Natural Bridges State Park

While Amy's brother Mike was in town, we took the family to Natural Bridges State Park. This place is named for three bridge-like rock formations, only one of which still exists. It's also famous for the thousands of Monarch butterflies that spend the winter there, but we had to look long and hard to see just a few butterflies. Despite the slightly misleading marketing, we had a lovely time enjoying the beach and hiking some trails. Anyway, the children were more interested in sword fighting with sticks and honing their acrobatic skills on the beach than in butterfly watching.

I get paid for this

Stanford pays Amy to organize fun events for our neighborhood. Our recent roasting of chestnuts over an open fire, of which there are no good pictures since it was dark, was just as cool as our Thanksgiving reenactment, of which there were several good pictures.

A Traditional Bankhead Thanksgiving

For the fourth year in a row, we've spent some portion of the Thanksgiving holiday camping. This year we attempted Yosemite with Paul's sister and niece. Our days were filled with spectacular views, disturbingly domesticated deer, and a magical 5-foot stick that inspired James to hike for miles without complaint. Our one night was so cold that we decided to go home a day early rather than shiver through another night. (Side note: When Sadie woke up crying in the middle of the freezing night, Paul soothed her back to sleep with a lovely and appropriate bedtime story entitled, "The Willie and Martin Handcart Companies." See here for a grown-up version.)

The Daily Volcano

James often requests bedtime stories "about when you were a little girl, Mom." One night Amy told him about the volcanoes she and her siblings often made in the backyard sandbox. Of course the next day James requested a live demonstration, and most every day since then we've built our own volcano in our backyard. The colors change, but the novelty never wears off. Also, Amy's discovered a reason to buy the Costco-size baking soda.

Back to Regularly Scheduled Programming

It took nearly until Halloween for Amy to get back in the groove after the whirlwind of China. That did not stop her from costuming the family, however. A word about James's costume: while Amy was sorting through a large box of hand-me-downs from some cousins, James stumbled upon a Care Bear costume and fell in love. He's never seen the show and thought it was just a bear costume. He wore it through most of October, growling constantly. Amy suggested covering the heart with brown fur to make it more realistic (and less girlie), but James insisted, "But Mom, I love the heart." Paul also took his costume seriously and spent at least an hour wandering around the house saying, "Arrr" in various tones and with various faces.

China 2009: The Business Part

The major purpose of our trip to China was to fulfill Paul's global experience requirement for his MBA. We spent most of our time meeting with business people, which was great but doesn't make for many bloggable photos. Turns out that China is kind of a big deal in the business world. We met with all sorts of business superstars from big companies: the Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs China, the Chairman of Lenovo, a director at Baidu, the CEO of GM China. We also met with various government people: the Chairman and CEO of CNOOC (China's Oil Company) and the Director of Financial Planning at the NDRC. Although the board rooms all looked alike, the meetings were mostly fascinating and eye-opening, even for Amy, who got to dust off her business suit after 3 1/2 years in retirement.

China 2009: Shanghai

Shanghai is a great example of how quickly things are growing in China and how the new things are juxtaposed with the old. We marveled at the amazing contemporary architecture and the brand-new skyscrapers, and then walked along the Bund, where it still feels like the 1920s. We were so full of wonderment in Shanghai that we remembered to take pictures only as we left on the high speed mag-lev train, going 431 km/h.

China 2009: Hangzhou

Although we spent only one day there, Amy and Paul found Hangzhou charming. We stayed on the shore of the romantic West Lake and visited a tea village, where we learned more than we ever thought possible about tea from a captivating expert named Dr. T.