Happy Monday! UGH!!!

More pictures on the right side..... only 50 in this group so you don't have to give up an entire hour to view them all.

We are another step closer in getting Sarah "official" for staying in Taiwan. Unless she has a past that the Taiwanese government doesn't care for and they reject her, we're in. If they reject her..... we'll figure out a "plan B" (any suggestions???). Nothing like living on the wild side and flirting with visas, last second plane tickets.....

Sarah decided the home needed some more life, so we went to the flower market this weekend. It was simply amazing, with some great prices! We ended up with 6 plants for the deck, one for inside. We'll get some pictures up soon of our new "life" around the place. I will admit that the deck looks MUCH better now with some color. The beauty is that they will continue to bloom throughout the entire year here. Especially if they can make it through the next month of extreme heat! But since there is no frost here, we'll continue seeing flowers from these plants up until we leave. Then when we do leave, someone will get some nice flower pots as presents;) We even bought a plant of Gerber Daisies that are really beautiful! Plus the bouquet we arranged from there only cost us all of $7 US. Yeah, seriously... the one with the birds of paradise (I think that's what they're called) and the sunflowers....

Between rain storms, and checking up on the Olympics, we have made some new friends in Taipei. Alicia is originally from Kazakhstan (you like??) lived in Russia, US, and now Taipei. She made us a wonderful traditional Kazakhstanian meal that translates into "Five Fingers". Real name is "Beshbarmak" so I'll stick with the fingers... which means how you eat it, not what's actually in it. Thankfully, Costco was out of Sheep's Head (per the Wikipedia ingrediants) so we used some great tasting Lamb! The lamb here is really really good (to eat)- not used to getting so many lamb options (again... for eating purposes only!) After dinner, we played a Kazakhstanian game of Guitar Hero! Her husband Zach is a fellow techie and gave me some good ideas on networking while in Taipei that I'm working on currently.

Olympics are over - the closing ceremony was interesting to say the least. But now the focus is finally off of China and their underage gymnasts, and onto London and how they're going to get 2 weeks of Olympics completed with the amount of rain they get daily in London. At least they won't have 3 languages to translate into since English is spoken by the host country.... kind of.

Work is work.... Sarah and I are trying to plan some vacations for September and October. More details as they come!

Hope all is well in the US. My Mt. Dew arrived today from an employee that was in the US! I'm happy, plus Sarah has a new supply of Hot Tamales to savor for a while.