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friday, finally

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 the haze. The other evening the 3 of us walked outside, Madeleine looked up and cried, "Look! Sky! Sky!" She just kept standing there staring. How pathetic. Only a kid being raised here would get that excited over the sky. But, at least we did see the sky that evening.

Madeleine loves our tree and the stockings. She loves this one little white dog that Phil had growing up that now hangs on ours. She's been very good about not playing with the tree (which we haven't been too strict about anyway - I mean, it's a plastic tree with plastic ornaments mainly, plus it's Christmas for Pete's sake.) But we have been using that famous line, "You can look but you can't touch." Every once in awhile she'll sit really close to the tree and quickly touch an ornament and quickly pull her arm back. Most of the time nothing is said.

The amount of presents under the tree for her is getting a bit ridiculous. We totally didn't plan it this way it's just happening. I don't even remember what everything is at this point. Plus, I know we still have a package coming in the mail with xmas gifts for her. Good Grief, Charlie Brown.

She loves KFC. KFC is HUGE in this country and our daughter likes it, too. It helps that they all have indoor playgrounds and that secret 11 herbs and spices recipe. It also helps that there's one on practically every corner. Starbucks is getting like that, too. In one area of our city we have 3 within one block. Yesterday, she saw an ad for KFC on the side of the bus, she got so excited and Phil didn't know why until he saw the ad. So, we went there yesterday for lunch. As we were walking to the newest one in our area M kept saying, "No, water." I then remembered that a few weeks ago I had spent the morning with her and we had planned to go to that KFC but they had no water so we had to go to another. She totally remembered and was trying to remind us. Amazing.

Christmas morning should be a lot of fun.

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