sore thumb

Ol' 2007 is out the door and fresh spankin new 2008 is on her way in. It's been a great year for me. - I started learning one of the hardest languages on the planet (maybe even in the solar system) - Mystery baby #2 was successfully created - Madeleine turned 2 - Phil and I both turned 30 - I got a great haircut that I still like - My parents lived here and then decided to move here - I made some great friends - Oh, and I'm sure there's much more... Today we have class, NY Eve, but no class tomorrow. January 1st is a national holiday here. Yali has both days off for family reasons and because it's a holiday. Phil gets to play Nanny today while I start a new semester. I have 2 new teachers this semester and I'm looking forward to the change. It should be interesting today since I haven't reviewed or studied for over a week now. Speaking of which, I should crack open the book for a bit before I head out. Happy New Year!

Yesterday was a great day. The brunch was a highlight of the day with so many delicious dishes. I'm enjoying some of the leftovers this morning. Madeleine really enjoyed the day and her gifts. We got her a doll house, Sylvanian series. Miriam (Phil's sister) had Sylvanian stuff growing up and so we thought it would be fun to start M's collection. So far she has the house, a dalmatian family, and a kitchen set. She loves it. I was afraid it might be too old for her but she really likes it. She was the life of the party with our friends. She kept everyone entertained with being silly and showing off her Chinese. Whenever she'd get a reaction out of folks she'd say or do the same thing over and over. It's been fun for our friends to see her personality develop since last year when we arrived here. As I type, a beautiful white bread maker is sitting to my left on the desk, my big present from Phil. I was too tired last night to get it set up (it's al

Yep, he's coming very soon so you better be good, because he is definitely watching you. Kinda like living in this country. Last night the Tompkins came over for supper. I can't believe how much M likes Clinton (their 4 year old). Yesterday morning she didn't want to go to fellowship, "No, fellowship!" she said. "Clinton will be there, Madeleine," I said. Big smile. "Clinton? Okay." We had roast and veggies for supper. The other day at Market I saw this beautiful cut of beef. I thought, "Now how can Phil not love roast made with this?" Phil doesn't like roast, not mine, not my Mom's, not his Mom's, no ones. So, I have this on going goal to fix the most amazing roast that he will love and will change his mind about roast. But, it hasn't happened yet. He eats them but he thinks, "It's just roast". Last night's was very good. Clinton, who is an extremely picky eater, said, "This meat h

It's felt like a long week for some reason. This is the last day of this semester so I'm sad to know that Annie won't be my teacher next time. She's been so great. Last blog was all about a lifeless object but that brings us much joy. This one will be about a very much alive little girl that brings us unbelievable joy. I can't even explain how much fun Madeleine is right now. She doesn't use the words, "I" or "I'm" she only says "My". So we hear these sentences like, "My tall!", "My Strong!", "My Helping", "My crying". Which is just too cute. The other day Phil thought he heard her say, "I" and it made him sad. If she's still doing it in college we'll start worrying but right now we love it. Our pollution in Xi'an is unbelievably bad, especially in the winter because of the coal used for heating. So, we have many days where we can't see the sky because of

I can not think of a Christmas tree that I had growing up or at my own house that I didn't totally love. Every year I think our tree is the prettiest I've ever seen. This year is no exception. Mom and I used to squabble every year over how the lights went up. I can't remember why but somehow I think we were both trying to do the same thing and got in each other's way. We were both trying to put the lights in such a way that the tree just naturally glowed and you couldn't see the strings. All those years of fussing must have paid off because the lights on my tree (and mom's) always look perfect. They are distributed perfectly and the tree looks as those it were born wearing lights. As long as it is possible my trees will always have white and colored lights. I've had several adults comment on how they were surprised I liked colored lights on trees. This was before they saw how beautiful my tree is, of course. I can't imagine not having colored.

Today is our xmas lunch at the Shangri La. It's a very ritzy place. So much in fact, that I'm leaving school early to get home so I can powder my nose and freshen up. To be frank, I'd much rather eat dinner at the Shangri La. It's decorated beautifully (white lights and tall pointy xmas trees) and it just seems like a place to have a xmas dinner, not lunch. But, no one asked me and I'll take a free lunch any day. Especially, at the Shangri La. Since, my afternoon will be shot, studying wise, I'm also hoping to buy a treadmill today. I brought up the subject to Phil awhile back but we just haven't gone out and bought one. We looked at a couple stores yesterday and I found a few I liked. I did a bit of research last night and so hopefully I'll be able to get what I want today. I'm saying "I" because this is really my thing. Phil hates running and so I doubt he'll use it much. I started useing a treadmill when I was pregnant wi

Today we hope to find the perfect, fake Christmas tree. There's a market on the north side of town that supposedly sells lots of xmas stuff starting in December. We could really be pushing our luck by going on the first day of December. It would be quite disappointing to get all the way out there and then come home empty handed. METRO has had there xmas stuff up for a couple weeks now. We're doing a Jesse Tree (http://www.cresourcei.org/jesse.html) again this year. I hope to find a cute little tree to use and we're making ornaments out of felt this time. Last year it was all made with posterboard, markers, crayons and glue. Hopefully this year's ornaments will last awhile. I found a pattern in my Gooseberry Patch xmas books for great stockings. They're made from felt, too and so we need to go to the fabric market today to pick up all this felt. I plan on making 4 and I'll just add that fourth name next Christmas! With this cold weather and xmas shopp

It's T-giving Day already here. And I say "already" because it's still Wednesday in the ol' US of A. But I could say "already" to mean that I can't believe we're already celebrating another T-Day in this country. Which is true, I can't believe it. Last year we had our good friends John and Caitlin with us in Wuhan. Caitlin was pregnant with little Sam. It was a good celebration with them and our other friends in Wuhan. One of my favorite memories of that day was how John kept giving Maddie anything she wanted off of his plate. She ended up chewing on a turkey bone for the majority of the meal. This coming Sunday will be our traditional celebration with our friends here in Xi'an. We're even having some sort of Pilgrim and Indians reenactment with costumes and all. Maddie and I are Pilgrims. Phil's an audience member. Today we're going to school. I'm sure if I had wanted to skip today in light of the holiday Phi

This afternoon Madeleine and I made T-giving cookies together. Grandma's recipe, Mara's cookie cutters, and a kitchen covered in flour. Maddie had the greatest time. It was her first time to use cookie cutters and she got so excited every time. We made a video of the experience that will get posted on U-Tube. It was such a fun thing to do together. They don't taste as good as Grandma's and most of them look nothing like turkeys but who cares.

We're thinking more and more of going to Beijing to have baby kumquat. We've been asking for peace about staying here in Xi'an and neither of us have that yet. Yesterday, Friday, we met with a couple from our school for lunch who just had their 1st child at Beijing United Hospital. All the staff speaks English and if they're not foreigners they've been trained internationally. They had a very positive experience and highly recommend the hospital. From what they said it sounds like a VERY nice hospital. You have your own room, the husband has a pullout bed in the room, they do the candlelight steak dinner, and they have all the modern delivery equipment. We also talked a couple days ago with our Asian boss and he told us that living expenses and travel would be covered for us. So, that's a relief because being in Beijing for over a month would be very expensive. We'd need to find an apartment to stay at because a hotel for a month just wouldn't cut it.

Today feels like Friday although it's Thursday. Tomorrow we're taking the morning off for my 1st prenatal doctor's visit. We should be able to get an ultrasound done so we can see the little tike. My lesson at school today will be a lot of words like: labor, delivery, operation, and learning how to ask questions like, "Will the baby be able to stay in the room with me or be in a nursery?". I've had a couple lessons on visiting the doctor or being sick but nothing about pregnancy. So, I asked Annie, my teacher, to prepare a special lesson for me today. Our friend, Kati, will be going with us on Friday and she had all three of her children in Taiwan. She'll be helping us as needed which I imagine will be quite a bit. Unfortunately, all the stuff we hear from other foreigners about having babies in a local hospital isn't what we want to hear. So, we're hoping our talk with the doctor on Friday will be more positive. Either way, it will help us

I woke up early this morning for it being Saturday. I've always had a hard time sleeping in but now that I usually try to get up before Maddie to have "time before I'm needed" time, I always seem to wake up before 6am. So, I decided to write. It would be nice to have some coffee and a bagel with cream cheese. The coffee I have but although the thought is nice the actual making and then drinking doesn't appeal to me. I also have bagels. METRO sells bags of frozen, plain bagels. I bought a bag last week. They're shaped like bagels but I don't think they really are. I'm not sure what the requirements are for bagels but these are too airy to be real. It doesn't help that they are absolutely nothing like My Favorite Muffin's. Which of course, is what I'm craving. The cream cheese is also at METRO and it's Philadelphia Cream Cheese which we all know would be good but it's WAY to expensive to justify spreading on a fake bagel. Ye

I felt pretty sick this morning and was really wishing I wasn't a full time language student. I've decided I've just got to get through this and can't stay home. Last Friday was the exception since I almost passed out but otherwise I'll be there. I haven't puked yet but feel like I will at anytime. Since Friday, I've felt sick for the most part of every day. I can still function, play with Maddie, study, cook (only Western style, Chinese makes me really want to puke), but at times it's really hard. Tonight cooking supper I thought I might have to give it over to Phil but after drinking some milk I felt better. The hardest thing is making myself eat and drink when I really don't want to at all but it really does help. I had no idea what I was missing with pregnancy when I carried Maddie! Hopefully this is just a 1st trimester sickness. A great thing about language school is although it's hard work I just have to be there 3 hours and the

Yep, I'm 30. Congratulations Dad and Mom and especially Mom. You did a good job 30 years ago and I'm glad. It's special being pregnant with my second today. I thought about my mom this morning and how she must have been feeling today 30 years ago. She already had a 6 year old and although she had 8 months to get prepared for me I was not planned. But, thankfully I was definitely wanted. And Dad, he was probably hoping for a boy :-) but so happy with a girl. I'm hoping for a boy, too. Phil and I are going with our neighbors, a couple our age from Holland, to a restaurant tonight. It's a Hot Pot restaurant which is really fun to do with another couple. It's the same idea as the 70s fondue pots. You have a boiling hot pot of spicy soup in the middle of the table and you add what you like - super thin slices of meat, veggies, noodles, tofu - I really like it. Plus it's a great way to hang out with friends. We really like our neighbors but we've n

Having 2 weeks off from school was really nice. I feel ready to focus on Chinese again and have a new energy for studying. A lot happens in 2 weeks. We went to 4 different areas traveling and saw caves, waterfalls, super poor areas, made some new friends, and found out that we'll have another baby in June. So, it's been a very good 2 weeks. About the baby, he/she will be born around June 9th. This is my calculation but with Maddie my calculation was also what the Dr. came up with. This was a planned pregnancy and we're both very happy about it. I feel totally fine right now and really hope to stay that way. Our trips took us to areas south of us. The first trip was to visit a business doing several projects. It was really eye opening and has given us a lot to think about. At this point we're not sure their work suits us but we haven't totally decided against it either. Our next trip was totally for vacation. October 1st is National Day here and we had a we

Sukey is now living somewhere else. We sold her yesterday afternoon for a mere 200 kuai. But no amount of money can equal the feeling of freedom that we now feel. It's so nice to have a simple home of 2 adults and one very active toddler. But I did think about her this morning and hoped she was warm enough where ever she's sleeping which I assume is outdoors. Tomorrow is October 1st, National Day here in this land. Flags are out in force and we'd like to get one too which is a bit ironic to me since we've never owned an American flag. We have a week off from school for the holiday and will be traveling for half of it. Waterfalls, hiking, and caves are our destination.

We had a good trip to ChongQing. This is a city that we could possibly move to after language school. So, we took 6 days and visited a company there and saw what they do. I'm so glad we took Maddie. She was so much fun for the most part. I couldn't believe how well she did with the long bus ride out to the county. It was about 6 hours over some pretty rough roads and she didn't just do well she loved it. On the way out she took a nap pretty sooner after we hit the road. When she woke up she looked out the window and said, "Going, going, going, going, going!" She was so excited to be going! We had our own small bus for the group so that was very nice in that Maddie had her own seat. Our first 2 days in ChongQing were tough because we were so tired. Maddie refused to take a nap in the hotel and would only nap in moving vehicles. So, the 3 days that we were traveling to the county, in the county, and out of the county she had several naps. Which made that

Last weekend at Cui Hua Shan was really great. We ended up just going for the day and it was the perfect amount of time. It was a slow hike up as we adults had decided to let the kids take there time and stop and play as the mood hit. The hike up was worth it for a beautiful lake that sat at the top. The kids stripped down (Maddie and Peter completely stripped) and had a ball playing in the icy water. A good crowd of hikers watched us foreigners allowing our kids to play in cold water in September and although I didn't see heads shaking in disapproval I'm sure there were some. But among them were also those who thought, "how fun", I'm sure. And fun it was. This week has been a bit stressful. We decided on Tuesday that we need to sell/get rid of Sukey. It's a really hard decision to arrive at. We started spreading the word to folks in our complex hoping that someone would be looking for a dog or know of someone who was. Yesterday YaLi called me durin

It's really cool here this morning. I was out with Sukey around 5am and we were both shivering. On Saturday we're going with the Tompkins to a national park about an hour outside of Xi'an. We may spend the night depending on how we feel and if we can find a place. It should be a good place to hike around, play in a lake, and just be out of the city. If we do stay the night it will an interesting experience to get Maddie to bed. Before when we've traveled without a pack-n-play I was still nursing and could nurse her to sleep. But this will be the first time she just gets put in a bed, already awake, without any bars or walls around it. It won't be an actual bed, just a pallet we make on the floor. Peter, the Tompkins 2 year old, will have the same new experience. Peter and Maddie are becoming pretty good friends. They're so cute together and it's always a little fun to imagine them growing up together, going away to school, and then falling in love.

This morning I wondered why this place doesn't have laundry-mats. They have dry-cleaners but no public places to do laundry. I think it would be a big hit, as long as the price was affordable for regular guys. Most students do their laundry by hand in the dorm and lots of other people do the same in their homes. Maybe I've hit a goldmine. Dogs in this day and age like to be socialized. I'm not sure who first decided this but it's all over the internet dog sites. Your puppy needs to be socialized with humans and other dogs right away. Well, dogs are becoming more and more popular as pets here (and less popular to eat) but the socializing concept hasn't hit here yet. There's this one dog that I often see outside and Sukey always wants to "socialize" with him but he's so scared he just fidgets and shakes. His owner doesn't like it either because this morning after the appropriately polite amount of time of letting her dog have a panic att

Tonight Madeleine spent about 45 minutes playing with 6 rolls of toilet paper, 4 bars of Dove soap still in their boxes, a mop bucket and a plastic basin. She put them in categories, stacked them, put them in the bucket, put them in the basin, and then switched them. She's so cute. Oh, and she was naked.

Sukey and I were up together at 4am this morning for an unneeded bathroom trip. She was crying and so I got dressed and took her out. Instead of immediately squatting and going she started playing. I was so mad. We came back inside and sure enough, she had wet her bed. After eating she went back to bed and slept till 5:30am. 5:30 I can deal with but 4am I can not. So there's a pot of coffee brewing to help me through the morning. Sukey's happily chewing on a rawhide shaped shoe unaware of the way she's affected my day. Phil and I are going to be adding a new book to our current school curriculum. We're both in book 4 (there are 5). After the 5th those who care can go on to study specialized language for a specific field of work. We're both ready to start adding "special" language to our learning and we got permission to do so. The first book in the series of special language books is simple but it only has characters, no pinyin. I can go at my

Bella is now Sukey (sue - key). I was never totally happy with the name Bella but there was never a name that I liked a lot better. Until last night. Maddie has a DVD series with kids songs. One of them is the children's rhyme that says, "Polly put the kettle on...Sukey take it off again...". Phil likes the song and we both like the name. We spent awhile talking about it last night and decided to make the change. We asked Maddie what she thought and she was able to say, "Sukey" so we deiced that was a good sign. Sukey never responded to Bella anyway so that's not an issue. But it is hard for us to remember the change when we call her. This afternoon Phil and I are going with our neighbors to a soccer game. The local team. Phil's been to several already but this will be my first.

In Phoenxiville I had Wawa coffee or My Favorite Muffin coffee so if there had been a Starbucks in town I would have probably rarely gone so that I could support local business (I consider Wawa, local for those of you who are fortunate enough to have experienced one). But here in my town Starbucks and Village Cafe (a local shop) are the sole distributors of a good cup of coffee. I say all this to say that Phil bought me a Starbucks insulated cup yesterday. It's a great gift for me. The first time I went to a Starbucks was in Wheaton, IL in 1997. I remember it so well because it was the summer after my freshman year of college and I toured with the Indian Children's Choir. I was hanging out with one of the founders of the choir and she was a Starbucks fan. I can totally picture the shop and having no idea what anything was. Like, what the heck is a frappuccino? One of my favorite places on earth - because of the memories and feelings I associate with that place - is a Sta

Well Sunday's bbq didn't go quite as planned. Jason (Tompkins - new arrivals) and Phil spent awhile trying to get the charcoal to light with no success. Then Jason spent awhile by himself trying. The idea of making our own lighter fluid started being discussed. Wine? Rubbing Alcohol? Cooking oil? So I headed to a nearby store to buy BaiJiu, which is a strong drink that is commonly drunk when men want to play drinking games and get smashed. Phil was inside leading a discussion with the rest of the folks while Jason, Maddie, and I (Maddie not so much) threw BaiJiu on the charcoals and then lit it. Wow! What a burst of flames. But to no avail. After many attempts and even adding a whole pail of shredded paper the thing would never catch. So we cooked in the kitchen. It turned out well and was really fun. Bella and I are hanging out on the couch right now as the rest of the family sleeps. Bella just smelled my coffee and went a bit crazy. Oh, the power of good coffee

I headed out this morning around 10am for METRO. Metro is a German founded store that is similar to a COSTCO in the size and set-up of the store but it doesn't focus on bulk items. It has a good import section and METRO brand items are good quality. We buy imported milk (New Zealand) from METRO and diapers on a regular basis. Today I had a fairly long list of sauces and other staples. I enjoyed being out and not needing to rush through the store. My favorite part was picking out plastic containers. Isn't that weird? But I love looking at Tupperware catalogs or looking at all the shapes and sizes at the store. I know everyone isn't so easily entertained so I won't tell you about the ones I bought. Our house smells like poop, and that's putting it nicely. It's not Bella or Madeleine's fault. I know who's fault it is but I don't want my site shut down so you figure it out. Sewer gases come up through the drains in our bathrooms and at times

Normally I'm just waiting for Friday to roll around but this week I can't believe how fast it's gone by. Must be the added responsibility and work of having Bella. We're all adjusting pretty well to having a puppy. Wednesday morning has been the worst so far. She pooped in her kennel and Phil had the privilege of cleaning it while I kept an eye on her. It all happened about 30 minutes before we needed to be leaving for school and when Phil was just about to get in the shower. We were late for school and frazzled. The rest of the week has been better and we're doing better at getting her outside in time. Madeleine is doing really, really well with Bella. Maddie likes to play with her ears and give her little kisses on her back when she's sleeping. Bella prefers to jump up on Maddie and nip at her clothes but Maddie takes it all in stride. Maddie especially likes to hold the lease when we're on a walk. It's so cute. Yesterday afternoon our bright

Well, we are now a family of four. Bella, a 6 week old Whippet puppy, is snoozing on my lap as I write. She's mostly white but has gray spots on her face and back. Her name is Italian for beautiful and it fits her well. Since we had been looking for an Italian greyhound we had decided on 2 Italian names - one for a boy and one for a girl. We like the name Bella a lot even though she's not Italian. We've had her for less than 24 hours but she's already very attached to us. Affection is a personality trait of greyhounds and one reason we were interested in them as a pet. Bella had a rough night in her carrier. I had never known why people used carriers other than for travel until doing puppy research myself. It seems that domesticated dogs still have that instinct that their forefathers had to live in dens. So the cages and carriers meet this need. They feel cozy and safe. The problem for a puppy that's taken from it's siblings and mom is that it misse

Yesterday afternoon we went with 2 other families (Tompkins - new family and Koks- our neighbors) to an indoor playground. Madeleine and YaLi have been there before but Phil and I hadn't. It was so much fun. The place has a ball pit, slides, tubes to crawl through, a swing, see-saws, a trampoline, and other fun stuff. All together there were 7 foreign kids and 5 adults. There were a hand full of other kids playing there too but not very crowded at all. Afterwards we all went to KFC for dinner and then played in a fountain. It's the type of fountain that's set to music and easily played in. Madeleine was the first of the kids to venture into it. She was so cute and even though she slid down twice she couldn't get enough of it. She did get a bit cold and it always brought a laugh from the masses when she had a big shiver. When we arrived at the fountain there were lots of people watching it but when we all left it was packed. Every kid was soaked and I was pre

I can't stop sneezing and blowing my nose. I just feel crummy. I wanted to run this morning but when I started getting ready I felt so bad that I figured I shouldn't. I'll be kinda glad to be back in a routine next week with school and getting up at the same time each day. It really helps me to run on a regular basis. Maddie seems better today. She was mad at me this morning because I wouldn't let her watch a dvd. I've let her get in a bad habit of watching music videos (for kids) or a movie when she gets up. I don't like how as soon as she sees the tv she wants to watch something. So, I've decided to work on breaking the habit. She cried and at first refused to do anything else. Eventually she got over it but she was pretty fussy. Natasha and I got an oven for them yesterday. It was just the 2 of us shopping which was good because we went to a huge market and I know that Phil would have been ready to go long before we were. I got a dish-drying

Natasha T. and I spent about 5 hours yesterday picking out material, figuring out measurements, and waiting for curtains and sheets to be made. Natasha's family just moved here last week. Since we have the week off we wanted to help them out and thought it would be good for our Chinese. Before we went to the fabric market I wrote out a cheat sheet of vocabulary I thought I'd need to get stuff done. At the market there are rows and rows and rows of fabric to choose from. The bolts are all different sizes and blends. Down one central isle ladies sit lined up with their sewing machines. They work quickly and usually do a great job. So everything can be done in one day. It's really convenient and a unique experience for us foreigners. Thankfully, Natasha had some ideas for what she wanted and that helped a lot because with so many fabrics, colors, and patterns it can be very overwhelming. We also picked a great seamstress who was patient with my Chinese and even walke

Again, trying blogger and keeping my fingers crossed that this will work better than xanga's been these days. A week off from school this week. Once a year the teacher's at school have a week long training and the students have no school. Yeah, no school! There's a new family in town that we'll be busy helping this week. They need furniture and all the other stuff that comes with having a new home and only so much luggage allowance. Last week we had a ton of fun hanging out with a young couple that were visiting various areas of China and stayed in Xi'an for a week. Really an unexpected treat from our Father. On Saturday Phil was listening to music and one song had the word "Hallelujah" over and over. Madeleine now says "How-ew-uh" in a really cute singing voice. I thought Phil was going to burst from pride when he heard her. This week is potty training intensive here in Xi'an. I imagine some good stories will come out of it.

This is only a test.