Hansens come and visit

We love having family visit. Jodi's Mom, Dad, and her brother Justin and his wife came and visited us this weekend! Since they've already seen most of the sights before we just took em to a farmers market and a few random other places.

We did decide to have wicked awesome Chicken Fights at the Catholic Mission.
As it turns out... a chicken fight with a 200 lb marine versus an 125 lb scientist is pretty much a bad idea. here we are running for our lives.

If you look carefully in the picture to the right- you'll see the exact moment Jodi decided to go Chuck Norris on my and snap my neck like a twig.

Jodi took the picture on the left... and whoever took the picture on the right... well, I have no excuse for their sense of cropping. Who needs legs, right?

The grass was entirely too awesome to not deserve a few flips.

We did catch some killer sunsets from our secret sunset watching hideaway...

A month or so ago we also went down to visit Justin on their hometurf in LA. We decided to wander around Hollywood since it had been a long time since we'd been there.

Also- I grew a goatee. which in the absence of an honest to goodness mustache, is a decent consolation prize.

People watching is our favorite thing to do sometimes...


Justin, Jodi and I also went boogie-boarding at Newport Beach. The waves were mega big and we had a blast! We even sent Jodi out into the monstrous swells and watched her get pummeled by the massive waves. (and lose her top!)

We are so sad Justin and Lauren are moving! It was so nice to have some family close. Good luck on your trip home! We love you guys.

Put your money where your mouth is- literally

Obama preaches on his own website for equal pay for equal work complaining how women in america only get 77 cents for every dollar a man gets compensated. What an outrage he claims!

Ok- put your money where your mouth is dude. In this killer article on the National Review his hypocritical double standard is exposed. In his Senate office he pays men an average of $54,397 per year and his women only get $45,152 per year which means for every dollar a man gets a woman only gets 83 cents.
Furthermore, of his top five highest paying (and most important) jobs only 1 was a woman.

Biden is even worse. An average male salary for his Senate office is $76,937 per year while the average woman's salary is only $56,217 corresponding to only 73 cents for every dollar a man gets! This coming from the team that was outraged that women in america only get 77 cents to the dollar! Again Biden only has 1 woman in his top five paying positions.

In a new add Obama and Biden actually have the audacity to attack McCain for not voting for the supposed "equal pay for equal work bill." McCain opposes this because it would lead to endless lawsuits and government meddling in issues it was never created to address. Does the government know better how to run a business than the private sector? Should a business be forced to meet some arbitrary, ridiculous quotas defined by government? Do we really want business advice from the same government that bankrupted Social Security? They couldn't even keep their Senate cafeteria in the black this year, they had to bail it out too!

McCain actually walks the walk. An average female in his Senate staff makes $55,878 while men only make $53,936 meaning that women actually make 1.04 for every dollar a man makes! Obama/Biden... audacity indeed.

I just have something to say...

We blog about the political happenings quite a bit.
Some of you may hate it. I enjoy it, a lot actually. I used to hate when the subject would come up (probably because I just didn't understand much), but I have come a long way.
I imagine quite a few of you who read this feel the same way as I do, and I know for certain that some of you do not.
I know some of you may think I am just going with the flow of the
mainstream Mormon Republicans and don't really
"know that much",
or that I stand where I do "just because Taylor does"...
but I have a mind of my own thank you. I just wanted to take a moment to say that I am proud of myself for getting involved this last year. For a time I even considered leaning towards the Democratic side this round, since I follow my own agenda- not someone else's,
but that was short lived. I educated myself, I've read the news frequently
and have every single day for the last month or so, I listen to the radio.
I watched the DNC and the RNC...
okay not the WHOLE thing, but the most important parts.
I listen to both sides.

I know where I, yes I stand, and even my dear husband has been impressed with my knowledge at times. I must give him credit of course for educating me on some of the dynamics of politics. I'm certainly no expert. I often try to strengthen my political convictions with a spiritual perspective as well, that's what life is all about right? I don't want to talk about why I stand where I do, because I'm sure you've all figured that out by now and I could go on forever, I'm just proud to say
that I KNOW why I stand where I do.
So now when someone wants to assume I don't really have a clue,
you've been warned...I have a lot to talk about.
I'm my own person, woman, American....that's all I have to say.
And I still like you even if we disagree.

Goodbye China!

The time has finally come. I'm coming home! It's been an awesome 3 weeks. Dr. Pan's group has been so nice! They really are so friendly and welcoming. Thank you guys so much, I loved my stay! I'll be back next year for THREE MONTHS with Jodi.
We took a picture before they left yesterday for their conference (2 or 3 are missing in the picture because they had class). It's a big group though as far as PhD's in Materials Engineering go.

They were super nice enough to take me out to dinner that night! We went to a fancy Korean Food restaurant. Each table had a gas grill built into it and they had a cast-iron griddle on it so they cooked your food for you right in front of you. It was so good! they had kimchi and lots of different cooked vegetables and meats. Once they were cooked you'd add a few veggies and wrap it up in a piece of lettuce and dip it in this mega hot and spicy dip they had. It was fantastic food! The guy on next to me in the white shirt is Wan ChunLei who came to visit before and the guy on the bottom right is Qu ZhiXue who will be coming to stay 3 months starting in October sometime. More than half of the people that are in the group now will be gone next time I come though because they graduate or something, that's really sad because they are all so great!

They even gifted me a totally rad Tsinghua University T-shirt which they all signed with their names... which felt strangely like Saturday morning at Camp Cherry Valley.

The desert was way good too. It was like ice cream I guess... It had shaved ice (like for snowcones) and it had milk mixed in it a little and then it had some fruit (papaya? and pineapple) and then it had these little red cooked beans, or lentils... or I'm not really sure. But they were definitely legumes. That's right. Legumes in your ice cream. They were really good though. The dish was called "Red Bean on Ice Mountain" it was awesome. Did I mention we fit like 13 of us in an elevator.

I have been spending my remaining time before I leave exploring places like this...

I can't help myself. I'm drawn to them like a bee to a flower. My sister Michelle is the same way. If there's a lot of strange people to be seen... I'm there. I met a really nice random girl named YouYou and she was from Beijing but she spoke English and German really well. We chatted for a long time and then she showed me her Art studio where she works. She was really good. She calligraphied for me a bunch of cool things and wouldn't accept any money for it! She was so nice. I ended up staying there with her and her boss, a really amazing artist guy, for like an hour. I showed them a picture of the family and they exclaimed that michelle and alicia looked like movie stars. When I told him Dad had died he did two really cool calligraphy things with Mom and Dad's name on them and insisted I take them without paying. They were so great!

Anyway as I wandered I came to a realization. In China- if a food is normally to gross to consider, maybe it's just not being presented right. You know, if you saw a giant maggot, a thumb-sized bug cacoon, huge grasshoppers, big sea worms, sea lions, squashed lizards, starfish, or even SCORPIONS... you'd probably not think to yourself "How do I get that goodness inside of me!"
Well, think no longer! If you were repusled before, just imagine it on a stick! Everythings better on a stick! Just think of it, that huge cockroach looks way better, doesn't it? And the sea worms? They look like dried spaghetti noodles on a stick now! and the lizard which looked like it had been run over and left to dry on the road 3 or 4 days, well NOW... well... now, it pretty much looks the same. BUT on a stick!


And just so you don't think they only eat bugs and lizards and scorpions and things on sticks...
here's some totally kickbutt fruit glazed in a carmel like coating on a stick. These I did try, and boy howdy were they good.

You know you're a serious fan when you wake up at 4 o'clock in the dang morning just to watch the lame gametracker version of the University of Utah vs Air Force game and listen to the online audio stream. It's a good thing they won, because if I had to wake up that early (adn wake Kozy up apparently) and they had lost... then I'd be so mad! but they won! go UTES! Nationally ranked, they were #20 last week, and even after a less than marvelous showing today they can only go up! Go UTES!

One last parting thought- to quote Alexis de Toqueville: "America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." Count your blessings, we live in such a blessed country when even the worst off among us are prosperous beyond what they can even imagine.

The Great Wall of China

If I never see another stair in my life... it will still be too many. The Great Wall of China at Badaling was easily, step-for-step, every bit as hard as any of the high passes on the Grand Teton's crest trail. It was brutal! the roads went straight up in parts and they would only put stairs once they past a 45 degree or so climb! it was just unreal.
The wall was just like you'd imagine- long, immense, crennelated, winding, awesome.

I took the bus all by myself to BaDaLing. (finding the bus station and the right bus in broken chinese was an adventure in itself). It was like an hour long ride and pretty comfortable actually. Way better than many I rode in Argentina. The views of the mountains were amazing! I never really thought about China having such totally amazing mountain ranges.
It was foggy when I got there in the morning. But it cleared up quickly and got way HOT. I was sweating buckets! People thought I was sick, none of them were sweating near as bad as I was!

There were guard towers ever two arrow shots apart so it was defendable at any point and occasionally there was a fortress like the one below.


This was the highest point on the BaDaLing Wall. By this point I looked like a sweaty pig- and it only got worse as the day went on, much much worse.

the downhills were almost worse than the uphills

This one's for Janae...

For your sakes I just collaged a bunch too. In this set you'll see a portion of the wall that they didn't build because... if you could spiderman across that cliff- you could easily climb the wall. You'll also notice a green tunnel looking thing going up the mountain. That was a little bumper-car thing you could ride up. Wish i'd seen that before I climbed the 10 trillion stairs on my own. Later I found a tram that went up too- unbelievable.

Incredible views. even in the morning haze.

in this collage you'll see me with a big group of chinese kids. I was just takin my lunch break on an abandoned part of the wall just eating an apple and reading my book when these kids came by. They were so excited to see an American they all wanted to take a picture with me. It was pretty fun. Everyone is so friendly.

More stunning views of China's mountains and the wall that criss-crosses them.

In this collage there's a picture of a war machine the mongols would use to get over the wall. And there's a picture of me blasting the camera with a Hadouken- I was supposed to be in the air for the picture, but the guy took the picture too late. also I got a picture of the wall where they haven't restored it, it's still in pretty darn good shape, but many of the crenellations have been broken

This was great. And did I mention they had random bear pits full of hungry bears? People were chucking food at them and the bears were roaring so loud I could hear them clear up on the mountain.

Crazy chinese tick I saw on the wall...

The climbs were seriously like a roller coaster! Way up and then way down. It was so steep in many places that people were literally crawling up hands and knees and when they had to go down they turned around and went backwards crawling!

Near the ends the wall was very empty of tourists too. You had to walk a long way though!

The whole trip was super long. It took me 7 hours to hike the whole length and back (with a long relaxing lunch reading a book)

A view of about a third of the wall I walked...

Epic steepness...

From near the top...