China Town

This little Chinese man is on Spring Break for the week, so my homeschooling work with Claire has had to be a bit modified. We did our Bible story, poems and verses and Sammy stuck with us for that. Then we did some letter sounds and 3-letter words with Sammy while Claire worked on her cursive. Then he colored while I read history with Claire. We are doing ancient China right now, so we thought China Town might be a fun field trip for the afternoon.

So, we jumped into the car and headed to China Town, which is pretty close by to us, and I tried to ask Claire questions about Confucius and Shi Huangdi on the way so that I could justify it as an educational field trip.

The gift shops there are out of control! You can get anything there! Claire and I really wanted to buy these tiny tea sets and regular pretty tea pots and all kinds of little made-in-China doo-dads, but we contained ourselves.

And I'm sorry, I know I'm a Christian girl so I couldn't justify a big happy buddha in my living room, but I kinda wanted one.

They are just so shiny and happy!

Claire and I could have browsed for a long time, and Sammy was enjoying the treasures as well, but you know that saying about a bull in a China shop? Well...with how high the doo-dads were stacked and with how close together the little shelves were, I knew we were going to hear "cleanup on aisle 7" pretty soon if we didn't leave the gift shop. So we did.

And anyway, we needed lunch. Sammy and I specifically were a little on the low-blood-sugar side so we ducked into a little restaurant for food. Don't they look like they love each other?! I think I said: "Sammy, HUG your sister or you're not getting any lunch" and abracadabra: I got this cute picture. I'm really into authenticity here.

Claire loves what they call "Chinese Chicken" which is any of the several varieties of chicken which are fried and then covered in sweet sauce: sesame chicken, orange chicken, etc.

This was Sammy's fortune. It really was! We didn't trade with him or anything. He loved it. If you can's see it very well, it reads: "You are a bundle of energy, always on the go." HA! I think I need to find a teeny-tiny frame for it.

I don't normally just buy my kids a random gift for no purpose, but this was too good to pass up. Every time Claire goes with me to one of our favorite fancy toy stores to browse, we see these beautiful Chinese costumes and she always wants one. I almost got one for her birthday, but the one we liked was $65 and that seemed so high to me. But this one was $20!

So, our little Janey-Jane cousin may be getting one for her 5th birthday next month as well. And maybe her big sister will need one too. Fun day. At least I can say I've done one "field trip" as a homeschooling mom this year. Well, somewhere besides going to Home Depot every day like we did in the fall.