Fall in Asia

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When we arrived in October, everything was green.  It was different from the wild, wonderful colors of the West Virginia hills where I grew up with all of their vibrant reds, oranges, yellows. . . As we entered December in Asia, I had decided the leaves just didn’t change here.  Different tree species or whatever, I’m not one to tell you about how all of that works.  BUT, now that it’s nearly Christmas we have vibrant and beautiful yellow leaves falling all over from the Gingko trees (native to China)!! I LOVE them.  They are most lovely.  Maybe just because I was kind of bummed about the lack of color before?  Regardless of the timing (yellow leaves vs. snow for Christmas),  I am thankful 🙂 

Crazy Day

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We are in a “landing city” for the maina purpose of learning language.  This city has tons of resources and personnel to help us learn the language well and much more quickly, but it ALSO has about 14 million people.  Whew.  

We have never lived in a place anywhere like CD.  Pretty much everything is new and different.  There are lots of super cool things though. . . one of which is IKEA.

Another new thing is walking everywhere or using public transportation.  It’s not bad, and we kind of like not having the car and the maintenance/gas/car washes 🙂 We should’ve checked the bus route to see what bus we needed to take to get to IKEA.  Instead, we just asked a friend who has done it! Seemed easier. . . at the time 🙂 
We got on Bus #83 like our friend said to do.  It was supposed to be a straight shot and only about a 30 minute ride. We all 5 piled on, and the gracious Chinese give the kids and I their seats.  David is tracking our route on his phone and noticed the bus isn’t quite going the most “direct route.” But hey, we haven’t done this before, so maybe it’s right? After 40 minutes, the bus is about empty and the driver stops.  End of route.  We must get off.  We are not at IKEA.  We aren’t really near much of anything.  It appeared to be on the outskirts of town or something.  David calls our friend to make sure she meant Bus #83 and not Bus #84.  She replied, “Maybe it WAS 84! I’m so sorry!” No worries.  We are seeing lots of city that we probably never would have seen right? 

We ended up walking about .5 mile to another bus stop, taking another bus, walking, taking a 3rd bus, walking, taking a 4th bus, and walking some more to . . . . IKEA!  That straight 30 minute shot on bus 83 (I mean 84!) took only 2 hours, 4 buses, and well over a mile of walking. We were all 5 ready to drop instead of shop.

The kids did great!

Blessed Thanksgiving!

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We received this word from a friend – Psalm 50:23 “He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and prepares the way so that I may show him the salv@tion of the Father.” Let’s offer thanks for His salv@tion (completed work), for His provision (meeting all of our needs), for His resources (the workers He has called, the chrches, local partners), for His power (in light and dark places), for His presence (ALWAYS). WE HAVE SO MUCH TO BE THANKFUL FOR – NO MATTER THE CHALLENGES OR DIFFICULTIES, NO ONE HAS IT BETTER THAN US AS HIS CHILDREN.

New Friends!

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We met Jack on the bus one day and exchanged phone numbers. Jack speaks enough English for us to be able to communicate basic things – so that is helpful 🙂 It didn’t take long for him to call David, and he invited us to eat “delicious food.” It was too late for me and the kiddos though, but David was able to go with Jack and some of his local friends. The next day Jack asked if he could “come make us dinner.” Of course! Well, we had invited them (Jack and his friends) to come at 4:30. . . the clock passed 4:30. Just as we were getting ready to put the kids down (we had already eaten at this point) Jack called! They were getting off the bus and wanted to take David with them to buy food for dinner. Oh my! We ended up eating around 10pm 🙂 The food was. . .interesting. We had let the kids stay up a bit later because they were so excited to meet them! But David and I also had a late night! The clean up after three 18 year olds in the kitchen. . . whew. Lesson learned 🙂 We hope to spend more time with them though and learn to communicate the Good News! The Chinese culture so far has been extremely warm and welcoming. We are grateful!

Kylie, Jack and Colt

Mong Nian, Jack, and Juan Juan loved on the kiddos (only Jack spoke a little English)

Caden at 10 Months

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Our sweet littlest one was 10 months old on the 22nd!  I am just so in love with Caden Luke . . he is such a snuggler, so content, so happy, so sweet.  I mean, what’s not to love (besides the fact that he still gets up at night for a feeding maybe)? He is up to about 4-5 steps now, so I’m sure he will be walking next week and running the week after that – ha! 🙂 He has 8 teeth.  He says “bye bye” and waves – WHICH HE LEARNED FROM HIS ASIAN NANNY! I wish she would have taught him zài jiàn as his first words (goodbye in Chinese).  Juuust kidding.  I have a video of his walking, but can’t get it to upload.  So for now – the sweet face and smile of Caden Luke, we love you buddy!

CDIS Holiday Bazaar

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We were invited to a Holiday Bazaar at the international school here in our city.  We were told it would be a fun day with lots of “familiar” things and people who speak English!  So we decided to take the 45 minute bus ride with the kiddos.  They did well – despite 1 local person telling me our children are “so dynamic!” — That is compared to the little asian boy who didn’t talk or move the whole ride 🙂 It WAS a fun day though.  The kids played hard, we ate some yummy Mexican food, and spoke in English to other people that could actually understand! – ha. . . it’s the little things. 
Kids playing a little game

Colt climbed the rock wall
Another game. . . 

Santa and Mrs. Claus actually made an appearance!

Colt watching some local kids perform
My extra body part (he seems to be attached to me at all times, but I love it)

Crazy and dirty Beauty (she fell and scraped her nose that day too). 

Sleepy boy

Local boys playing before their performance

Caden chewing on a ball someone gave him 🙂