Where have you been?

Sorry to be gone so long. We spent time in many beautiful places with family and friends.
Kauai, kayaking and loving the green.
Chicago for a beautiful wedding.
Tacoma with BFF Roxane and Gaia.
Washington DC
Lauren's Mother's Day gift of a lovely embroidery.

Food and Shopping: Beijing

Lauren took us to the "food street" in Beijing and it was literally a movable feast. We tried many delicious snacks, but not the live scorpions. Some of Lauren's friends were more adventurous. Are these soldiers going shopping? This street has every store you can imagine. Capitalism is alive and well in China.

Beijing 2010

We started our adventure in China visiting our daughter, who is spending a semester abroad at Peking University. She met us at our hotel after a day of travel. We had dinner with Lauren at a local "fast food" restaurant. Very cheap, tasty, fresh food; it was the beginning of many wonderful meals. We also realized that we were the main attraction at most of the places we visited.

The Forbidden City was our first experience at a major tourist attraction. The place was busy, lots of tourists, mostly Chinese. The little kids were fun, so protected and adored by their parents and grandparents.

More Charleston

Charleston South Carolina

Charleston is an interesting mixture of history, beautiful old homes, hidden gardens, luxury, low country cuisine
and southern hospitality. We had a wonderful time exploring the city, walking down narrow alleys, peeking over wrought iron gates, walking in the graveyards and trying out fabulous low country cooking.

TJ and the Madison's

We had a great visit with TJ, James M and Dolly. Our country is fortunate to have had such great men. I enjoyed American History 101 in Virginia. Monticello and Montpelier were beautiful, but I was jealous of the land and gardens. TJ shared a little of his herbs with us.

Memorials, Abe and FDR