sore thumb

I'm listening to the Indigo Girls and about to make an apple pie. I have no idea why but these two things are making me feel so content. It's amazing that 2 ladies who do not know the Father as who He is can make such beautiful music. Yet, they do. I wonder how it makes the Father feel to hear them sing and play. The apple pie is something I've been wanting to make for about a week now. I love pies. Is there a person who doesn't? Madeleine has a play date this afternoon with her good friend who's leaving in the morning for Thailand. She'll be gone about a week so Yali felt like they needed to get together today. Yali is so great. She's even staying a bit later this afternoon so they have plenty of time together. So, this gives me the extra time to make a pie - if I stop blogging. To pie making!

If I waited 2 more days it would be a month since I blogged. But since everyone is out of the house, I've finished cleaning, and I can't imagine sitting down to study, I'd like to blog. Thailand. Where to begin...if you've been there I assume that you love it. If you haven't been there then you should make an effort to get there. My viewpoint is skewed as I never went to Thailand before living here. So, if you're coming from New Zealand it might not be all that wonderful. But after a full year here I couldn't wait to get to Thailand and once I was there I couldn't imagine coming back home. I have a friend who loves living here. She really loves it. I don't. In fact it's hard for me to imagine loving it. I love places that have trees and shrubs that aren't covered in dust. I love places that have cute little downtowns where you can buy used books, drink a latte, and then walk to the park. I love places that have fall festivals and ...

Tomorrow morning at the very crack of dawn we're heading to the airport. We've had snow for a week now and so it might take a bit longer than expected to make it to Thailand with flight delays and such. But Lord willin' and the creek don't rise we'll be there by Saturday night. I don't imagine I'll do much or any blogging while in the land of sun and smiles. We'll be back home on February 12. At this point I don't want to even imagine coming back home but probably by that point I'll be ready. It's good to leave and it's good to return. Wherever you are, enjoy your winter. I know I'll be enjoying mine.

We are about to lose some really wonderful neighbors. They're moving back to Holland. We've known for a couple months but it hit me again last night. Madeleine kept wanting to pr*y for them. She kept saying "Pr*y" and then saying each persons name in the family. It made me sad. I don't know how many cups of sugar, eggs, milk, peanut butter and garlic have been borrowed from our house to theirs and theirs to ours but it's a lot. They also have our spare key. Once M is in bed we've used their baby monitor to be in their house and and hang out while she sleeps soundly in ours. We're really going to miss them. Madeleine's first word was "bye". It was so fitting since it started when we were moving from the States to here. I realized again today that our lives have more goodbyes than I want. The wonderful thing about this lifestyle is that you end up having friends all over the world and it's great for vacationing. The bad thin...

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.