Spring in our neighborhood is very colorful as all the trees bloom. Here's our redbud and white crabapple with the neighbor's magnolia tree in the background.

Ben and Sam had fun finding their Easter eggs in the back yard. In the close-up of Ben, you can tell he was in such a hurry to get out and start that he put his shirt on inside-out when he got dressed!

Sam learned to use a few signs - he's doing the one for "drink" here. But after that much cake, I think this time he means "got milk?"

Sam's 2 year birthday party. "If it's my cake, then I can poke my finger in the frosting, right?"

"I think I like cake after all... especially birthday cake!"

Sarah and I love the snow... here are our front and back yard after a dusting in January.

Christmas in Chicago. Santa even dropped by to see Ben!

Sam sporting a Chevy's hat... I think he liked wearing it for a while.

Ben at the San Antonio Botanical Garden. Water is irresistable...

Fall 2005 trip to the beach (Padre Island, TX) with grandpa and Oma. Ben even found a live starfish we had to help get back to the water.

Sarah and Sam around Halloween time.

... and this is why we NEVER forget the diaper cream in Sam room anymore! Sam loved it, but the cream barely came out of the clothes after four washings.

Some impressions from Alan and Ben's trip to Germany over Thanksgiving. Snow in Kiel, Hamburg river piers and Christmas market.

Ben in front of Sue, the world's most complete T-rex skeleton, at the Chicago Field Museum.

This mega-leaf pile in Fall was a lot of fun to jump in to!

Sam after his baptism.

After riding on the Thomas-The-Tank Engine train at the Chicago Railway Museum, Ben is showing off his "James" tattoo.

Cheering for the 4th of July parade back in Chicago. This kid is getting heavy...

A few impressions from our Hutong tour in Beijing. Hutongs are maze-like neighborhoods with traditional and very old courtyard houses passed down for generations.

"I eat the duck!" The only thing missing in this great meal was air-conditioning... :) It was our last time for roast duck before heading back to Chicago. Sigh...

"I cook the duck." One of the cooks at Li Qun.

The roast duck in China was our favorite yummy food! Here's a very famous back-alley duck place in a Beijing Hutong - Li Qun - and you can see the ducks roasting in the oven.

Sam decided to mingle as we took a break... "Hot enough for ya?"

We saw lots of sun umbrellas in China - unlike in the West, light skin not tanned skin is the standard of beauty.

Tian'AnMen Square - Chairman Mao's mausoleum on one end and the outer gate to the Forbidden City on the other. We took these pictures while walking around on our last day in Beijing.

The Ford F150 of China... It's amazing how much can be packed on one of these bikes.

The staff at our apartment was very helpful and we got to know them a bit over the course of our stay. This was Ben's favorite doorman/concierge.

Ben's friends and teachers from the Eton pre-school at Oriental Plaza. He had a great time and learned so much there... it was a sad good-bye for him when it was time for us to return to Chicago.

Here's Zhao Ayi, who cooked dinner for us 4 nights a week. She made great Chinese food and we miss her home-made dumplings. You can see her folding them by hand in this pic. Sam loved to watch her cook and it was tough keeping him out of the kitchen... :) She even made him special kids noodles for most dinners.

Shirley (right), Sarah's Zhongwen (Chinese) teacher, did a great job helping us learn enough Chinese to get around town!

This was some of the food on display in the local open air food market around the corner from our apartment. I decided to pass on the healing properties of these delicacies... but it was interesting to check them out. Yes, those are snakes on a stick at the top-right!