Chew on this.

A few things going on here y'all. Got rid of some of the links that no longer met the single criteria here - must post at least once every 10 weeks or be named Ryan Bowman. I also added a couple of new links, Desiring God and The Resurgence. Check 'em out if you got time.

On to some pictures from recent activities in Michigan.

We spent the week of the 4th up north at the cabin. Rachel likes riding in the Burley because Elijah can't get away from her menacing ways. It's especially nice when he's got the sucker that you want.
Anna rode the new bike appendage that is a single wheel attached to my seatpost. I zigzag'd down each road as I compensated for Anna leaning out sideways to look past my backside.
Rachel Grace
Only the small ones can pull off the European speedo. Adult males just get ridiculed.
Momma and Anna after plotting a new scheme to overthrow the boys in the family.

Catch you later.

Horrible.

Yes, that is exactly what we are when it comes to frequent blogging.....with a capital H. But while we get our act together, here's a cute video via http://www.noelheikkinen.com/

Ryan versus Spiderman

A chinese friend made this for me over in Shanghai. I was never able to upload it until now. So, ask yourself first. In a match between me and Spidey, who wins? Click play to find out.

6 + 1

Whoa. So, Rachel Grace turned one on June 16. Anna turned 6 on Saturday, June 21. Unbelievable how fast those came around. Here are some pictures from the festivities.

Joy and the boys made the trip from Williamston. Clockwise, from bottom left. This is Austin, Peter, and Larry Bird.
Austin and Elijah are going to be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.
I didn't know whether this was a hug or sleeper hold until Anna passed out a couple seconds after this picture was taken.
Joy took a shot at pinning the tail on the donkey. Aimee had set up lots of fun games to play. Heather, background, also got a turn.
Up next were sack, er, pillow case races. That's Heather's husband Dave.

Rachel got a new oven/stove and kitchen set.

The 2 sisters partying down.

Check y'all later!!!

Katie got hitched.

What's up party people? Sorry we haven't been blogging much. Things have been a little busy finding our place back in West Michigan. Things are going pretty well overall. Katie is Aimee's youngest sibling and got hitched on June 14.

Family shot at the reception. It was an outdoor reception at Aimee's folks farm. It was a beautiful day and setting.
Anna and her cuz, Jacob participated in the ceremony. There were no flower petals thrown around. Anna provided moral support and added cuteness. Jacob bore the rings. Austin also helped out (not pictured).
Lance and Katie helped me out by looking my way rather than at the professional photographer in this instance. Thanks.
Aimee was a bridesmaid. I held Rachel during the service and worked security detail.

Uh, ever have one of those days where you intended to take thousands of pics and only took a couple dozen. That would be my situation on Katie's wedding day. Actually, the professional photographer threatened me.

Lupu Bridge

I have been wanting to climb the gigantic arch bridge, called Lupu bridge, since we arrived. Shanghai has 5 distinctly different bridges. If you like structures or appreciate civil engineering, you'd enjoy seeing the bridges of Shanghai.

I was fortunate to have a mostly blue-sky day. Those are not frequent in Shanghai. The river splits Shanghai into 2 pieces. Puxi is the older area of the Shanghai, on the left/west of the river. Pudong is the fast-growing right/east side of the river that includes the famous structures that you see on the global Citibank commercials in the US.
Pudong's development into a "big city" feel has happened in the last 10 years. In 1998, it was farmland. 367 steps total to get to the apex of the arch.
We crossed this bridge each time we visited Puxi which included church, our friends Joab/Emily, Ikea and other shopping.
There is always a lot of boat activity on the river. It is a very industrial waterway. That is a shipyard on the left bank that is over 100 years old.
The 2 big scrapers in Shanghai are the Jinmao (on the left) and the World Financial Tower (or something like that....). I went up to the top of the Jinmao but the WFT is still finishing construction.

Farewell Tour

It was a busy weekend of eating lots of food and saying goodbye. Friday night was a dinner with collegues at a "Hot Pot" restaurant which is very popular in China. Dinner was followed up with some kareoke. Lots of fun was had by all. Enjoy the pictures.

It's typical of most establishments to bring the workers out at the beginning of their shift. They line up military style and normally conduct some sort of exercise or even a song. Their manager/corporal also uses the attention to provide instruction for their shift. In this picture, can you find the new chef that forgot to wear his uniform?

So, as you might have guessed, "hot pot" involves a pot of boiling water. This particular pot was split into 2 halves. A spicy half and a non-spicy half. All the material ordered is raw and you cook it in your pot. We had lots of meats inluding pork, lamb, and beef. Tons of vegetables were also thrown into the cauldron.
Ok, so this picture definitely needs some explanation. That would be Adam on the right. Adam is one of 5 total expats at our factory. He arrived about 6 months after me and we have become good friends. We have completely different interests but share similar senses of humor. And when you've got someone that likes to laugh sharing your china experience, it makes for lots of fun. Anyway, Adam's singing kareoke to a Led Zepplin song of which I had no clue how to sing. So, I "contributed" by playing my air guitar. I love this picture because you can tell how seriously Adam was about giving a good performance. On a side note, Adam is the same guy that provided me the "fishing with dynamite" video that was posted here in the past.
Adam and Xiaona. Xiaona has been the biggest help to us in Shanghai. From the original pickup at the airport to grocery shopping to cell phone service start-up, Xiaona has always been there to help us. She is one of the sweetest people I have ever met. She has a tender heart and a desire to help. She also has a twinge of sarcastic humor in her which I had a lot of fun with. She visited our home for dinner a few times.
Notice that I'm flashing my gang symbol from the northside of Holland. Fortunately, there were no Holland southsiders at dinner that night. There would have been trouble. From left to right: Charlie, Maggie, yours truly, Luo Aicheng, Jiao Qingmei, Ma Xifang, Zhao Jianqing.


And that was Friday night. It was very loud and lots of fun.

Weekend trip

Wow,

What a beautiful set of kids we have!! It will be a sweet reunion when we see each other again. Hugging with some good old-fashioned tickling soon thereafter.

I spent the weekend at the most famous mountain range in China. It was kind of a "farewell" trip for my engineering team at work. It involved a 7 hour bus ride each way with lots of steps in between. An old chinese proverb states, "Once you have seen Huangshan, you have seen all mountains." Click here for the stats. It did not disappoint despite some overcast weather. I'll let the pictures help tell the story.

This looked precarious and death-defying until a woman's head popped into the shot.


There were 2 teams. Team 1 was the "I don't care if I walk like a 90 year old woman on Monday" team. Team 2 was the "If you see one of the peaks, you've seen them all" team. This was Team 1. And yes, we need walkers today.
We were not looking quite so chipper at the end of the day.
This mountain range is famous for the "cloud sea" that can be seen from the upper peaks. We saw a lot of this as the days were mostly cloudy.
Yep.
You can find a small lake down in the bottom of that gorge, if you look closely. Also, see if you can find Waldo.

I have lots more pictures to load but blogger is giving me the bizness. I might try again later.

Give my family a hug for me.

Pictures from Holland

Anna has been such a big help to me with Ryan gone. She has been loving getting Rachel out of her crib, holding Rachel, and helping me in the gardens. Today she noticed that I still have not made a walking path through the newest flower beds so she decided to make her own. Her creativity always amazes me!

Elijah also has been a great helper to me. He has loved having the airplane shipment toys be at our house. He missed his race cars and track. He LOVES to hold Rachel and to kiss her--she gets 100's of kisses from her big brother. Elijah has also been so kind and generous in letting Anna sleep with him on the nights that she is feeling afraid.

Rachel is getting so big--I can't believe it! She is crawling more than scooting now. I took maybe one of the last pictures of her doing the army crawl. I took some video of her crawling--I have no idea how to get it on the blog, but I took it! :) She is happy really all of the time. She gets into everything. Her favorite things are books, Elijah's cars, and standing (holding onto something) to watching Anna and Elijah play.

We are doing well-- trying to keep busy to distract ourselves from missing Ryan. We have been enjoying being with family and friends that we have missed so much. I wish I would remember to bring my camera with us everywhere we go. We have been to some of our favorite places and not captured the moments-- Nana and Papa's, Gramma and Papa's, the library, the Critter Barn.... the list goes on and on.

We miss you, Ryan! (Thank you for the beautiful flowers!)

anybody out there?

Whoa,
I'm not sure anyone is left here at this ghost town of a blog. But just in case, here are some pictures of my recent trip to Hanzhou, a famous city near to Shanghai. It's known for a picturesque lake called "West Lake" and lots of beautiful gardens/streams/architecture.....oh, and tons of people, at least on the weekends.

This city had 1 million people living in it 1276. Yeah, Columbus did not even discover America until 1492.

I visited with our good friends Joab/Emily/Miriam/Asa. Miriam is not pictured as she was on the back of my ride.

I rode the 9 miles around the lake on this smokin' hot ride. My knees just barely got beneath the handlebars. And yes, those wheels looked pretty cool while spinning.
We rode a cable car to the "North Peak" and got a great view of the lake and city.


There are lots of gardens/streams that make pretty good kodak moments.

This is the famous West Lake...
This would have been a real nice photo if the knucklehead hadn't ruined it.
Traditional chinese bridge. One of my favorite pieces of architecture in China.
Yes, that is a fanny pack. However, I never wear it on the side of my hips.

It was a great trip and a wonderful memory made with the Meyer family. You can check out their blog on the right hand side there on this web page, see "Global Meyer Minutes".