Kite shopping with the kids

We trekked across town to find the "one-eyed" binoculars Kanyon had saved up to buy. He was so excited running from aisle to aisle looking at everything under 60 RMB (about 10 USD). We found the binoculars, tested them out, and decided to keep looking. Next to the hula hoops, scooters (too expensive), then basketballs, tether ball, soccer balls, swimming goggles, and kites.

Kites! He was so exited to see the kites. He wanted a "running" kite since running with a friend's simple a-frame kite. That was his experience with kites. Either you have to run to make them fly, like his friend's kite, or the kite doesn't fly, like the wind foil we've unsuccessfully flown four times.

With our sights set firmly on getting a kite, we exited the sports chain, crossed the plaza and entered the world of Chinese market. Stalls after stalls of stationary, sports goods, and kites.

Displayed kites hung from the ceiling covering every inch creating a canopy of kites. We walked (I ducked) into the stall stepping over and around the huge bags of kite inventory as we looked up for the red bird. Kanyon pointed with a 10-foot stick to the kite he liked best and asked the price in Chinese. (Insert proud father moment here.)

Good price, check. That's the one we want.

The vendor went to work digging through the endless bags of rolled up kites looking for the right one. As she dug through the bags, Corbin choose a smaller Angry Bird kite that was much easier to find. 10 minutes later the vendor emerged from the bags of inventory with Kanyon's kite, Angry Birds.

Since you can't buy a kite and not fly it the same day, we flew the kite all the time hoping the west Texas strong wind wouldn't rip the little kite to shreds. No running needed today, unroll the kite, and before the thing is assembled it flies. Kanyon did an excellent job flying the kite holding on tightly as the wind whipped the kite higher. We kept the kite flying taking turns so we could rest our muscles.

We finally got the kite back down, not to easy in high winds, and wanted to show off for mommy. So as mommy looked out the window, we assembled the kite and started to fly. CRASH into a tree! If only she'd seen us fly the kite at the park. The kite survived to fly another day.