It's Spring!!

I've been running behind!  I've actually got a list that I've been adding to of things that I thought would be fun to include in my next blog update; but the list has gotten so long I'm thinking that I need subheadings.....So here goes!

Hud's Birthday

Hudson celebrated his 6th birthday last week.  It was complete with cupcakes for his classmates at school (chocolate cake with chocolate icing at his request) and gifts from the family that he opened after school.  Unfortunately, whether it's his age or just a bad habit, his tendency to be dissatisfied with his gifts came out again this year when it was time to open the gifts!  After tearing through the wrapping of his 6 or so gifts, his response was, "Is that ALL?!  There aren't any more toys?!"  We're obviously still very much in the process of being thankful for what he does get and figuring out how to control what comes out of our mouths even if we are disappointed (but thankful that this go-round was just with our family, so no major offense to anyone else!).
     Now several of Hud's friends did end up giving him some gifts.  The toys, he loved playing with (until the ones from China broke within 24 hours of getting out of the package!).  My favorite one was from a Chinese friend:  a baby spoon!  The looks on  all our faces when Hud opened the gift was pretty priceless (luckily the gift-giver was NOT present for this one)--the stunned silence as we all cocked our heads to the side and kind of let out a "hmmm" in unison.

     Two of my favorite parts of his day involved the dinner meal.  When I asked him what he wanted to eat for his birthday dinner, his reply was, "Macaroni and cheese.  And NO broccoli and NO potatoes.  Well, maybe the broccoli is okay.  But NO rice!"  I thought this was well-spoken for a six-year old who eats more than his fair share of rice (like 3 times per week).  My other favorite part was where he wanted to sit:  his request was to sit in his Dad's lap during the meal!  He remains our snuggle bug whose love language is surely physical touch.  Watching Kevin scoop up his macaroni and cheese and get it into his mouth with Hud between his plate and its final destination was enjoyable for me! :)
   

Chicken Shortage
Speaking of food, we've really felt the effects of the bird flu.  I actually went to a presentation at the school this week to get more information about the virus, and I must admit, it was pretty scary!  The virus has been found in birds as close as Beijing, and some of the birds have even come from Tianjin.  The good news is, although it's an extremely serious virus with a high mortality rate, there are still relatively few cases that have been found in China (like 130 throughout the whole country).  The bad news is, besides the fear of actually catching the disease, of course, is that finding chicken has gotten really difficult!  All the local meat markets are not stocking it, as so many people are scared to purchase it now.  I've had to get creative, finding it frozen at some of the larger super markets and even finding one vendor who will deliver fresh chicken (convenient, as long as I plan ahead with enough time to get an order placed and delivered before the planned meal!).  Think we might be getting creative with "the other white meat"....

Kevin's Wedding Officiating
Kevin was asked to officiate his second wedding in Chinese last weekend.  The circumstances and location were something else--he performed the ceremony for a blind couple out in the middle of the Chinese countryside.  He was really excited to be a part of the celebration, but it was, as we expected, truly a "Chinese experience"!  He ended up leaving late on Friday night to drive a group of 7 or 8 others to a village that was about 3 hours away.  They arrived in the village around 1am and Kevin got the "opportunity" to continue a late night of conversation with the rest of those he'd traveled with (mainly young, single guys) until the wee hours of the morning. 
     The next morning he helped with the wedding.  He said a few of the more anxious moments for him were when the couple linked arms and drank from their glass of wine; he just knew that disaster was looming, but they escaped with no red wine spots on any of their wedding apparel!  He had his eyes opened to how so many people live here in China; the house he stayed in had no running water and no electricity.  The bed was as hard as a rock (but he did have a bed!).  His other favorite part was the 40-year old wedding coordinator wearing the shortest dress he's ever seen.  Unfortunately, short skirts are not really considered risque here in China (low cut shirts, however, are).  With the change in weather, the warmer temperatures have also brought out the spring mini-skirts....almost enough to make us wish for the winter cold once again!  Yikes!

Parenting Study
My group of ladies meeting regularly to do a moms' study has now become a parenting study, as the number of dad's present has increased!  We never know who will show up at the door, but small kids and dads have become much more of the normal than the exception.  I'm thankful that my husband and the kids (Karis especially) are so flexible and are ready to help host whoever walks in.  The highlight from this past week's study was a pineapple.  It is normal for guests to come to your home with a gift, and lots of times this is fruit.  This week a family came with a huge pineapple, with the price tag still on (which is also pretty normal in this culture; so people know how much you spent on their gift!).  This pineapple was 80 RMB (which is almost $13), whereas most of them at the market are about $1.50!!!  I haven't quite figured out what makes this pineapple so special, but am anxious to try it.
     My other funny moment came when I got the giggles at one point.  One of the things we do often is read a portion of something all in unison.  The only problem:  I really can't read Chinese!  The number of Chinese characters I know is so minimal, that I'm lost when we're trying to read a text that is completely in HanZi.  So it kind of ends up feeling like a test, or a skit from "Saturday Night Live," where everyone else is going through the passage as fast as they can and I'm half trying to pick out one or two characters in every sentence that I know and half trying not to crack up!  (This, BTW, is also very normal culturally, based on the Chinese educational system.  From a really young age on, the students are taught to recite things in unison and memorize large amounts of information.)

Car Accident
We had our first run-in, literally, with our car this past week.  Kevin was in a crazy situation (which is the norm around here, unfortunately!), and long story short, ended up bumping into a lady's car and bending her fender.  Everyone was fine, our car was not damaged, but it was a tricky situation for several reasons.  We've been told by many sources that if we are to get into a car accident, the best thing to do is hand off some cash and get out of the situation as quickly as possible.  Supposedly, the chances of a foreigner ever being given the benefit of the doubt are slim to none.  Furthermore, the underlying thinking of the Asian culture is geared toward equality in all things; which means if you have more, you are somewhat obligated to give more to those who have less.  So the assumption that we are wealthy, because we are foreigners, works against us, in that anyone making a decision about who is responsible to pay for damage done in a car accident will automatically look to us to foot the bill, regardless of who is at fault.  Kind of makes you think through the whole issue of justice and how culturally it can be swayed, huh?!  So this being known, Kevin was hoping to give the lady some money and drive away, but he also had a car full of Chinese friends with him, and he didn't want to be seen as the rich foreigner who just throws money around to get out of a situation (all his friends were insistent that he was not at fault, so he shouldn't be held responsible for the damage to her car).  Kevin was able to get out of the situation (showing great guile, I must say!), by explaining to our friends that our insurance is not very good (which we're pretty sure is true) and therefore would not cover the damage to the car, so therefore he needed to go ahead and pay out of pocket for the damage done (he ended up bargaining her down, so he paid her about the equivalent of $100).  As far as we knew, he was able to get off without having to give her any more personal information, so we're hoping that it's done and settled!
     Even after the accident, I told Kevin that I still had no regret, but only thankfulness, that we have the wheels we do, especially after my taxi experience this weekend.  While Kevin was out of town with the car, I took the kids in a taxi with me to school for Eli to go to soccer practice.  Instead of it taking us the usual 25 minutes, it took us a full hour.  I'm convinced that we had the VERY WORST driver in all of Tianjin driving our taxi.  He took so many wrong turns, in spite of me sitting in the front seat to give him directions, and sat through so many green lights waiting in the left-hand lane when he could have moved over and just gone through the light, that I literally held up my hands and let out a small scream of frustration at one point!  I thought about asking if he could pull over and just let me drive, but was pretty sure that wouldn't fly....

Weekend Visitors
Two weekends ago we actually had friends from the US come to visit.  We had a great time taking them to the international school, attending the school play, and having a picnic lunch at our new favorite spot at the lake.

     On our way to Beijing to pick them up from the airport, we made our first trip to the US Embassy because a few of us needed to have pages added to our passport (which I find really funny, in and of itself!  Guess we really have become world travelers!)  I brought my camera, but didn't end up taking a picture, as I was afraid they might think I was up to trouble.  The building was pretty much what I expected, and the nicest part was that although there was an incredibly long line of people waiting outside to get in, we were able to walk right past and go through the gates.  I'm thinking this was one of the fewer times we've experienced that being a foreigner actually works to our advantage!  Kevin and I couldn't stop chuckling at a remark made by Eli as we were making our way to the Embassy.  We had to park quite a distance away and then walk through a dirt parking lot, filled with cars, broken glass, and a very small number of scraggly trees.  As we walked, Eli made the comment, "This reminds me of Colorado!"  Kevin and I were both stunned.  Have we been away from natural beauty that long?  Have we warped our child's perspective by where we live?  Or has maybe his mind been renewed to some extent that I can't even imagine, that he could find beauty in the midst of a pollution-filled, glass-littered parking lot....Left Kevin and me much to ponder over the next few days.

Combined BDay Party
Since Hudson and I have birthdays that are only 3 days apart, we decided to do a joint party this year.  So this past weekend we had a group of our close friends come join us at the lake for a family dinner of pizza and time to play outside and enjoy the beautiful weather we're having.  The kids had a blast, playing soccer, riding bikes and scooters, finding fish in the lake (some of which made it home with us, only to make our fish tank smell more like the lake water than their mom would have preferred!), and playing frisbee.  We had a pretty large group to start off with, since Hud and I both got to work on putting together the guest list (there were to be about 48 in all), but I was a little bit thrown off when Kevin told me the day before the party that he had invited one of our good Chinese friends who we describe as "all Chinese"--meaning they have not had as much western influence from having other western friends, which makes the cultural differences sometimes seem more pronounced.  This friend was so excited about the party that he proceeded to invite a group of his closest friends--adding an extra 8 guests to our list!  I wasn't totally surprised.  This really is pretty typical of Chinese culture, in that if you are in someone's "inner circle" of friends, if you are invited to do something with them then it's usually accepted that your inner circle is also their inner circle. (Or at least, they're willing to go along with them in the way of hospitality, service, etc., as if they too were your closest friends or family members.  This is a big part of the reason why Chinese friends are really selective in who they let into their inner circle; the obligations that come with such a relationship can become pretty draining of your time and resources.)  But thankfully, for me this just meant calling the pizza place (which is normally closed on Sundays, but were thrilled to have our huge order on a Sunday afternoon so much so that they even delivered the pizzas half-way across town to the lake where we were picnicing!) and adding a few more pizzas to our order.  And the party was GREAT.  We had a blast celebrating with our group of friends from all different walks of life, switching back and forth between a little Chinese, a little English, and a lot of pizza and cupcakes.


Hud and I were both very satisfied with our party and rejoicing with thanksgiving at the friends we have been blessed with here.

Nana's Visit

We've had such a fun last 2 weeks, only made a little bitter-sweet by my mom leaving Tianjin after a wonderful visit in our world.  For 13 days, we were able to go to the zoo (discovering a new monkey exhibit that was surprisingly humane in it's design and aesthetic quality for the monkeys), play at our new favorite outdoor lake spot, ride bikes (with Nana teaching Hud how to ride without any training wheels!), do some souvenir shopping for Nana to bring back with her, get a qi pao (traditional Chinese dress) made for Karis, and make countless other memories while my mom was here.  There really is nothing like having family come and be able to experience life here--the many differences and nuances that are so hard to capture by simply describing them in words.  It brings a depth of understanding and camaraderie that I think is felt on both ends--ours, and the party who is visiting.  The worst part is always the goodbye.  Besides our family being in tears at multiple points, our ayi was crying over my mom's departure and the neighbors continue to stop me in the community to ask if "lao lao" (Chinese word for the female's mother) has left.  We also got to celebrate Easter with my mom here (you can see the Easter bunnies and their happy hunters in the top photo).   We had 2 families over to celebrate together, and we all had a ball!  You'd never know that the kids were hunting eggs in a dirt patch that is most often used as the bathroom stop for the neighborhood dogs rather than a lush, green Dallas park!

As I've had some time to process since my mom's departure (it's only been 4 days), I realize the other emotion evoked besides sadness at her leaving is what I would describe as an increased sense of not belonging, of not being connected as others are.  Our best friends came over for dinner last night, and the wife (also a Texan) and I had a good heart-to-heart about the reality of living overseas.  Neither of us wanted to complain or be ungrateful for the incredible blessings that we both have, but at the same time, we both have the same detached feeling from what our closest friends and family experience as "normal" in their relationships back in the US.  I have fantastic friends here, but I'm doing really well if I have any opportunity to spend time one-on-one with any given friend more than once every 3 weeks or so.  And getting families together is happening more often as we are trying to be more intentional about it, but that too is often really complicated and hard to make happen (I'd say we're at a once every 2 week window of time for family playdates).  The reality of life here adds complicating elements--transportation in getting to people, schedules as most of us here are pretty intentional about spending time with our Chinese friends, the lack of places to go to get together with a group (there are no kid-friendly restaurants or other indoor venues here in China, I'm quite convinced!), the weather making it difficult to do things outside much of the year (we're just getting weather warm enough to discard our long undies and be able to play outside for any extended length of time).  All these things add up to a making getting re-fueled by others who are like-minded and like-cultured really challenging and much more rare in occurrence than I would consider ideal!

The other element in feeling disconnected, besides comparing the challenges of doing so with other westerners here to what I knew previously in the States, is the attempt to adapt culturally.  It seems that no matter how much I learn and grow in both understanding the language and culture, there's always a layer of understanding that I can't quite get deep enough into in order to really grasp the meaning--to really understand what is NOT being spoken.  I hear the words, but what is the underlying meaning?  Even with my closest friends, there are differences in our friendship.  Little things that come out that make it impossible to forget that I am the foreigner.  Oh, how I long for the day when those differences are diminished and not so obviously felt!

I guess until that day, we'll continue plugging away, giving thanks in all circumstances, and having as much fun in the process as we can!  I am thoroughly enjoying having 2 days off from teaching.  Both of my classes are taking standardized tests this week, so I have both Monday and Tuesday where I am not needed at school.  I almost don't know what to do with the time I have at home by myself!  So this is what it feels like to be a stay-at-home mom when your kids are off at school. . . I've made the most of my first morning of not having my normal routine by having an extended quiet time, catching up on some long-overdue emails, taking an hour-long bike ride to a new part of town (I'm training for a triathlon in September), catching up on some school work, and taking a shower that lasted long enough to fog up the bathroom windows!  Kevin just walked in the door and I informed him that I could get used to this! :)  He reminded me that I probably should not, but could enjoy two days of it at least!

We spent this weekend enjoying being able to play outside.  Kevin took the 3 boys to Eli's soccer practice and Karis had a whole crew of her school friends over to play.  I was thanking the Lord that I only had 4 kids of my own as I tried to serve all 9 kids around my kitchen table the lunch I had prepared.  It was simple--mac and cheese, fruit, fried chicken and Chinese noodles that my ayi had prepared the day before)--but even so, it took quite a bit of time to prep and clean up afterwards!  We had the group over from 9:30am until 4pm--so it was a full day and the kids all went home tired and filthy from their outdoor play.  Karis is already asking when we can do a repeat; I told her we might need to give me a few weeks to recover!

Lovin' It

We have a new family goal in the Joseph household--a regular attitude of thanksgiving.  We've determined that the secret to joy really is in being able to enjoy Him and the gifts He's given, so we're trying to practice more as a family what that looks like in our daily lives.  Most of the time it's the little things:  the fact that the water turned back on again this morning just in time for me to get a shower in before I had to walk out the door to go to school (one my students should be thankful for, too, especially since I didn't make it to the shower yesterday!), the sky being clear enough for 3 days in a row to see the sun, having enough blankets to bundle up and stay warm in spite of the fact that it is FREEZING in our apartment and we have no heat any longer (turns off around the country on the 15th of March), enjoying a bag of peanut butter M&M's that came in a care package...

But we're also seeing His goodness in so many of the BIG things, too.  Our family is thriving--in spite of so many factors that seem so unstable so much of the time and are so out of our comfort zone.  Right now, my husband is at a McDonalds' studying yet ANOTHER foreign language with his newly-found tutor.  Not that he feels that he has totally mastered Mandarin in less than 4 years, but he longs to speak the heart language of some of the minority people group friends he's made; and they ain't speakin' Mandarin!  I'm amazed at His grace and Kevin's faithfulness to push himself to study with the limited time he has.  My kids are all at a school where they are taught Truth; Noah was able to come home and act out the entire Easter story last week (complete with the explanation of Jesus being wrapped up in toilet paper and stuck into a cage--at least he got most of the story correct!).  I have the opportunity to teach a rebel group of high school sophomores the basics of English literature and composition, and I absolutely love them and the job itself--and this coming from a very content stay-at-home mom!  Our friendships here have deepened to the point that we have true heart connections with our Chinese friends; not just the surface-level stuff, but true mutual-encouragement and refreshment (with the fatigue that of course comes with trying to communicate in a foreign tongue).  We are getting to do what we were "made to do" in our eyes, and we are paradoxically drained and refueled all at the same time by the opportunities and the pace that we're trying to maintain.  The challenge remains to respond to the tension between pushing ourselves to true dependence on Him and yet knowing our boundaries and when we are nearing the danger zone of burn-out.

The past few weeks we've started back up with the parenting study that I had led previously.  I took last semester off, thinking that trying to handle that along with my teaching load might be too much both for me and for the family.  But after a semester to get into the swing of things, Kevin encouraged me to jump back in.  I have one other foreign friend helping me, and this time there are two other Chinese women who we are trying to help train for leadership.  It's been incredible to meet with them separately each week to get feedback; their cultural insight has been invaluable to myself and the other leader in terms of helping us see things that I don't think we ever would have considered before.  I will never cease to be amazed at the vast cultural differences between the Asian and the Western mindsets.  It seems like our study is going remarkably well, no doubt largely due to the fact that the two Chinese women have been so honest and so influential
 in helping us steer the ship! The other photo is us celebrating a good friend's birthday--with a wonderful cake that I bought rather than made due to the fact that I only discovered it was his birthday about 1 hour before he arrived at our house!  Thankful for a nearby bakery that actually has really good cakes.... :)

We only have a 3 and a half day week, then a week-long break for spring break.  We are all so excited to have a little break from the routine, and we have our lists made of things we can't wait to do with Nana (my mom) who is coming in town.  The kids have been thinking of all their favorite things to do and places to go in the hopes of getting some one-on-one dates in with one of their favorite grandparents.  We'll have my mom here for 2 weeks, so we're planning on making the most of it, and hoping the weather allows us to spend as much of it outdoors as possible!

Our first day of spring was March 21--and would you believe we had INCHES of snow that day!  We awakened to find a thick layer on the ground, which didn't last till noon thanks to the sun being out that morning.  But the kids had a ball seeing snow on the first day of spring, and the photo is of them walking across the school grounds to get into the building.

We also had the super-fun blessing of some of our dear friends coming back from the States for a visit.  Our first 2 years here some of our closest friends were the Thorpe family members.  They babysat for our kids and invested in our entire family is such a special way!  We have missed them dearly the past almost-2 years they have been gone, so we were thrilled to have them back in Tianjin this past week to play and re-visit old friends.  It made the timing of life here seem so strange, almost like we are living in a flashback; hard to believe that we're going on 4 years of life as ex-pats. 

Out My Window

We are so thankful to say that our weather has warmed up TREMENDOUSLY over the last few weeks!  We've even put away our long underwear (most days) and I'm trying to remember which suitcases stuffed under the beds contain which warm-weather clothes (there are no closets here, so we do what we can to find storage space).  We did make the most of the last big snow we experienced; the photos were taken right before Chinese New Year (the beginning of Feb) out of my kitchen window.  Eli was down in our courtyard and rolling huge balls of snow to make our apartment community's largest snowman!  It was a huge hit with all the neighbors, and he stayed occupied literally for hours on his project (he made an entire family by the end of the day).  Each time I looked out the window to check on him I could see our neighbors gathered around to admire his work.  Pretty precious!

The next scene is also taken from our kitchen window--this one with the photographer (which would be me) being MUCH more irritated at the time it was taken.  Our apartment community (which supposedly houses either 30,000 or 300,000 residents; we've heard both numbers!) has enacted a new policy of not allowing anyone who is not authorized (meaning hasn't paid their monthly fees and received an entrance card) to park in the underground parking.  The result:  every courtyard, sidewalk, and street has now become a parking lot.  It has made it unsafe for the kids to run around on the sidewalks unsupervised and has made squeezing through the narrow streets (especially in the morning) nearly impossible.  It is not uncommon at all for me to have to jump out of the car in the morning to help guide Kevin as he drives, instructing him on how many centimeters he has to make it through a narrow opening between 2 cars.  There has been so much frustration in the community about the new parking rules that several garages have had the mechanical arms broken off that are intended to keep vehicles out that don't have the proper card.  We remain curious about how long it will take for people to either simmer down and pay for parking or to have some other change in the policy that would alleviate some of the (obvious to everyone) problem in the community.

I've mentioned several times before about the expectations that go along with relationships here in China.  As our circle of close friends widens, so do some of the expectations for our family.  At the end of the Chinese New Year celebrating there is one final day (the Lantern Festival) that has lots of traditions that goes along with it.  A good friend of Kevin's called us that weekend and was adamant that we get together with him; but of course our schedule was pretty full already for that weekend (we talked to him on Thursday).  He was persistent in inviting our whole family to his apartment (which he shares with his elderly mother) for them to prepare dinner for us.  The last time Kevin, Noah, and I had lunch there, it was a multiple-hour event (Chinese cooking is only done over a stove in a wok, so you have to complete one dish at a time if you only have one burner, which is the norm, and when you have guests you'd better put a LOT of different dishes on the table if you want to be polite).  And the apartment was so small, that even with only 3 of us there, we still had to sit on the mother's bed to all fit close enough to the coffee table to eat.  And now he wanted all 6 of us to come for a holiday dinner that he would prepare for us. Uh-uh.  I put my foot down on that one, quite certain that it would undoubtedly push me over the edge trying to keep the destruction to a minimum that was certain to ensue from having my four wild ones contained in that environment for any length of time!

So the alternative?  Having them on our turf.  I (somewhat grudgingly, I must admit) insisted that they come to our house instead.  I didn't totally take into account how much preparation I was asking to do:  being a holiday, hosting in our home, and having an elderly Chinese woman (more traditional in expectations) in our home for the first time were all complicating factors for me--who normally has Sunday dinner as our order-pizza night, so I can have Sunday afternoons to rest and have some down time.  Not this week!  I had a very helpful husband, but still ended up spending all Sunday afternoon getting enough food prepared to make our friends feel welcomed and loved.  I think we pulled it off okay, but I was definitely ready to crash when they finally headed home and the dishes were sitting on the drying rack.  The night (and Chinese New Year celebration) ended with LOTS of fireworks that we could see out of all of the windows of our 10th-story apartment; so many and lasting so late into the night that a few of the kids had a heck of a time falling asleep in the midst of the thundering booms.

The next cultural doozie came the following week.  Kevin came into the kitchen with a sheepish look on his face after receiving a phone call.  He was meeting a group of local friends the next night, and evidently one of those friends had called, partly to request that I send some homemade cookies for Kevin's friend to give to HIS friend--who somehow has eaten my cookies and is a fan.  So thankfully I had some extra dough saved up in the fridge, but the whole time I was preparing and baking them I kept laughing to myself and wondering, "Where are we that a person would call and request cookie to give to their friend--just because they like someone's cooking!"  I was trying to imagine anything like that ever happening in the States, and have yet to come up with any plausible scenario where that would be acceptable!






Kevin's last week has been a busy one.  He was talked into playing in the basketball game at school where the Varsity team took on the faculty.  Kevin only stayed for half of the game, as we had another commitment that night, but he still managed to be the high-scoring player on the "old folks" team!  The students were quite impressed (and a little confused; several of mine kept asking questions, saying "I thought he played baseball?" and thinking that meant that he probably didn't play much basketball).  Then this morning he was the guest speaker in Noah's class.  They are talking about sports, and one of the other Argentinian kids in class has a dad who plays polo who came to speak earlier in the week.  Kevin was asked to come in wearing his uniform from his baseball days and talk to the class of 3 and 4 year olds about his experience playing ball.  Noah was quite proud, and he was really excited to wear "matching" Cardinals gear with his daddy!

When we went to Thailand a few weeks ago, I noticed that all 3 of the boys shoes were in terrible condition, with all of them literally having worn through the bottoms or split seems at some point.  So I found Thailand's Wal-Mart equivalent and went shopping.  Now China is known for having terrible quality, but I'm starting to think that Thailand maybe ought to be lumped into that same category of "shoddy work."  Hudson has had his new shoes for 2 weeks, has worn them almost daily, but only for about 2 hours total each day (while they are at school, the littlest kids all have special school Crocs that they wear; all guests are also required to either wear guest slippers when they enter or else put fabric covers over their own shoes; this ensures that the floors which have carpet stay clean as the kids sit on the floor, and is an excellent commentary on just how dirty the streets of China are and why Asian culture demands shoe-removal upon entering a home).  His shoes have totally fallen apart!  He dumped about a pound of sand out of his shoes yesterday before putting them on again, the sand having been collected through the holes in his shoes while he was playing in the sand pit during recess.  He's now begging me to find him another pair that doesn't have quite so many holes, poor guy!

I promise that it's not just that I'm the cheapest person in the world that my kid can't have shoes without holes; it's just REALLY difficult to find things here that the rest of the world considers "easy to locate."  There are lots of shoes to be found, but finding one that doesn't have some weird fashion design, that is decent quality, affordable (mainly due to the one-child policy I think, kids' apparel here in China is ridiculously priced, and parents are willing to pay it!), and doesn't require shopping in some dark alley market is rare.  It's hardly ever as simple as walking into a mall or a Super Target, knowing the size, and getting something you can count on being able to survive at least a few weeks of wear and tear by a kindergartner.  So you can understand my excitement--equivalent to a kid on Christmas morning--when I found not one, but TWO pair of jeans at a newly-opened Gap!  I've mentioned before that our clothes take a beating here in China.  Not sure why, if it's the water or washing that's tougher on them, or maybe the fact that we're riding bikes a lot and putting strain on our seems, etc., but we seem to regularly have knees ripping out of our pants.  So my favorite jeans are all non-wearable in most settings now, so I've been hoping to replace them somehow.  I was able to find 2 pair, the same style, but 2 different sizes (one to wear with my long underwear underneath and one for those days warm enough that they aren't needed!), and didn't even have to pay an arm and a leg (I've found that although I've been to a Gap store several times before while here in China, usually the prices are almost double what they are in the US, making it really hard to justify buying much).  My ecstasy over my new jeans has prompted many discussions between Kevin and me over how thankful we are that we recognize how living here in China makes us truly thankful for so many little things:  jeans that don't have knees ripped out, shoes that aren't split at the seems, the bag of pretzels I found at the import store this week.  It's neat to see the balance--the things we feel that we sacrifice culturally (giving up my Sun afternoon to cook when I'd rather not, making cookies for a friend of a friend, etc.) are definitely worth the effort when we look at the many ways our family is blessed by living as we are!

Chinese New Year Holiday

The last week and a half our family has spent being even more overseas than we usually are!  Ha!  If that’s even possible….

We’ve added 3 more stamps to our passports, and realized in the process that we need to add more pages to them before any more international travel (so a trip to the US Embassy in Beijing looks to be in our future; one more first for the Joseph family).  I decided to try a slightly alternate flying route than we’ve taken before, largely for the sake of curiosity.  But it seems like no matter where we go, the travel always just seems to be LONG and exhausting. 

So last week on Wednesday, our family rode the bus to school (rather than driving our car, as we didn’t want to leave the vehicle at school for 2 weeks), I taught my English class for 1 hour while the kids made an appearance in their respective classes, then we threw on our travel clothes (it was China Day at school, so we were all wearing our most Chinese-ee outfits, which were not my first choice to show up at the airport in) and waited for our driver to give us the ride to the airport, who was 45 minutes late!  Ahh!  We managed to make it to our flight on time, largely due to the fact that it was delayed a good hour and a half.  We then eventually made the final destination (at least for the first day of travel), which was Bangkok, 13 hours later, after passing through Korea on the way.  Here are a few of the highlights from the travel:

·      Karis asking the flight attendant for “cha” during the beverage service (this is Chinese for tea); this was not even being served at the time, but the flight attendant was so tickled that she went to the back of the plane to bring her a steaming cup of it

·      Hudson overhearing 2 restaurant workers at the airport in Seoul speaking Korean; upon hearing their speech, he enthusiastically informed me that they were speaking Korean (which he hears a lot of from his classmates at school); I then continued by explaining to him that them speaking Korean made sense, as we were actually in Korea; the look on his face as this realization sunk in was pretty priceless

·      Quizno’s sandwiches—discovered in the Seoul airport and purchased (and eaten!) in spite of not being hungry AT ALL, but rather just thrilled to make such a splendid serendipity

The second day of travel was MUCH easier.  It only required a 20-minute ride to the airport and a 1-hour flight before we arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia.  We had another family traveling with us, and we made it through that leg of the journey as painlessly as could be expected.  I guess I should add that the van that picked us up from the airport was a not what I’d call the latest model, and we ended up stalling on the side of the road before reaching our hotel.  We all sat in the van, sweating, for about 5 minutes while the driver tried to cool the engine by pouring a bottle of water over it, with us laughing that whole time about how there was a time when that sort of minor inconvenience would have rattled us all a bit.  As it was, we ended up getting to ride in several open-air tuk-tuks, which are basically motorcycles with bench seats and a cover over them on the back; this also happens to be the kids most preferred mode of transportation while we are in Thailand (and now Cambodia, too!), so it ended up being a win-win (almost!).  We spent the next several days getting to learn more about Cambodia culture and visiting with friends.  It was informative and refreshing in many ways.

I had one afternoon of down time that I used to go on a quick walk through the neighborhood of our hotel, and I discovered a charming (if quite muddy and polluted-looking) river that was nearby.  On my walk I was struck by how little I understand of the Cambodian culture.  As I walked, men regularly called out greetings to me.  My immediate reaction was to avert my eyes and pretend I hadn’t heard them; in Chinese culture this would never happen.  If a man was so bold to make eye contact, much less call out any sort of boisterous greeting, you could safely assume he was either drunk or being inappropriate to some degree.  But what if the Cambodian culture is much more like the Latin American one, where it is common and even polite to greet anyone passing by with enthusiasm?  I found myself laughing at the quandary I was in, and even more amused at how uncomfortable I was with my lack of understanding and ignorance of how to handle such a simple inter-personal interaction that is so seemingly innocuous as a greeting.  I guess the good news is that I have definitely grown in the area of cultural sensitivity!  I no longer am content to live in oblivion about how what I’m communicating both verbally and non-verbally might be being received based upon the culture and context I am in. 

We had one afternoon off to go explore the city, so we had an absolute blast letting the kids help in setting the agenda.  They had discovered several tanks filled with small fish; the tanks were designed with benches on top of them so that you would sit and dangle your feet into the tanks, allowing the small fish to literally eat the dead skin off of your feet.  We’ve seen this before on previous trips to Thailand, and the kids have always wanted to participate in this obviously touristy activity, but on this trip we finally agreed that the price was right (less than a dollar) and that it would constitute a fun family activity.  So we all fed the fish for a full 10 minutes, with quite differing reactions, depending on the family member!  Hudson made it maybe 15 seconds before he decided that the fish were biting him too hard; Eli, on the other hand, would have actually put his face in the water to let the fish nibble if we’d given him permission to do so!  Kevin and I were squirming and squealing for the first 8 minutes until we finally got accustomed to the snake-like feel of fish swarming between our toes and all around our ankles.  The seemed especially to prefer my heals and feet, which was good support for me in convincing Kevin that he obviously needed to be sending me out to get more pedicures than I am currently in the habit of getting!

After our fish-feed, we took another tuk-tuk to the night market, which is also the area of town with the majority of restaurants.  We LOVED our meal of Mexican food, and enjoyed doing some souvenir shopping as well.  While we in the market shopping, we ran into an adorable, skinny, probably 8-year old little girl with her 1-year old baby sibling worn in a sling over her shoulder.  The little girl came up to us, asking me to buy her a bag of expensive chocolates that were at a stand nearby where we were standing.  Looking at her rotting teeth and skinny arms and legs, the mother in me revolted at the thought of buying her such a non-nutritious snack.  But I couldn’t find anything else that seemed a healthier option.  So as I was looking, I asked if I could get a picture of her standing with Karis, who was trying to get her sibling to interact with her.  The little girl immediately responded with, “Picture—one dollar—one dollar only.”  I had no US dollars on me, and was shocked at how boldly she had answered.  I reached into my wallet and pulled out what little Cambodian cash I had, but it was obviously LESS than the $1 fee she required; so she forcefully exclaimed that it was not one dollar and quickly walked away.  Karis and I both stood there for several minutes with shocked looks on our faces.  I still don’t understand why this little girl was not willing to accept the money I did want to give her; I realized later it was close to $1 (about 75 cents), but I figured she had a story.  Was she keeping the money for her family?  Was it for something or someone else?  Was the baby she was carrying in the sling even related to her?  Was the whole thing just a racket?  Was there some significance to US dollars as opposed to the Cambodian money?  It was all a mystery—and still is!  We did run into the little girl in the same spot about an hour later, but this time I had found a stand that sold somewhat healthier food items (like dried fruit).  Karis and I ran back and quickly purchased some to bring to the little girl, for which she said a curt thank you and stuck in a bag before quickly continuing on to pursue the next tourist passing by her patch of ground.  I couldn’t help but think on His sovereignty over all things, over all people and situations, over all of the families we are born into and the lives that we lead, as I walked away thankful for the one He has blessed me with.

I continued this vein of thankfulness for His blessings throughout the week—particularly thankfulness for life itself!  Eli came up to Kevin and me at the breakfast table one morning while we were in Cambodia, surrounded by a group of his friends, and grinning from ear to ear as he held forth his trophy—a large frog he’d found in the outdoor dining area of our hotel.  The kids all had a blast playing with the frog for the next 10 minutes until it made its fortuitous escape. It was only after the frog’s escape that we learned, according to one little girl in the group who spoke Cambodian and happened to hear some of the staff talking amongst themselves, that apparently that kind of frog has a poisonous coating on its skin!  We of course had the kids wash their hands thoroughly upon this news, but I still kind of held my breath, hoping that we wouldn’t see any negative repercussions to the kids’ handling of their morning toy.  So far, so good, as no one has seemed to be any worse for the poison that may or may not have been a reality!

I also ended up sick to the point of wishing that my life might just end the day before we had to leave Cambodia.  As far as I could tell, I ate something that did NOT sit right with my stomach, and I had to spend the last day of time with our friends in bed all day, feeling like I’d been hit by a truck.  I was sooooo incredibly thankful that my system finally righted itself, and literally just in time, as we had another day of travel ahead of us to get to Thailand, and I didn’t even have to make any trips to hospitals or other medical facilities in the process.  My one regret, besides missing time with friends that final day and feeling so crummy in the process, is that I failed to check through our laundry bag that Kevin picked up from the Laundromat that was just around the corner where we had dropped off some of the clothes we needed to have cleaned; I didn’t discover until our arrival in Thailand that several of the long-sleeved and long pants clothing items had not been returned, so I’m actually off on an afternoon adventure of trying to find some suitable clothes for those who are now missing them so that we can be appropriately dressed for the sub-freezing temperatures we’ll be hitting upon our return home!  There’s a decent chance I’ll end up with some boys in sparkly pink sweat pants for our flight back to China…

                        . . . . . . . . . . .

So no sparkly pink sweat pants, but I did end up selecting 2 of the only 2 choices for long pants for the boys!  Noah will be donning a stylish pair of red skinny sweatpants (which he loves, because they have a Ben 10 logo on them) and Hudson will be wearing a pajama shirt (which he loves, because it is Batman).  And I actually found tennis shoes for the boys, as all 3 of them had their current pair splitting at the seams (I think they have worn them enough out in the snow that it weakened them in places that normally aren’t a problem!).  The interesting thing to me was that amongst racks of girls’ shoes, they didn’t sell a single pair of athletic shoes—they were all cheaply-made sandals or flip flops.  I suppose it’s like it used to be in the US, where girls only have more dressy or casual options for footwear, rather than the selection of athletic wear we’re accustomed to. 

Our days of rest and relaxation here on the beach in Thailand can best be summed up, as cheesy as it may sound, as an oasis for our family, both on the emotional, physical, and spiritual level.  Our bodies have time to clear the junk out of our lungs, and for the first time in months none of us have a nagging cough in the morning when we awaken.  We have a break from the cultural stress that is to be expected when living cross-culturally.  We have quiet (at least when we take turns watching the kids and escape for a brief walk on the beach)!  I was astounded at how few people I saw as I took advantage of just such an opportunity a few days ago.  I walked for half an hour with only the sounds of nature buzzing around me: birds chirping (a rare sound to my ears, indeed!), the ocean waves rolling in; the odd variety of horned cattle and chickens rustling around in the brush near the dirt road I was on.  It was beautiful!  And we have the time away from life’s responsibilities to truly be able to be still and reflect.  To be honest, this time of reflecting is not something we’ve been out of practice on recently.  I regularly wonder if our family is unique in how much time we spend asking questions about where we are and if we’re doing what we’re supposed to be.  Not in a bad or anxious way, but it feels that we are in a constant state of re-evaluating if we are being called to move elsewhere, be spending our time doing something different, or investing in people that we haven’t paid close enough attention to.  I’m thinking there’s a good chance that a lot of this has to do simply with our lifestyle; the fact that we live in a place where the needs are so great, the community itself is so transitory, and even our visa (and therefore ability to stay here) is so unstable.  Anyway, Kevin and I have both sensed a sort of numbness during this last leg of our journey, and I kind of think it might be because we just need to focus on being still, enjoying Him, and allowing the questions to be answered on His timeline rather than our own.  A good place to be, but not exactly one that comes naturally to either Kevin or me, who would much rather have all the answers and the 10-year plan all mapped out!  My solution:  early morning time with Him, an hour-long foot massage during rest time in the afternoon (which you can get here for under $10 and feels divine!), and enjoying a coconut milk shake with the kids at the pool after dinner.  Ahhhh.  One more day before we head back to the real world!

 

To sum it up, some of my favorite moments from our week of vacation:

·      Taking a 20-minute boat ride to Monkey Island to feed the wild monkeys there, making it back with none of the kids getting bitten or mutilated in any other form by the enthusiastic wild things, and seeing a dolphin on our return trip

·      Finding new discoveries every day on the beach—everything from a dead baby stingray to tiny jelly fish (which we caught in our buckets) to countless crabs of all types and varieties

·      Seeing the kids LOVING every minute; Karis making friends with every other kid in the pool and Eli designing a trap to catch the school of small minnows on the beach in order to put them in his bucket to feed his crabs; Hudson laughing and smiling the entire time he was digging in the sand and going down the pool’s slide; Noah delighting in every sign of nature that passed by, insisting that any bird with color on it was a parrot (he only ever sees common sparrows and an occasional Magpie while in China)

·      The load of fish that the kids and Kevin caught on an early-morning (5:30am) fishing expedition; we had the restaurant here at the hotel cook them up and had fish for lunch that day!

·      Eli and Hudson not having any major negative health side effects after being eaten alive on the beach by these tiny blood-sucking gnats; I did have to make a run into town to buy another tube of ointment to put on them to try to stop the itching and I spent a good portion of 3 days explaining to other concerned-looking parents that my boys did not have some strange, contagious disease, but had merely been brutally attacked by an insect I’ve never seen before

·      Noah, after throwing at least 3 fits before noon at the mere thought of having to take a nap, laying in bed and saying, “Mom, thanks for making me take a rest.  I really am so tired.”  Not what I was expecting from my three-year old!

Tomorrow we start the return trip home.  We leave the beach at 7am for a 3-4 hour drive to get us to Bangkok, then fly for about 7 hours to Seoul.  We’ll spend the night in Seoul, then fly the next day for about an hour back to Tianjin.  We should arrive around noon on Wednesday, have the afternoon to unpack some bags and get ready for school that starts up again on Thursday.  Hoping we don’t have too many obstacles to getting back to Tianjin when we’re scheduled, or we might have a tired crew come Thursday morning when it’s back to the grind!  For now, I’m just thankful that Noah at least can’t wait to hit the road and start the traveling so he can wear his new clothes!

Cross-cultural laughs

I awakened early this morning and should be using this time to get some papers graded, but couldn't resist grabbing a few minutes to jot down a few of the more funny cultural moments from our party yesterday.  I love the adventure of living in China!

I've got to start off by saying that my kids, once again, rose to the occasion of a somewhat challenging event for them.  We spent a full 50 minutes in the car on the way to our friend's party, as we had to drive through Tianjin traffic to pick up a blind couple Kevin has gotten to be friends with.  Karis entertained us for most of the drive by singing Taylor Swift songs (without the music of the CD in the background, but rather the back-up singing that her 3 younger brothers provided from the back seat).  Our friends loved it!  We arrived to join a group of about 20-30 (depending on the ebb and flow of the guests) at a relatively small apartment.  We had a really fun time playing "get to know you" games (which all centered around being able to remember people's names after they had introduced themselves).  This alone was hilarious, as I, between trying to keep the kids seated and quiet and STILL not having Chinese names be easy to recollect for me, did not remember ONE single name of the 20+ people who were introduced!  Luckily, Kevin came through big time for us, and when either of us were called on in the game to answer, he was able to make a joke out of it (usually by naming either a really famous Chinese person or using an incredibly common name--like Wang--to get a laugh out of the whole group).  We also played some fun group games, like you can see in the picture of passing a pretzel from one straw to another that was being held in the mouths of the competitors.  Our friends loved it!

After the games, we had a time of singing praise songs, then watched a video, and had several performances by those in attendance.  The video part was humorous (to me, but not to those watching it).  My kids endured the entire 30 min of terminally-ill patients talking in Chinese about their beliefs and the hope they had, sporadically coming in to where I was helping prepare food in the kitchen to check in with me.  The kitchen was incredibly small, with literally only enough room for myself and the hostess to be in there at once, and then only if we were willing to be bumping rear ends the entire time as we faced opposing counter-tops to chop and wash the food.  So whenever one of my kids came in, the sweet hostess, a single western gal about my age, got visible flustered at their presence!  At one point, she was encouraging Noah to return to the movie, at which he replied honestly that he was bored watching the movie.  She responded to him with, "That's okay!  Just go in and you can pray for them."  Great thought, but I couldn't help but try to hide my raised eyebrows and chuckle as I thought of my 3 year old sitting quietly for 30 min watching a video in a language he doesn't really understand, all the while praying for the hearts of those who were listening!  I figured this sweet girl was either deceived about the spiritual maturity of my kids, was out of touch with a typical 3-year old's attention span, or was more flustered than I could tell by her hostessing duties!

One of the highlights of the evening was Kevin and the kids telling a baseball story.  They all dressed up in their matching Cardinal uniforms and stood with Kevin while he told, using repeating hand gestures and active motion, the story of his baseball career (at least an abbreviated version that takes about 1 minute).  He has the kids go through the part of the story that talks about how many hours he practiced, lifted weights, how much he traveled, etc., before he finally made it to the Major Leagues.  The kids sit down after the interactive part, then Kevin shares a brief portion about how on his Major League debut, he was waiting in the bullpen for the call to go into the game and pitch when a sunflower seed got caught in his throat.  As he was still trying to dislodge the seed, he got the call to come into the game!  He shares how as he was standing on the mound at the climax of his baseball career, after working so many years to accomplish his dream, all he could think of was that he was going to puke all over himself just because of this small seed that he couldn't get rid of.  He then goes on to share about how easy it is for things of this world to be shaken by something as small as a sunflower seed, and thus the importance for our foundation to be on something that cannot be shaken.  Both the story he shared with this group of athletes (those who were at the party) and the performance by the kids went over seemingly well with all who were there, and the kids love being involved in that kind of thing (and they were rewarded with the promise of getting to set off fireworks later tonight!).

We made it about 3 hours before the tight quarters and lack of a nap for Noah started to make my boys get close to the "explode" stage.  (Not sure if any of you with high-energy little ones can relate to this; when the tension is building and you are just buying time before something gets broken or one of the kids implodes???)  I made a polite exit with the 3 boys and Kevin stayed on to enjoy the rest of the party with Karis (he needed to drive our blind friends home).  Noah, Hud, and Eli accompanied me to a late dinner at Papa John's (which has recently opened up near us; funny though, they won't deliver to our apartment as it is too far away; they only deliver within a one mile radius of the store, and our apartment is about 2 1/2; we find it pretty humorous that our area is so densely populated that a business can have more business than they can handle by limiting their delivery distance so much!).  The boys got out their extra energy by racing up and down 2 flights of stairs that were lighted outside the restaurant as we waited for our pizza.  After we ate, Eli suggested we see how far we could walk rather than taking a taxi home.  I was ill-prepared for this, as none of the boys had their hats or gloves, but we stuck our hands in our pockets and managed to make the 2+ mile walk home (it took us an hour!).  They had fun running in the grass as we passed by Trash Mountain and hiding in the "jungles" we discovered on the way (shown in the pics).

Meanwhile, Kevin and Karis enjoyed the craziness at the party!  Kevin came home to tell me of one of the more awkward moments--a sort of pole-dance (minus the pole) by one of the girls in attendance!  It is pretty normal at these parties for each of the guests to take a turn on center stage, performing something they are good at.  So we heard different musicians, vocal choruses, and then a dance.  This young woman turned on a song from someone's phone and gyrated for several minutes in a way Kevin described as "Even though I've never been to one, it's what I would have imagined goes on at a strip club, only with clothes on!"  I asked how Karis and the others responded.  Apparently there were some high kicks and other gymnastic type displays that Karis was impressed by, and the majority of the young men spent the time focusing on the young woman's wriggling rear end, but Kevin says he was too busy averting his eyes and feeling embarrassed to notice much more!  Wish I could have been there to more fully appreciate the unexpected....China parties.  You gotta love 'em!

These final 2 pics are of the kids and their impromptu performance when we had guests the other night.  Once again, a Taylor Swift song performed as Karis informed Eli that they were "never, ever getting back together!"

Snow for a few more days...

I never thought that weather could have such a profound impact on my life!  These past few weeks have been COLD--with only the last several days getting above freezing.  But the real kicker has been the "smog," as our Chinese friends call what we prefer to more accurately label "pollution!"  And I really shouldn't be complaining at all; we had the first day of seeing the sunshine today--and let me tell you--it was glorious!  Now in order to be able to see it, we had a strong wind that blew in, thus blowing out our usual canopy of gray that seems determined to suffocate all life beneath.  But the wind won out, and we gladly donned extra layers to embrace the chill in the air in order to play outdoors longer than we usually would care to be.  We kept encouraging the kids to run and breath deeply, rather than our usual jokes about holding our breath whenever we are in the open air.  What is so shocking to me is how much the general atmosphere of pretty much any location is altered by having the clear sky and visible sun.  My class of students, the neighbors I pass on the way to the market, even my own demeanor has a lightness to it that we haven't felt much these past 3 weeks. 

We have been blessed by an incredible amount of snow this year.  I forgot to count how many days, but I think it's been about 5 days in the past 2 weeks that we've had a significant layer of snow fall.  Our first major dusting happened 2 weeks ago when we went to Beijing to meet up with Kevin's cousin who was in town for business from the States.  It was SUCH a blessing to have time with cousin Tommy!  We never cease to delight in being able to share with loved ones a bit of our life and the culture which we are so absorbed in now after 3 and a half years of life in China.  Tommy  spent the day visiting a few of our favorite tourist spots and humoring us as he listened to some of our stories about what life is like for us living as foreigners in a "strange land."  It was totally refreshing to us to have the time with family; and he even came armed with gifts for the kids--so they were on cloud 9 and are definitely major cousin Tommy fans!

Speaking of cultural differences, we just finished having another jaw-dropping conversation with one of our closer friends here about business in China and the bribery that is so normal to encounter.  He used to be a professional baseball player in town, and he was explaining how the team was never as good as it could have been because the players who got the most playing time were those who paid off the coach the most.  He was very matter-of-fact about the whole thing; there was no sense of resentment or frustration in his tone.  But he was telling us how he wished it could be different for the sake of wanting to see how good a team (in baseball and other sports) China could produce if those players who were truly the best were the ones allowed to play.  He was also telling us about the pressure at his current workplace (he's teaching English to little kids) because his boss just hung a huge sign outside the building that the government has decided is not attractive.  Because their building is so close to a large government one, they have asked the English school to take the sign down.  But the cost is exorbitant!  Approximately $10,000 to hire the equipment and manpower needed to remove it.  So rather than just removing the sign, our friend's boss is in the process of trying to build "guan xi" (relationship) with the right people who can decide that the sign does NOT need to go. And this is done by inviting the "right" people out to eat, then paying them off under the table.  The complicating factor is that you never know for sure if you're inviting the right person who has a high enough statues to truly pull the strings you need pulled.  So you might pay off one person, but then have to go 2, 3, even 4 levels higher before you're really in the clear.  And what's even more shocking to me is that this bribery system is really in play in pretty much every market place we've encountered--even the educational system.  I have had several moms talk with me about how to handle the pay-offs that are expected to be given to their kids' preschool teachers!  It starts that early; and if the teacher is NOT paid off, supposedly the chances of your child being treated fairly are pretty much slim to none.  Not what most moms want to hear, especially in a society where education is really the most important thing in one's life.  So how does one navigate in this culture that requires so much of what goes against every cultural idea of justice that we Americans hold so dear?  Still in process on that one...

On a lighter note, we've had some fun on our weekends as of late.  We even made it to a new shopping mall that has an indoor ice skating rink!  Our dear friends Ying Ying and Michael went with us, and I was VERY thankful for the extra hands, as having 4 kids on the ice (3 for the very first time) was about as much as my 2 hands could handle.  We miraculously made it through with no major falls and no injuries.  Noah made one full lap before he decided he'd had enough (actually, he wanted to quit after about the first 20 yards, but I convinced him to remain skating with the flow to make the complete circle to the nearest exit); Eli and Karis loved it, and Hudson had fun clinging to either myself, Michael, or the wall for most of the hour.  It was a fun get-away for our family, and almost made us think we were back at the Dallas Galleria for the afternoon!  (Oh, we even found a Subway in the mall for lunch, completing our "back to the US" nostalgia.)





We only have 2 days left of school, then we're out for a 2-week long holiday (the Chinese New Year).  We're going to make the most of our 2 weeks by doing some travel--first to Cambodia, then on to Thailand.  We're truly counting down the days til we can hit the warm weather and sunshine!  The bags are packed already and we've got a packed weekend trying to say goodbye to all our Chinese friends for the 2 weeks before we go (it's kind of like Christmas to them, where it's really important to spend time with your closer friends to celebrate this time of year).  We have a 6-hour long party tomorrow that we're attending with the whole family (it's a party friends of Kevin's are hosting for some of the professional athletes in town), so we're hoping to turn in early so we can get rested and geared up for what is sure to be some Chinese-ee craziness!