Thursday, December 22, 2011

on Christmas 2011

Though 7 years ago when we first arrived overseas I might have said otherwise, I now believe it's a blessing to have experienced Christmas overseas as well as in the US. For some reason this season of advent has been especially meaningful to me this year. Maybe it's the hard times I've seen several family members and friends walk through lately, perhaps it's the trials I've seen local brothers and sisters endure, or maybe I'm just getting old, but my heart is more ready than ever to say, "Come Lord Jesus!"
  • For our family, blessings of Christmas in the States include: time with extended family; beautiful Christmas music and meaningful corporate worship; and a general excitement everywhere you go about the coming festivities. Christmas in America = great.
  • Blessings of Christmas in Asia include: no annoying holiday commercials encouraging us to buy more; Christmas parties with local friends and getting to share Him with folks who've never heard; baking cookies with friends who've barely even seen an oven before; and a pace of life which, though busy, is generally less stressful. Christmas in Asia = great.
  • The other day I read Colossians 1:19 which says,

"For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him."

What an amazing reality. God's fullness completely dwelt in Christ. Even as that tiny baby lying in a manger, there was absolutely nothing lacking in Jesus Christ. His was the fullness of God. Praise the Lord.

  • Now, if you'll allow me to change the subject, Momma needed to bust out the camera the other day and remember two of my precious gifts from Christmas 2011. I've been having so much fun with these two as we anticipate Christmas and celebrate Advent. Grace is at an age where she understands so much more of why Jesus had to come. I'm beginning to understand that this parenting thing just gets more and more fun.

Merry, merry Christmas to you!!

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Nana and Pappaw

I'm so grateful my girls know all 4 of their grandparents. Now, we don't get to see them every week or month or even every few months, but my girls still know our parents well. Skype visits on the computer are a beautiful thing. And when our parents visit, we get lots of quality time together. Kevin and I realize how fortunate we are that all of our parents are willing and able to make the long haul over here to visit. Let's face it; international travel is not for wimps. But leave it to family to endure the expense, time, TSA screenings, bad airline food, and hours of waiting in airport lobbies just to get some hugs from their grand kids. And I think Kevin's mom deserves some big kudos this time because even though she had a total knee replacement surgery a few months back, she was able to make the big trip. Nana and Pappaw were really flexible with whatever we threw their way. They brought us goodies, gave Kevin and me some date times together, were my constant dishwashers, and played "Hi-Ho Cherry-O" for hours on end with the girls! Hooray for grandparents! We were excited to show them our new city. Of course, we had to make it to Old Town one evening. And unknown to us, the city was hosting a huge dinner at Old Town to celebrate the new year for the Y minority on their lunar calendar. The funny thing is most Y people don't even celebrate this holiday (because they generally celebrate the Han Lunar New Year), but the local gov't wants to encourage business and tourism so they threw a big bash. The main street, which normally has cars hustling and bustling through, was closed down and instead hundreds of people were sat down to dinner.
They also had several stages and performances going at each stage. Most of the songs they danced to or sang had drinking as a big theme.
Folks would also walk around and sing to various tables. Again, most songs were drinking songs. Basically, they were singing, "Bottoms up!"
Back at the house, in preparation for Thanksgiving Nana and Pappaw were able to help us work on our Thankful tree.
Here's just a little bit of what we're grateful for this year. You can tell my 5 year old contributed quite a bit to the tree.
Thanksgiving Day 2011. You have to love the camera timer. And the seriously intense face on my 2 year old. Don't let these pics fool you...she is a HAM to the CORE and as crazy as the rest of us!
We had lots of time for pretend tea parties, reading books together,
morning snuggles on the couch,
and good old play time at the swings.
One day Kevin's dad got to join him in seeing some of the countryside, and on another day Kevin took his parents up to Dali to enjoy a little cormorant fishing.
We also headed to the big city for a few days of vacation and showed them around the big zoo. Nana's new knee held up well with all the stairs! I was really impressed!!
We hoped to hold a tiger cub again, but when we got to the "animal kindergarten" these were the only cubs we saw. And no one was going to be holding these big beasts. Do tiger cubs really grow that quickly in 4 months or are these different ones altogether? Guess we'll never know.
But you can always count on some fun Chinglish signs to add to the day's entertainment.
At the panda exhibit we had to bust out our best Kung Fu Panda imitation. Pappaw threatened to make this our next p....r card, for those of you who know what I mean. :)
Nana and Pappaw, thank you for blessing us and making the trip. We are certainly grateful for your support and encouragement. We love you!

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

learning from my daughter

  • Grace had her first-ever kindergarten performance a few weeks ago. Yes, indeed, Grace danced beautifully and had a great time. But even something as simple as a school performance can get interesting when you throw a little cultural misunderstanding into the mix.
  • Generally, information in this country is on a need-to-know-only basis. Or should I say, information is generally given at the last possible minute. Many of my local friends think it's odd we foreigners like to plan things out SO FAR in advance! I knew from Grace's teacher they would be having some sort of performance around Halloween weekend but info. was sketchy even 2 days out. [On a side note, we have lived overseas nearly 7 years and this was the first year it seemed to me people even knew about Halloween. Ugh, of all the holidays to get imported and passed on over, this one is not my favorite but I won't get going on that subject.]
  • So, on Thursday of that week I asked Grace's teacher when the performance would be, and she said they hadn't decided yet. On Friday I picked her up and they said Grace needed to be at school that evening for a rehearsal and that the performance would be Saturday. She gave me 2 slips of paper, one inviting all parents to come to the performance, which had all the regular admonishments to "be cultured," "not throw trash on the school grounds," etc. etc. And the other small note simply mentioned the kids would be dressing up in costumes and asked the parents to make sure boys wore dark pants. There was NO mention of what the girls should wear. I even had my friend double-check with me to make sure I read the Chinese correctly.
  • When I picked Grace up from her rehearsal Friday evening, the teacher asked me if Grace had any "princess dresses." I said she has a Snow White dress (since that was what Grace wanted to wear this year), and the teacher said, "Perfect, have her wear it!" Grace told me on the way home that the teachers tried to have her try on some dresses, but none of them fit. They were "WAY too short" as she put it. Yes, even at 5 my foreigner child towers over her peers. I told Grace "No problem! You can wear your Snow White dress and have so much fun!" She agreed and was excited to wear her Snow White dress for the big dance.
  • So here were my assumptions based on the little information I had: Each class would do some sort of performance, kids could dress up however they wanted, and the school would provide little costumes for kids who didn't have any. Ummmm, no.
  • The performances were not done according to classes. Not all the kids at the school gave performances, only a few kids in the older classes. The dancers were put together from various classes and were supposed to all wear the same little costume.
The school went all out and decorated. I mean, they even wrote "Happy Hallo" on the wall.
  • I had dropped Grace off earlier that day at the school's request. The kids were going to practice again. And, apparently put on make-up for all the little girls. Grace saw me come in with Trinity and was so happy to see us. Daddy was out of town and hated to miss this but I recorded it for him. (And because I was trying to keep an eye on Trinity while also recording Grace's performance, I'm totally claiming that as the reason for the following poorly-photographed moments!!) 5 little pumpkins got up to dance first. This should have been my first clue. I'm slow, people. And then Snow White and the other dancers got ready for their big dance. Hmmm, which one of these is not like the others? My heart kind of sank a little when I saw how different Grace's outfit looked. As if being the only white kid in the bunch didn't make her stick out enough. But you know what? My big girl got out there and danced beautifully and didn't miss a step. She had a blast from start to finish. Didn't even mention one time the entire evening about wearing a different outfit from the other kids. As my mother pointed out later, even as a kid of five I would have been MORTIFIED to be the "different" kid in that scenario.
    I praise God for giving Grace a personality that doesn't mind being a little different. I truly pray that as she grows up, she doesn't mind going against the flow if it's for the right reasons. I pray her growing-up years, especially her middle school ones aren't plagued with constant insecurity like mine were. I was so proud of you Grace!!
    Thankfully, Grace's performance was one of the first because afterward, this little bundle of energy decided she needed to explore the playground. And keeping up with her was no small feat that evening. I'm not sure if Trinity or Grace had more fun.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

October picture dump

October, we barely knew thee. It felt like one of the fastest recorded months in our family history and included a visit from friends, lots of work and home school, Grace's first ever performance at her local school (more on that later), and quite a bit of travel/business for Kevin. I'm so excited it's November!! The first part of October we had some sweet friends hop on the overnight train to come visit us. We all had so much fun having them in our home for a few days! Of course we had to show them the highlights of our city.
Thank you, J and S, for coming to see us!
It only took 6.75 years, but I finally found some friends to give me Chinese cooking lessons. Of course, I've asked friends before to teach me and they just say, "Oh, I can't really cook anything special, just stir fry." Most folks cook at home by adding various combinations of oil, garlic, salt, ginger or soy sauce to meat and veggies and voila, you have dinner. So I was thrilled to have friends take me step-by-step through the process. The different thing about Chinese cooking is people hardly ever write down any recipes; you really just throw in a little of this and a little of that. But my friends allowed me to watch and write down step by step how they make their food. There are a few things I will change to fit our preferences, but it was a fun night seeing how they prepare meals.
Our yummy meal included a veggie we call bok choy, braised pork, seaweed, stir fry potatoes, a cold noodle dish, sausage, greens, and egg and tomato soup.
I had to include this picture from October just because I love it...
Fridays have become Grace's favorite day at home school because that's the day we do science experiments. Here we are mixing an acid and a base (vinegar and baking soda) to made fizz. And yes, you read that right, we used "Arm & Hatchet" baking soda. Gotta love the knock-offs here.
Since we have no traditional, round orange pumpkins in town for fall, we settled for painting butternut squash and xiaogua, a kind of veggie that is round and green and tastes like zucchini. The girls loved it!
And on Monday night, after a really hectic 4 days, daddy was home and we threw on some play clothes last minute and went to a few of our foreign friends' homes to trick or treat. We had a volunteer friend in town who has a grown son and encouraged us to savor these days with young children because they pass quickly and soon enough we'll be wishing we had little feet running around once again. Words of wisdom right there.
One of our friends had her dog greet us at the door dressed like an Arkansas Razorback fan. So cute!
After climbing 15 flights of stairs to go to 4 different homes, Grace and Trinity went home and enjoyed some candy corn for the first time ever. A friend had just come back from the US and was thoughtful to bring them some.
They both gave it a big thumbs up.
And there you have a little bit of life happenings from October.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

also from last month

In September:
  • We celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival once again. It's the 2nd biggest holiday here. Most folks get together with family, eat dinner, eat moon cakes, and gaze at the moon. Since our friend couldn't go home for the holiday we had her over to our house. We served moon cakes for her and chocolate cake for us. (I'm the only person in my family who will even attempt to eat a moon cake, and I can only stomach the fruit-flavored ones.) In our house, chocolate cake in the shape of a moon = moon cake.

  • We discovered a beach in our city! I know, we live in the mountains, but somebody decided we needed some sand in our lives. (Think man-made lake with sand hauled in from somewhere.) We had fun one evening making sandcastles and skipping rocks into the lake.
  • After almost a week of constant rain, we resorted to swimming in the bathtub for some indoor entertainment. Somehow bath time seems more special when wearing swimsuits. (Can you tell we bought Grace's swimsuit in Asia with the matching swim cap and all?)
  • And we discovered Trinity is a snuggler. I know I posted this pic on fb but felt the need to post it here too. Grace and Trinity take turns sleeping on the top/bottom of their bunk bed. But most nights, especially if Grace is sleeping on the bottom bunk, Trinity will crawl in right beside her. It's funny to go in and check on them each night and see who is sleeping where. Grace told me sometimes when Trinity climbs over and starts talking with her she just closes her eyes and pretends she's asleep. Smart girl. That Trinity is a NIGHT OWL and would probably be nocturnal if I let her.

  • You might be able to see Trinity's swimsuit jammies here, too. Thankfully she's out of this stage since it's getting COLD here but for about 2 weeks straight Trinity wanted to wear a swimsuit to bed. This girl already has lots of opinions about what she'd like to wear each day.
And now that these pictures are off my camera, maybe I can start blogging from October.