sore thumb

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