopes the 1st day. He however forced a complete recovery. Pictured are Sam, (snowboarder) Scott & Ana with John Hartner loving all the white stuff.

We also caught up with Scott's old High School friend Glenn who now calls Oregon his home. Ana and Sam had a fun night entertaining Glenn's oldest daughter Jorie.

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Dashing Doggies

As if our Italian Greyhounds don't have enough clothing, now we have friends and family dressing the dogs. Matching sweaters were professionally knitted by Nana (Maria's Mom), while Eroe looks like the Grinch's sidekick compliments of our little friends Linden and Genevieve Wagner.
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