Plum Blossoms at Nanjing City gate

Josh's birthday was a success. He was so happy and proud to be turning three. He told me "I'm a big boy now, not a little boy anymore." Petey asked me in bewliderment why Josh hadn't grown bigger on his birthday. Turns out Petey remembers himself as much bigger at that age, lol. How Petey retains so many memories of being three is beyond me. We had birthday cake at lunch and invited a some friends over. All of them were adults, but that didn't seem to matter to Josh. Pangeline, Gao Lao Shi, Mariannette, Rene and Sailing all stopped by to wish Josh "Happy Birthday." In return, they all got a peice of cake mix cake and loved it. Chinese bakery birthday cakes are very different from American cakes. They have fruit layered inbetween the cakes and are much less sweet. I'd venture a guess and say that the frosting is made mostly of lard as well. I made a yellow cake with chocolate frosting, both bought in the import section. It cost about twice as much as back home, but it's worth it for a birthday as important as turning three.

We went to Papa John's for dinner. We never ate Papa John's back home and now it is pretty much our favorite place to go.

Today we are going to a rock climbing gym in Nanjing. We have no idea if the kids will be allowed to do it or not, but we're just taking them on the premise that usually nothing is off limits to kids here. When I took the kids to the water park last summer they let Petey go down even the steepest water slides. It scared me, but he loved it. I figure rock climbing will be fine, as long as they are strapped into the safety harnesses.

Our vacation starts in less than a week! I'm so excited to travel to new parts of China. Unfortunately we only have 10 days and we have 4 different cities to visit. I'm hoping this won't turn into a horrid vacation because we're running ourselves ragged. Hopefully we can take it easy and enjoy ourselves as much as possible. We're going to Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, and Chengdu. The last leg of the trip, Chengdu, is for the boys. We're going to the panda preserve.