Duke Gardens in September

One morning after dropping Calvin off at school, Camden and I went over to the Sarah P. Duke gardens. I was amazed at the difference in plants from when Brooklyn and I were there in the spring.

Here is Camden saying "hi" to a bug.

We also saw this hawk!

Camden had a lot of fun with the ducks!

In the video, Camden is saying "come here duck! come here!"

Nevada & Hot August Nights

We were so excited to finally arrive in Nevada! We were a day late, but we made it (after staying a night in a hotel in an airport in Taiwan, hanging out at the airport, talking the airline staff into sending us to LAX instead of SFO so that we could leave 8 hours earlier, spending 13 hours on the plane, getting through the long lines of customs, and then again talking the staff into sending us on to Reno...what a trip!).

The first order of business after arriving at the Winder household-a haircut for Camden!

We helped out while we were there by baling the hay. Camden loved riding on the tractor.

While we were there, we stopped in Reno for Calvin to interview with a law firm. We just happened to be there during this huge car show called Hot August Nights. There are contests, parades, concerts, and more. It is a lot of fun! Someday, Calvin plans on building some awesome cars for each of us :)

We had a lot of fun spending some time in Nevada and can't wait to go back!

Last Days in Hong Kong

After Calvin's exams, we had one more day to do some sight-seeing in Hong Kong. We went to see the Hong Kong temple. It is so beautiful!

Across from the temple is a new church building that opened in June. There was an older building there that they tore down and replaced. We visited the mission offices that had been moved into the church building-they were previously inside the temple.

We also went to see the Hong Kong convention center.

We walked along the promenade in front of the convention center. Behind us you can see the tallest building on Hong Kong island, the IFC 2.

At the end of the day, we watched the light show that happens every night! It is almost 20 minutes long and is coordinated between many of the buildings on the island. It is so amazing! From the promenade across the harbor, music is played that goes along with the show.

Here is a short video of the show. It doesn't look as impressive as it really was because it is hard to see some of the lights on the video, but hopefully it will give you an idea of what it was like!

I hope you've enjoyed sharing this journey with us! Now on to some posts about what we're doing now!

Calvin, Ashton, & Camden EAT

Man vs. Wild is one of my favorite shows. One of the episodes is a collection of all the crazy things Bear Grylls eats while surviving in the wild. Although we were not trying to survive in the wild, I did feel like I ate some unusual things! In addition to the unusual, we ate some delicious food in Hong Kong! Following are some things I caught on camera:

This is called a Dragon Fruit. It is so good! It has a mild, sweet flavor, I think similar to watermelon. Not the same flavor as watermelon, but the same amount of flavor, if that makes sense. The texture is similar to a kiwi with the small seeds. Yum!

This is traditional Hong Kong dim sum. If you look closely, you will see the strangest thing I ate, chicken's feet! (in the back on the left). It is kind of like eating chicken with the skin on, although having those bones in there makes the experience a little too much to handle. Needless to say, I only tried it once.

Camden enjoying the dim sum.

Shrimp-not strange, shrimp swimming around in a tank of water one minute-on your plate the next minute, a little more strange. In the seafood restaurant we went to, you just walk over to the tank of fish, crab, shrimp, etc. and pick what you want, then they cook it and bring it out!

After exploring one day, we were looking for a place to eat some dinner. Calvin led us into a Vietnamese restaurant. We ordered the dinner set for two and made a few choices, not really knowing what we were ordering. I was pretty skeptical, but pleasantly surprised when everything was wonderful! The fruit drinks were very good, the soup smelled and tasted great, and the meat (not in the picture) was so tender and flavored so well. I wish I could go back tonight!

After a lot of eating out, we decided to buy a few things so we could cook in our room.

McDonalds was a frequent stop for ice cream cones, Camden's favorite! He could spot the McDonalds arches and always asked for an "I ee done" (done pronounced like cone).

And he usually ended up looking like this.

After eating a lot of Chinese food, we were craving some burgers-Monster Burgers!

They definitely lived up to the name.

One of my new favorite treats-gots zi bang (that is definitely not spelled right, but that's what it sounds like). It is made with a warm waffle, spread with peanut butter, butter, sweetened condensed milk, sprinkled with sugar, then folded in half. Heavenly!!

We went to Shaffi's twice because it was so amazing! Calvin was introduced to Shaffi's Indian food on his mission. The tradition lives on today-we saw two missionaries there on our second visit!

Tikki masala, another chicken curry dish, naan (the bread), and rice.

I saved the best for last, bakeries! There are some amazing things here. We visited this bakery in the morning when everything was hot. It was so good!

These are one of my favorites, warm buns with hot dogs inside. Who knew a hot dog could be so good??

Another favorite, pineapple buns. Not flavored with pineapple, but the crumbly topping looks like the outside of a pineapple.

It was hard adjusting to different types of food and different ways of getting food, but I think we found some pretty good things! I would take Hong Kong over the places Bear Grylls goes and the things he eats any day!