We were terrible children.  Sorry Mom and Dad, but it’s true.  Well, let me clarify.  We weren’t necessarily terrible, but there are A LOT of us. AND we were crazy active kids.  My oldest brother Aaron was our ring leader.  He was the most ACTIVE out of the five of us.  When we hear stories of Aaron as a baby, we always marvel that our parents actually had FOUR more kids. I have two favorite ‘baby Aaron’ stories:  ONE:  His first word was “plug.”  Forget ‘mama’ or ‘dada,’ no this terror child loved to unplug all the lamps, televisions and kitchen appliances from their electrical outlets around the house, most likely pushing my poor mother to the brink of insanity by having to follow him around to keep his tiny fingers away from these death-traps.  TWO: When my parents were trying to ‘sleep train’ him, he would cry AND run his bottle over the rails of his crib essentially magnifying the dramatic portrayal of his nighttime ‘jail,’ aka crib. Back and forth, crying, back and forth.  I can only imagine! This was Aaron as a baby.  Now imagine him the oldest of five rambunctious kids.  Needless to say,  babysitting the Wetherhold kids could have been considered an Olympic sport. My favorite babysitter growing up was our neighbor Trish.  Trish’s family was just cool.  There were five kids (3 boys and 2 girls!) and they were the fun, older neighborhood kids.  They lived in the farm-house built before our neighborhood was constructed and her parents were the unofficial neighborhood leaders.  We had our annual neighborhood BBQ each summer at their house and pond. Trish was my favorite babysitter because she actually played with me.  I remember my mind being blown when my mom told me Trish would play Barbie’s with me.  My brothers never played Barbie’s. Unless you consider G.I Joe bombing Barbie’s Malibu vacation beach party. . . “playing.”  Trish was my favorite because she was sweet, fun and she could handle us.  I was talking to Aaron recently about this and he responded “I vaguely remember being 6 or 7 and mom ‘threatening me’ that if Trish quit and didn’t want to come back to babysit I was going to be in BIG trouble.  All the other teenage girls in the neighborhood had already tried it once and quit.” Since my parents moved 15 years ago, I had only seen Trish and her family a handful of times over the years. This past summer, my parents were back in the old neighborhood and they ran into her.  During the course of the conversation, my parents mentioned my year of traveling. Trish suggest I visit her, her husband and son who live in Shanghai, China.  My mom came home and exclaimed “Trish wants you to visit her in China.  I gave her your email and she is going to get in touch!” Amazing! Add China to the list!  Another one of the many, many reasons why flexibility in travel is AWESOME! Throughout these past few months, Trish has helped Julia and I with so many things Asia related.  She would email us with suggestions of where to go and what to see.  Little pointers and big pieces of advice.  Do this, skip that, don’t go there, don’t miss this!  (Random side note: Another source that I found immensely helpful while traveling around Asia was my friend Linda’s blog.  If you are going to Southeast Asia anytime soon check it out here! Lots of great advice and clear cut directions. Really good stuff!) Julia and I finally made it to Shanghai near the end of our Asia travels and it was great timing.  We were downright spoiled by Trish and her family.  We saw the sights, ate amazing food, and just had a wonderful introduction to China from one of my very favorite people from childhood.  It was all in all quite perfect!

Author’s Note: I want to clarify that although Aaron was a nightmare child, he is a wonderful human being currently.  Supportive, kind, funny, a great big brother, and still loving all things electrical.