Papa, Paparazzi

So Ben, being the cautious man that he is, put our camera on the couch in our apartment in Baoding. And Gage, being the toddler that he is, picked up the camera and THREW it onto the hard floor to see what kind of sound it would make. This broke our lens. This was my face when Ben told me the news:

Lenses are NOT cheap. You could still technically take pictures with it, but you have to kind of help the automatic focus thingey with your hands. It's a huge pain, and it doesn't always work out. We were worried about being able to get good, non-fuzzy shots in Beijing.

The nice thing is that our lens can be fixed, but it takes time, which we didn't have. So we decided to get a different kind of lens right then new - I don't know what type it is, but it can super-zoom. It's hard to get used to - if you're taking just normal pics of the kids, you have to stand REALLY far back to get the shot, so it's an adjustment. But at least we had a lens for Beijing.

Summer and Maria helped Ben purchase it:

Summer got bangs cut - I think they're so cute. They suit her.

Ben was having wayyyy too much fun with the new camera:

He took tons of paparazzi-like stalker photos of the people walking and riding along stinky street downstairs:

Considering that we were on the 10th floor, these ain't too bad.

And the cute cackling banana lady who wouldn't let me take her picture? I had the last laugh - Ben got a photo of her stand, and I also got a nice close-up of her, and she never knew. Mwahahahaha!!!