"T" in Tennessee!

Where's the Juice?

For the next 40+ days I'll be blogging at my secondary blog, The Happy Juicer.  You can get there by just adding /thehappyjuicer to the link for this blog or go here:  www.tinchina.typepad.com/thehappyjuicer.  Go to the beginning of my entries if you want to find out what I'm attempting these days.  Until around March 9th (hopefully) that is where all new posts will be.  Wish me luck! :)  T in Tennessee

Goodness Cometh from China! :)

When I returned home from work today....I stopped my car at the end of my driveway...rolled my window down...reached in....NOTHING!  Sad.  But then I drove up my driveway and noticed a box on my front porch!  OH!  It was a great package sent to me from an American friend currently living in Beijing!  She was recently in the States for her daughter's wedding so I had been expecting the box and it was just SO great to receive it on a rare day of NOTHING in my mailbox! :)  So you can only imagine how excited I was.  I brought the box into my kitchen.....set it aside and prepared to open it...which means I got out of my work clothes and into my "house" clothes....poured myself a big glass of Diet Coke....opened up the ends of the box and put it beside my computer desk and chair.  I then reached in and brought things out one by one! :)  What a wonderful box of surprises! :)  It made my day...my week! :)

Right off the bat.....GUM! :)  Call me a dork...nerd...whatever.  But I LOVE the chewing gum that you really can only get in China...even though made by an American compay!  You see here....delicious lemon gum, apple gum, and green tea/mint gum! :)  So thank you, Wrigley's, for making great gum sold in China but hey....could we get some of this chewing gum goodness in the States?

With apologies for the dusty/dirty nature of my keyboard....here are two WONDERFUL change purses which were purchased in Vietnam on a recent visit from my friend Stacey's husband...and inside the blue purse were some WONDERFUL beads (which I have SUCH plans for) and a great pair of earrings.  The other earrings...the silver and blue ones...were inside their own little box and I just love both pairs.  The little purses are SO nice...well embrodiered (sp?) and I SO love them! :)

The wrapping paper was just too cute for words! :)  I love it!  And the fact that the word "DIET" was on this wrapping paper?  SO funny and so adorable! ha

A GREAT postcard from a small shop in a hutong in Beijing called Plastered T's!  LOVE this postcard as Stacey has sent me several others and it's a great addition to my collection she is creating for me!

And a wonderful little journal....complete with stickers....and SO cute....like THIS page:

So lovely and just all kinds of Asian cuteness! :)

And though everything in the box was loved SO much....here are five wonderful lettersets of awesome Asian (mostly Korean) stationery!  I cannot wait to begin using this stationery to write to dear friends and relatives! :)  Thank you SO much, Stacey!  You are continuing to satisfy my thirst for wonderful things from China and I am blessed to know you and that you understand how very much I miss Beijing where I once lived and will never EVER forget! :)  Here's to a great friendship! :)  Teresa in Tennessee....but really missing the days when I would sign off as T in China!  T.

I LOVE MAIL! :)

Over the past six months I have become part of a couple of online websites where folks sign up and send and receive mail.....that is....SNAIL mail! :)  They are www.postcrossing.com and www.swap-bot.com.  I love getting "real" mail in my "real" mailbox.  Email is okay, but there is just nothing quite like getting a handwritten and personal letter in the mail....in your mailbox...where you have to reach in and retrieve it, see who it's from, and then decide how exactly you are going to handle such a precious letter.  Will you rip it open immediately and read it?  Or will you delay satisfaction by holding on to it for a bit.  My preference is to delay gratification until I'm back in the house and sitting down, comfortable, and not distracted.  Over the past 6 months I've been writing a lot and sending out a lot of mail. I'm especially happy about gaining 3 very special penpals in Japan, the Netherlands, and Poland.  My penpal in Japan is American and is a librarian on a Marine base.  My penpal in the Netherlands resulted from my association with postcrossing.  My penpal in Poland was a wonderful result from a "penpal swap" on swap-bot.  These women and I have exchanged some wonderful cards, letters, and information on our respective lives.  Sitting down and putting pen to paper is very relaxing and enjoyable for me.  I also adore stamps...from everywhere!  So I've been buying older U.S. stamps to grace the envelopes of everything I send out to my friends.

These are just a small representation of mail I'm sending out for the Christmas holidays.  I am also currently a little obsessed with making my own envelopes from thrift store-purchased books, magazines, maps and such.  It makes me very happy to send out handmade envelopes with handwritten messages inside.  I have also been enjoying making very small mini-envelopes with a tiny messages inside.  So here's the deal. If you would like to send me some "snail" mail....then I promise to write back to you.  You can send mail to me at:  Teresa Bragg, 1909 Dahlia Drive, Nashville Tennessee 37210, USA.  My motto will be "Send something, receive something!"  I really look forward to hearing from you!  Teresa

Love older U.S. stamps!

I've been a part of an organization called postcrossing for about 6 months now! I love it. www.postcrossing.com.  Send a postcard out into the world and get a postcard from some random stranger friend out in the world.  I am really really loving it!  I've received around 62 postcards now and am regularly corresponding, via snail mail, with about 4 folks due to postcrossing!  I recently discovered a stamp vendor at the Nashville flea market who has a huge box of stamps that he sells for face value!  OH MY!  What a joy! 

Lovely stamps! :)

Great postcards received !:)  I am really enjoying being a part of postcrossing! :)  T in T, T

Backing Up a Bit.....Summer of 2011!

I was very fortunate to have a wonderful Chinese friend (currently a law school student at Case Western University School of Law) stay with me for a month as she worked as an intern for a federal judge here in Nashville.  She and I had wonderful conversations but also created great meals. :)

I just can't say how grateful I was for being the beneficiary of such wonderful dishes while Tracy lived with me this past summer! :)

These are some of the wonderful pork/cabbage dumplings that we just couldn't manage to consume. But no worries.  They were saved and enjoyed for lunch the next day! :)

I was happy to take Tracy to Atlanta, Georgia, and show her many sights while enjoying a nice stay with my dear friend, Connie. :)

Tracy especially enjoyed getting to meet Mr. Anderson! ha

I took Tracy on a a tour of the CNN headquarters in Atlanta and we both had a great time. :)

We also met up with another dear friend, Liyin, while enjoying the wonderful laser show at Stone Mountain Park! :)

On the drive back to Nashville stopped off in Chattanooga so I could show Tracy the Chattanooga Choo Choo and the great hotel where you can sleep on the train cars! :)

This is Tracy inside one of the Chattanooga "sleeping" cars! :)  We had a wonderful time exploring Atlanta and also Chattanooga and Tracy enjoyed seeing some American cities that she had never seen before. :)  It was a great trip! T in T, T

Weekend at Cumberland Mtn. State Park!

It might be hard to top all those photos (see post below) of the Minister's Treehouse! ha But there is MORE to the weekend. :)  Marsha Haas and I have known each other since 1983 when we both worked for the same company (just after I graduated from the Univ. of Tennessee).  We have been friends through thick and thin for 27 years so it was so nice to do what we'd been talking about doing for years....have a girls' weekend together.  We did just that! :)

I arrived about 2 hours prior to Marsha's arrival and I was determined to have a wonderful fire going in the fireplace of our "rustic" 2 bedroom cabin. Things didn't quite work as I had planned (though I did bake some chocolate chip cookies before she arrived so the cabin's "funky" smell was replaced by some wonderful cookie smells! ha)  Well, when Marsha arrived she quickly determined that we needed "fire starter" supplies. Two heads are always better than one, right? 

Marsha not only brought the corkscrew for that expensive bottle of Trader Joe's wine (smile)....but also introduced me to the fine art of drinking red wine while eating a bit of chocolate cake brought back from our dinner at the Lodge of the Park. :)  Aren't friends great?

So on Saturday morning we arose to a wonderfully bright, though cool, day.  One of my self-assigned tasks was to prepare Saturday morning's breakfast.  We enjoyed great coffee and I prepared western omlettes with mushrooms, green peppers, onions and cheese!  They actually looked like omlettes and not scrambled eggs.  I was so proud.  Then we set off on a nice and gentle hike around the lake at the Park.

This is Marsha looking all nice and innocent. But she was saying "Come on, Teresa!" while she was jumping around on this swinging bridge and shaking it terribly! ha I was determined to make sure she had traveled to the other side before I ventured onto the bridge because, you know, I wasn't completely sure it could hold her AND me at the same time! ha  She finally gave up on her shenanigans and allowed me to cross all on my own.

From the middle of the swinging bridge.

NIce.

Cool rock formations/shelves that I am sure are part of plate tectonics from way back when.

Throwing the "peace/victory" sign because, you know, that's just how I roll. :)  Not too long after this photo...as we plodded along on the trail...a fierce (yes, that's right...it was fierce) wind came up and just as I was walking under an acorn tree one of those little suckers came down hard and fast and hit me on my thumb....and it really hurt!  Marsha, just laughed.  (Did I call her "dear" earlier?)

Well, hello, little duckies!  Where ya going?  Come back, come back!  Can't you hear me speaking "duck?"  Seriously...I can speak duck.

Here we are....about to end our nice little hike...but not before coming across these guys!

Geese are not to be taken lightly! ha  They are very protective and very territorial.  We gave them a wide berth as we passed by because, you know, getting pecked to death is not something I want to see on my death certificate!

Whew! ha  We've passed the evil geese and about to cross this wonderful historic masonry bridge/dam to head back to our cabin.

We've walked across the bridge and here's the other side.  After our hike we enjoyed a nice lunch of peanut butter and honey sandwiches (great post-hiking food), enjoyed chatting and then left to see a great comedy play (The Dearly Departed on it's last night of production) at the Cumberland County Playhouse! After the play we enjoyed a nice dinner at Cracker Barrel.  What a wonderful weekend catching up with a friend. T in T.

 

The Minister's Treehouse: An American Oddity! :)

First of all, major apologies for the huge distance between my last post and now.  I hope to post a lot in the coming days to make up for it! :)  So...moving on.  Last week, I met up with a dear friend who lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, Marsha Haas.  She drove from Knoxville, I drove from Nashville, and we met in Crossville, Tennessee where we had rented a cabin at Cumberland Mtn. State Park for the weekend with plans to enjoy the weeking chatting, drinking coffee, sitting by a fire, hiking, and taking in a play at the Cumberland County Playhouse.  I left early Friday morning, November 11 (yep, 11-11-11) so I could take in a special site just off I-40 in Crossville.  Somehow I came across information about The Minister's Treehouse on the internet about a year ago.  I vowed to see it.  I read that a combination farmer/preacher, the Reverend Burgess, was told by God many years ago to build a treehouse and that God would provide all the materials needed.  So he started building....and kept building for 15 years (still building, as far as I know).  Folks found out about it and started coming.  Build it and they will come, right?  He built.  They came.  So many folks that he began to worry that someone would get hurt so he posted "No Trespassing" and "Private Property" signs on the gravel road leading to the treehouse.  All the websites informed me that everyone just ignores those signs and he only did it to supposedly remove himself from liability if someone were "trespassing"and got hurt.  But there are no locked gates and no efforts to keep anyone out and signs posted on where to park, along with a donation box. :)  So....here's my first view:

Pretty interesting, right?  It's said to be 10 stories tall and with the height measure to the very tip-top....I believe it! I DID climb to the top, by the way, but you can't get go outside on that very top platform.

ha ha!  I doubt that one little extinguisher will do much for this huge wooden structure!

The Rev. is a proud American.

In Tennessee we might call this homemade lawnchair swing.....a bit redneck! :) (I convinced this stranger guy to swing in it for my photo).

Cool and quirky.  Inside all this scrap lumbar just nailed around is a big spiral staircase that leads to each floor and all kinds of odd rooms and, of course, the Chapel.

Praise the Lord, Amen....now let's play some basketball! :)  (there's a reason why this place is listed on "oddities" of America websites and the Roadside America website) This is, of course, the Chapel.

Taken from near the basketball goal....and yes...to the far right you can see some stadium seating. :)  Tired of photos?  Too bad.  I have more! :)

Lots and lots of graffiti all around....but if you write any swear words....it gets spray-painted over.  Mostly, the words are nice, about peace and love, or just folks leaving their names and such.  Cool.

Proof that this treehouse really is a treehouse.  In fact, there are several trees that the house is built around.  It's actually quite stable...though it's still a little scary and I walked up and among it very carefully.  Not a great place for kids though I've read that they love "running" through it.

When I arrived...around 10:00 a.m.....there were about 5 folks milling around the treehouse but they'd already been up in it.  So when I was climbing up and around inside the treehouse...it was just me.  It was fun to explore alone and find all the quirky things like this room with about 10 carvings that kinda looked like chainsaw art. :)

"Talk to the hand!"  Okay....that's probably not the intended message here....

I can only hope that this wood-burning stove is NO LONGER USED! ha  Another quirky fact on this wonderful crisp fall day:  The minute I stepped out of my car I heard drumming and chanting.  Like you might hear at a Native American PowWow!  Seriously. 

I was right.  Quirky is the theme here, folks.  A corrugated iron teepee?  There were LIVE people inside doing some LIVE drumming and chanting while others milled around outside.  I think they were family members of the owner.  Okay....let's get to the top! :)

This shot would have certainly been even more beautiful about 3 weeks earlier with all the changing leaves.  Still...I loved it!

And from the other side.....JESUS! :)  Upon closer inspection from the ground...it seems monkey grass is the tool used to do the Jesus spelling. :)  It was a little....well, scary, to be in that little room at the very top so...um....I'm gonna climb down now, okay?

Kinda glad to be back on the ground...

As I left the Minister's Treehouse....I had to stop, roll down the window, and take a pic of this great sign.  Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, right? :) By asking a few questions, seems they used to have trouble with some homeless, drug users, and I guess "sex fiends" trying to use Burgess' wonderful quirky structure for evil-doing.

Bye bye quirky treehouse!  I enjoyed my visit immensely!  And though it seems I've poked fun here...well, that's true.  But I honestly think it's wonderful that this man, Horace Burgess, built such a wonderful treehouse for folks all across America and beyond to behold and enjoy!  You can go here for a good article:  http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/Living/article.php?id=91362

And if you're ever traveling between Nashville and Knoxville on I-40....do yourself a favor and get off at Exit 320 and go north for just a few yards. Turn right at Cooks Lane (or Drive, or Road, can't remember). Travel about a mile and when the road turns SHARPLY to the right...take a left on Beehive Lane. It's a paved one lane road.  Drive down that road until it turns into a gravel road.  Drive right on past those Private Property and No Trespassing Signs. Trust me.  You are welcome there. :) T in Tennessee, Teresa

My Morning Bus Ride to Work in Nashville, Tennessee on July 1, 2011

This week I've been without my vehicle.  It needs some sort of relay switch to repair the fan and when the fan is not working....the air is not working.  I'm fortunate enough to live very close to a bus stop where I take one bus straight to my downtown Nashville office building.  Today was a bright and sunny day as I set out to walk a bit over 1/2 of a mile to the bus stop, dragging my big trash container to the street as I left (Friday is trash pick-up day).  The walk takes me about 15-17 minutes but I've done it in 11 minutes (my all-time record....it's fairly uphill the whole way....and I did not want to miss the bus and be forced to wait nearly 30 minutes for the next one at that time).  Today, I did the walk in 14 minutes.  The bus arrives nearly ALWAYS on time, this one should have arrived at 7:47 a.m.  So, I'm walking, I'm walking.....huffing and puffing up the hills until I reach a fairly flat stretch just before the bus stop.

 
Okay, I'm here. :)

 
From whence I came...(the aforementioned fairly flat stretch).

 
Okay....it's 7:47 a.m.  Where's the bus??????

 
Yep, it's running a little late.  Turns out, the bus didn't arrive for another full 5 minutes and while it looks like a beautiful cool day....that morning sun was pretty hot and this body of mine didn't get much relief standing in the shade of the telephone pole! ha ha  But no worries, the bus still kept to its schedule and we arrived at destinations on time!

 
Here comes da bus, here comes da bus!  Finally! :)  As I boarded, the very kind bus driver noticed me taking the photo and said, "Did you get my smile?" :) (he's such a nice bus driver)

 
I'm seated and enjoying the blasts of cool air!  There's not much chatter on the bus this morning, mainly just from two bus-friends, sitting in the back, who always chat loudly with each other every morning.  They work for the State of Tennessee and the State pays for their bus passes to encourage less vehicle traffic.  SO nice.

 
This is the Shell gas station/Subway sandwich shop very close to my house where I am a frequent visitor.  My friend, Hiba, works at Subway here and she knows just how I like my Italian Club on whole wheat! :)

 
We're nearing downtown Nashville!

 
We're about to pass the Nashville Fire Department headquarters AND another No. 6 bus heading away from downtown!

 
The Hermitage Cafe....it's been an icon in Nashville for decades and decades (I have no memory of NOT seeing it).  They are open from 10:00 pm at night until 1:30 pm in the afternoon every day! ha  It's where you can go to get your "diner food" fill after a night of partying in Nashville and where lots of downtown folks stop to have their breakfast in the mornings!  Many country music stars have visited this little diner and lots of folks rave about it!  I've been there once for their delicious cheeseburgers and they were....delicious!

 
Downtown Nashville office buildings.  Look closely.  You can see 5 here!  The L&C office building was completed in 1957, the AT&T building (known in Nashville as the "Batman building") was completed in 1994 and the Pinnacle building was opened in 2010....our newest downtown office high-rise.  There's also a glimpse of the Fifth Third building and the "Darth Vader" office buildings.

This is Nashville's newest bridge (Korean Veterans Memorial Bridge, originally called the "Gateway" Bridge) which opened in May 2004.  Another bridge (the Shelby Street bridge, which originally opened in 1909 and was called the Sparkman Street Bridge..photo to follow!) just next to this new bridge was closed to traffic in 1998 and reopened in 2003 as one of the world's longest pedestrian bridges (but also for bicyclists and spanning 3,150 feet, and was recently featured in Extreme Makeovers-Weight Loss Edition as they featured a Nashville man losing weight and lugging weights across this bridge!  Ugh!).  Also, you can see LP Field in the background which is where the Tennessee Titans play great football games!

 
So this is the aforementioned Shelby Street Bridge which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998, mainly for its unique truss design.  This refurbished bridge is part of the Metro Nashville Greenway System and comes out facing the Schermerhorn Sympthony Center, also very close to the Country Music Museum and the Bridgestone Arena.  So...surely now you are up on your Nashville bridge history. :)

 
Construction is making headway on the new Nashville Convention Center (also a source of great debate among many Nashvillians as to whether we really NEED a new Convention Center).

 
Another view of the new Pinnacle office building....

 
A good view of why we call the "Batman" building the "Batman" building! :)

 
We've just turned left onto Broadway....where you see this:

 
and this:

 
and a little further up Broadway, before we turn right headed up the hill (5th Avenue) towards main downtown buildings...this:

 
The Bridgestone Arena....which, by the way, I got to see being built around 1996-1997 from up above since I once worked for a law firm at the top of the Renaissance Hotel (on the 30th floor) and could see the progress down below every day for months and months.  It's been called by several names....but folks in Nashville usually just refer to it by its original name, the ARENA (before corporate sponsors got involved).  I went here on June 19th (my 50th birthday) with my son as he gifted me with tickets to see Cirque du Soleil's Alegria!  Had a wonderful time!

 
We've turned right on 5th Avenue and I tried to get a good shot but this was my best from inside the bus. These are the doors of the historic Ryman Auditorium, home of the Grand Ole Opry (which is now performed out of its new auditorium just next to the Opryland Hotel).  This auditorium first opened as the Union Gospel Tabernacle in 1892 and was built by Thomas Ryman, a riverboat captain and Nashville businessman who also owned several saloons!  It was used for Grand Ole Opry broadcasts from 1943 until 1974. It was included on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and further designated a National Historic Landmark in 2001.  You can see many different kinds of music these days at the old Ryman....including such acts from Neil Young to Coldplay, Erasure, and Nickel Creek!  It is claimed that the Ryman Auditorium has the second best acoustics in the world (after the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's home, the Salt Lake Tabernacle).  Who knew?

 
I'm almost to my stop outside my office building.  This is a shot from inside the bus of the wonderful bus driver.  I learned today that he is originally from England (since I asked him, "where do you get that accent?" ha).  He has lived in the States for 34 years but his accent still shines forth and I love it. :)

 
But wait...there's also this as we travel up 5th from Broadway.  This plaque speaks for itself. It's a wonderful old church and the inside is just beautiful.

 
We're passing by the Nashville Arcade, on 5th Avenue between Church Street and Union Avenue, which was constructed in 1902 and modeled after an arcade in Italy.  Inside there is the wonderful Peanut Shop which boasts SO much more than mere peanuts and which has been around for ages and also a U.S. Post Office (they know me well as I frequent it often to buy stamps...and not just any stamps...I usually go in with a small list of exactly which stamps I want and how many! ha).

 
I'm almost to work!  Once we cross Union Street my stop is at the next corner (5th and Deaderick) and that's my office building on the right (though you can't see much of it).  This is a long post but know that from the time I boarded the bus to just about now, when I'm ready to get off the bus, only 20 minutes have gone by! ha

 
We're at my stop!  Thank you, wonderful bus driver originally from England who ALWAYS says, "Have a blessed day" as I get off the bus!  Thanks for the great ride!

 
I'm off the bus and there goes the bus as its next stop is the main bus station downtown!

 
Along with some others, I'm walking up the stairs to my office building doors.

 
Just before I go through my office doors to the right....I see this! :)  I might enjoy a coffee from here later today since someone gave me a Starbucks giftcard for my birthday! Otherwise, it's office coffee for me! :)

 
This is Paul, an employee of my office building and a wonderful and kind man.  Often, he holds the doors open for arriving building employees and many times he has called the elevator for me (pressed the button) and even reached inside and pressed the 14th floor button for me (even though I don't work on the 14th floor I love his kindness and effort to try and remember faces and which floor they work on). :)

 
Someone is holding the elevator door for me so this is the end to my bus ride story of July 1, 2011!  I hope you have enjoyed this little (albeit long) pictorial view of my bus ride, along with some interesting facts about Nashville, Tennessee.  Cheers to all, Teresa

Simplification...Part II (a/k/a Life Without Cable TV)

It's been 2 months and a couple of days since I let go of cable television, bought an antenna, and resigned myself to watching whatever comes on the network channels and the channels picked up by my antenna (ION is great!).  At first, I did struggle.  I wanted to go right out and buy a VCR so I could tape programs while I was at work and tape programs when I wasn't home so that I could watch them later. But I resisted even though it was hard (VHS recorders are so cheap now).  After about 4 weeks, I found that I did not miss that which I cannot see any longer.  But more importantly, I found that I do not mind missing a program if I am not home to watch it.  Television watching has slowly become much less important to me.  THIS is what I wanted to experience; hoped I would experience, and I'm so glad to report that I NOW experience.  Now....there are still many wonderful choices of programs on television and if I'm at home to watch them...or even care to watch them...I watch them.  If I'm not home, then it has become okay for me that I miss them.  This is HUGE for me because I really am (could I even say WAS now?) a television addict.  I have been doing many more creative things at home and writing in my journal more, reading, even cooking more healthy meals, etc.  So life without cable is, I must admit, just fine.  And the savings are going into the pot labeled "GREAT VISIT TO CHINA IN THE FALL!"  Yes!  T in Tennessee without cable TV, that's me!  T.

Guests on New Year's Eve and Day, 2011!

Last year, on the day after Christmas, my friends Tracy and Hua came to spend the weekend with their daughter Amy and Hua's parents who were here visiting on a six month visa.  Chinese grandparents traditionally help take care of their grandchildren in a fairly hands-on fashion until they begin their schooling.  This year, they all drove down from Indianapolis again, arriving on New Year's Eve with daughter Amy and their newest daughter, 10-month-old Audrey.  This time it was Tracy's parents who were visiting from China but Tracy's father stayed back in Indianapolis.  There just weren't enough seatbelts in the van with two carseats and such.  This would be my second time to see Audrey, having visited Indianapolis when she was just 2 months old.

 
This is Tracy's mother and it is her first visit to my home and to Tennessee.  I have visited her home in Changchun, China (about 8 hours by train north of Beijing) on 3 occasions.

 
Surely Audrey is thinking, "Who the heck are YOU!"

 
Grandma and her two granddaughters, Audrey and Amy.  Grandma has two daughter, Tracy and MaoMao.  MaoMao has one child....a girl, NingNing! :)  So Grandma has 2 girls who had 3 girls! :)  Tracy's husband has one sister.  She had a boy! ha

 
 
I took them to view the Opryland Hotel (everyone except Tracy's Mom had already been there) which had only been open for about 7 weeks after 7 months of total shut-down due to the May 2010 Great Flood in Nashville and Tennessee.

 
Mama goes country! :)

 
Great Xing-Li family photo even though Audrey seems to be saying, "What's with all the photos!!!!"

 
And, of course, Mama had to see the Parthenon so Hua stayed at my house with Audrey and off Mama, me, Tracy and Audrey went!

 

 
Audrey enjoyed see all the ducks on the duck pond next to the Parthenon.  Then we left to go to the World Market, a very large Asian/Hispanic supermarket on Charlotte Ave. in Nashville!  Love that place.  I buy a really nice Korean brown rice there and many other things hard or impossible to find in mainstream groceries.

 
Mama agreed to cook a nice big Chinese dinner full of wonderful dishes and I would be inviting my mother, brother, and sister-in-law to come over and partake.  We had lots of items to buy, including two fresh fish! :)

 
 
We had all my favorite dishes: tomatoes and egg, broccoli and pork, bean sprouts, green beans, a type of green that I don't know the name of (ha), fish, rice.  YUM!

 
 
My brother, Arlie, with young Audrey.

 
Everyone is chowing down....

 
Everybody (except me).

 
Morning of their departure.  Amy is "watching" Audrey as everyone packs up.

 
I love this beautiful, perfect face. :)

 
We all had a wonderful time and I look forward to the next visit!  Right now, Tracy is finishing up her first year of law school at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio; Hua has just returned from a wonderful interview with a company near San Jose, California; and Amy and Audrey are spending a few months with grandparents in China.  More soon, TinT