More family...

I suppose the only way to properly address a year plus long famine from seeing family is to see lots of family in a short amount of time. So we were thrilled to welcome Chris, Sarah, and our new nephew Jonathan at the end of last month. We laughed, played, shared life, and did the normal things that best friends & family do together. Our time together felt really rushed but I think at the end of it, we were really thankful for all we got to share together--meeting our nephew for the first time, seeing Chris & Sarah as parents, introducing them to our Chiner life, watching them struggle through their first Chinese lessons. There's a lot that could be said but I think I'll just be lazy and do pictures instead. Besides, pictures are the best part of a blog anyway.

We're not really sure what Kevin is doing in this picture. I mean, even the baby and the dog are making cute faces. Oh well...maybe we'll get a good family picture one of these days...

This is our wee little man. As expected, he was quite the hit all around town.

We wondered how our house helper would respond to having a baby in the house. We know she loves kids (like most people around here do) and especially foreign kids. She wouldn't let Jonathan cry for a minute, and he was the first person she went to see when she came over in the morning. It will be interesting to see how things go with JJ when our Africa babies come home.

Sarah & I went with a local friend to climb the 1000 Buddha Mountain. Yes, this picture was taken on top of the mountain. Remember my enthusiasm about the blue skies in BJ? Well, take a look at the sky in this picture and you'll understand why!

Instead of climbing down the mountain, we rode these zippy car things. Tai hao wan le! I've ridden these guys down the Great Wall too but these go much faster, ergo they are much more fun.

Here's a final peace out and goodbye from our lovely, local, pop-the-collar friends...

Happy birthday, Daddy

Today is my dad's birthday. My dad is one of my favorite people in the world and here are some reasons why...

For nearly every birthday & Christmas, my gifts always have something to do with pictures. Sorry Daddy, this birthday will be no exception.

I love my dad because he loves my mama. They just celebrated their 30 some-odd year anniversary last month. Their marriage has always been a predictable & stable part of my life, and I realize that that is not something a lot of kids these days can say about their parents.

I love my dad because he walked me down the aisle. Moments before the wedding was about to start, he whispered to me, "It's not too late. You don't have to do this if you don't want to." What he meant was that even though we had invested so much time & money in the wedding, my happiness was more important to him than all of that. I would probably say that after five years of marriage to Kevin, he's not sorry that I decided to go through with it.

I love my dad because he loves my husband. Daddy used to tell me not to marry someone unless they put a twinkle in my eye, and I would go as far to say that I'm not the only one in our family who is a big fan of Kevin. I also love the fact that my dad gives hugs to everyone, including Kev. It's quite a sight to see a 6'4 man and a 5'6 man hug.

I love my dad because he loved his mother (my granny) and took such good care of her as she aged. He faithfully did little "honey do" chores for her, even if they were frustrating or didn't receive the thanks they deserved. As my parents grow old, I hope to be able to serve them as well as Daddy served his (though I'm not sure they'll let me!)

I love my dad because he supports me in everything I dream to do. Not only does he not begrudge the fact that I've chosen to live overseas, but he takes a trip all the way over here, even if it means eating weird food with chopsticks.

I love my dad because he makes me laugh. He is one of the funniest people I know, most likely because he is one of the smartest people I know. Whether it's cracking jokes about acrophobic squirrels or making a funny face behind a giant soldier statue, there is never a shortage of laughs when Dad is around.

I love my dad because he will always watch "Napoleon Dynamite" with me and will laugh almost as hard as I do. He even votes for Pedro!

I love my dad because he loves his dog. In order to be a proper Corbin, you must have a deep appreciation for all things dachshund.

I love my dad because he provided me the opportunity to graduate from college debt-free. I didn't realize what a blessing it was until I grew up some more and realized college isn't cheap. For my whole life, Daddy has always taught me how to spend & save in a wise way.

I love my dad because he loves the beach. He could sit for hours and just watch the waves go by. If I had all the money in the world, Daddy, I would buy you and mom a vacation in Italy's Cinque Terre so you could watch the waves, drink wine, and eat gelato. But until I win the lottery, this tribute blog post will just have to suffice! I love you!

Together at last

Granted, it's about four months overdue but better late than never...this is the story of my family's first visit to our side of the world.

The first thing one must learn upon arriving in China is how to eat with chopsticks. Most locals assume that other nationalities have no clue how to use them, so it's actually a pretty common questions that we're asked. So first item on the agenda was to make dumplings for lunch (with the help of our amazing househelper, of course!)

We spent about four days in our city and showed off the best spots to my family--1000 Buddha Mountain, Big Light Lake (sounds a lot cooler in its original language), meat-on-a-stick alley. It might not be the prettiest city on the planet but it's home!

Then we flew out west to see the Terracotta Soldiers. Neither Kevin nor I had ever been before, and it was pretty impressive.

We celebrated my 27th birthday in Xi'an with no other than Moroccan food. Hmm...eating middle eastern food in a tourist city in China...in hindsight, maybe not the best idea. In fact, the hummus was nearly inedible but it was still better than rice for a change.

Then we took a flight back east to the capital. I can no longer count on one hand how many times I've made the tourist rounds in this city, but I've learned a helpful thing or two along the way so I was more than happy to play Tour Guide Barbie for my fam.

There was one day while we were in BJ where the skies were unbelievably blue. Like bluer than I think I've seen since we moved here almost two years ago. If you find your own appreciation of blue skies and puffy white clouds waning, I suggest you come spend a week with us. Then you'll understand why I spent more time taking pictures of the sky than anything else that day. Yes, I suppose the ancient, eastern architecture is impressive as well but did you check out the color of the sky?!?!

We took pedicab tours of the old neighborhoods, trekked around the Summer Palace. I forced my family to eat at more Western restaurants than they probably cared for (except my dad, who never really got the chopstick thing down). We climbed the Great Wall, haggled at the Silk Market, enjoyed each others company...what more could I have asked for?

Chen mo shi jin

Translation: Silence is golden.

But maybe not so much in the blog world. I'm not even going to attempt to explain away the five month blogging absence so instead I'll just pick up where I left off...

The last blog I wrote, I made a cake. It's hard to follow that astonishing feat but I'll try to give a month-by-month play-by-play.


February

Kevin & I applied with International Adoption Guides to adopt from Ethiopia. Adoption has always been one of our long-term goals, so it just felt like a natural step to move forward. More on the adoption front in later blogs...

March

My granny did in fact pass away. My family & I contemplated my flying home but the only flight I could find had me arriving less than 12 hours before the funeral. In the end, my parents decided it would be better for me to stay put. It was a hard decision for me, but it was one I had come to terms with when we moved here last year. Every once in a while, I have the urge to give her a call and then I remember that she's not at home to answer the phone. When I got married, my "something old" was my granny's wedding ring. I wear it now to remember her.

April

We found out that we were pregnant three days before our social worker was supposed to fly to our city to conduct out adoption home study. Our social worker recommended that we reschedule the home study for the time being.

Three weeks later, my family (mom, dad, brother & sis-in-law) came to visit for 10 days. It was really special to get to share with them the news of our pregnancy in person instead of through skype or email. Not to mention getting to show off our new country and travel to a city Kev & I had never been to. More on that visit in a later blog also...

May

My family left. I didn't think I'd cry but I did. At the airport Starbucks no less. A week or so after we got home, we went to the hospital to check on the baby. I thought I was 10 weeks along but the ultrasound only measured 7 weeks with no heartbeat. The tech said I either counted my dates wrong or we had lost the baby. Come back in a week, she said.

June

We went back a week later to receive confirmation that we had in fact lost our little one. The next few weeks were spent grieving, helping my body to recover, and piecing life back together once more.

Shortly after the miscarriage, we decided to pick back up the adoption. We already had all our necessary paperwork gathered for the home study so we were able to quickly reschedule with the social worker.

July

Kevin was originally supposed to fly to Malaysia to take a class. However, the plane ticket I was planning on buying ended up not working out. All the other flights were close to $700 or $800...yikes! We decided to hold off on taking the class, which ended up being very providential because that we the exact week our social worker came. We did hours of interviews with her and had a blast (sometimes it's just fun to spend time with a new English speaker!) She had our home study report finished within a few weeks!

The next week, Kevin's brother Chris, his wife Sarah, and their baby boy Jonathan flew over to visit us. More on that later too...

August

Our adoption dossier is finally ready to be submitted to Ethiopia! We're now on the waiting list for two babies 12 months or below. Hopefully, we'll get a referral any day now, which will be a picture and brief medical report of our potential wee ones. Then we'll fly out to appear in court, and then turn around 6-8 weeks later to bring them home. Like I said earlier, more on that later...

So that's the synopsis of what's been going on our side of the world. Hopefully, you'll hear from me again before 5 more months pass.

Take that, Martha Stewart!

If any of you are blog readers of old, you might remember a particular unpleasant run-in I had with Martha Stewart a few summers ago. If the tragedy has escaped your mind or you just want to laugh at me all over again, you can do so by reading here.

Well, now I can raise my head once more for I've actually successfully accomplished a culinary miracle. I, Becky Peek, made a little boy's day by making him a Lightening McQueen birthday cake.


Our househelper, JJ, has a nine year old son who is also a student of mine at our English school. When I found out his birthday was coming up, I told JJ that we could make him a cake together. I had received a cake mix in a care package a while ago (thanks Nancilea!) and hadn't used it yet. I figured this was the perfect opportunity. In my mind, it would be a seamless endeavor: throw the mix in a 9x13 pan, throw it in the oven, ice it up, slap on some sprinkles, that ya go!

But then the next day, JJ came over raving about the "xiao qi che dan gao" (little car cake) that she wanted us to make. She had found out from her sister that one of my American friends (who, mind you, is a whiz with cakes and all things involving sugar) had a Lightening McQueen cake mold. I couldn't bring myself to tell JJ that I'd never once in my life used a mold, nor was I very confident in my ability to make homemade icing, dye the icing, and then apply said icing in such a way that it would actually resemble a car. My friends weren't too helpful either when they affirmed that this was in fact a pretty difficult cake to pull off.

But, with the encouragement of my friends (after seeing my crestfallen face upon receiving the news of the cake's difficulty factor) and the donation of sprinkles and icing recipes, I gave it a shot anyways.

Lo and behold! It worked!

We decided Lightening should be blue instead of red (apparently red icing looks pink and that will never do for a nine year old boy). Then we made the tires out of chocolates sprinkles and his lightening bolt out of red sprinkles. JJ then insisted I write her son's English name for an extra flare of presentation.

JJ's son called me later that night, overflowing with giddiness over his qi che dan gao (which, JJ told me later, was accidentally knocked off the counter by the uncontrolled giddiness...oops) It took nearly an entire afternoon to pull it off but it was so worth it.

Ha! Take that, Martha Stewart! Those things that look impossible...you know, the things you make look do-able...maybe they aren't so impossible after all!

Life, Death, and something in between

We all know it but we just don't always care to acknowledge it. The cycle of life that ebbs and flows. It just so happens that this past week, all of life's ebbs and flows got shoved into a very concentrated period of time for me.

Life We were oh-so very thrilled to welcome our little nephew, Jonathan Peek, into the world on February 21. My rockin' sis-in-law labored with the little guy for 24 hours before popping out a healthy little boy. Seeing that our time zone is 13 hours ahead of them, we were happier to take her 5 AM call (our 6 PM) than probably the rest of the family. Chris & Sarah might possibly be coming for a visit in July, so we could potentially be able to give this little guy a hug sooner than we thought.

Death My granny has recently been put in Hospice care, which most likely suggests the beginning of the end. She has had shortness of breath recently because of excessive fluid build-up in her lungs. The drugs they are using to treat that are really hard on her kidneys. So it will probably end up that either her lungs or her kidneys will give out on her. I got to talk with her on the phone twice over the weekend. We had a really sweet conversation. A long time ago, she had told me her favorite hymns so we sang "In the Garden" and "How Great Thou Art" on the phone together. Then she told me her faovrite bible verses: John 3:16 and John 14. "You know," she said, "I think John 3:16 sums it all up." I agree, my sweet granny. I agree. I am thankful for her faith and confidence that she will see her savior Jesus face to face because of her trust in him.

Something in between My little friend Emma turned five this weekend. She is Beans previous owner so she is seriously in love with our wee puppy (who, in fact, is not so wee anymore). As a surprise, we decked Beans out in her pink argyle sweater and birthday signs to meet Emma at the park for her birthday outing. Emma was thrilled, Beans was so excited she made a big puddle on the sidewalk. All in all, a good day.

So the collision of all these emotions has made it quite a tiring week. I'm thankful for rest and for the sovereign God who is over all things.

Most Worthless Vocabulary Contest

OK bloggers...it's time for you to weigh in! As I was re-copying my vocabulary collection (see previous post about the hungry little puppy), I realized that our tutor has accomplished an incredible feat. (Well, I suppose we've accomplished an incredible feat as well.) Since starting this new method last November, we have been exposed to, can comprehend, and use hundreds of new words. Consequently, our tutor has also taught us a handful of entirely bizarre words. Kev & I are curious to know which ones you think are the most worthless.

First, let me give a quick explanation of how we study these days. We have a collection of wordless picture books, from which we select a book for the week. Our tutor records himself telling the story he sees, inventing characters, creating their motivations, crafting internal conflicts and dialouges...it's all quite entertaining. After about ten minutes of recording, we stop and listen to his masterpiece. Whenever we come across a word or grammar structure that we don't understand, we pause the recording and "negotiate" the meaning of the word in our new language. It's kind of like a mixture of storybook hour at the local library, charades, and that party game Catch Phrase.

OK onto the contest...These are my choices of our most random words and the pictures from which they were derived by our tutor (who, I think you'll agree, has quite the imagination)


beer belly
bikini
Michael Phelps


punk
to smoke marijuna
rock & roll music


EEG (dear friends who have gone to medical school or like watching doctor shows on TV--is this a fancy word for brain scan?)
X-ray
hospital beds that go up & down
Manhattan
Empire State Building


Siciliy
to extort; to blackmail
to illegally cross an international border
Cupid (yes, as in Valentine's Day)


T-rex (which, if you look closely enough at this picture, you'll realize that dinosaur isn't a T-rex at all...)
prebyoptic glasses (I have no clue what this word means in Asian-ese, let alone in English!)
jurassic period


Tarzan
latin
eating disorder
unlawful entry; trespassing
wizard hat
dwarf


Converse All-stars
revealing, scantily clad
backless shirt
really tight pants
platform heels
senator (this country doesn't even have senators!?!?)

The possiblities are endless for the outlandish things we're able to say now...

What's your favorite worthless word? Any ridiculous sentences you'd like to create out of our word list?

(Disclaimer in defense of our wonderful tutor: we do actually learn helpful words too. Those just don't make a very good blog post)

Hackneyed Excuses Realized

Not that I've ever really given this paltry excuse in my entire educational life but I can attest that it can actually happen...


My dog ate my homework.

During our tutoring sessions, Kevin & I keep journals of all the new words we're learning. It's like our personal dictionary. Very useful & rather time consuming to maintain. Well, one day, Beans decided she wanted to have her fill of vocab, so she snatched my notebook up, ran under the bed (where all her naughty schemes take place), and before I could track her down, the last week worth of class notes had been reduced to shreds. Thankfully, Kevin keeps an identical notebook so I was able to recover all my lost information.

Puppy for sale...any one? International shipping fee included.

On second thought, maybe I'll keep her. I am rather attached to this little sausage dog.

Let the countdown begin!

It's official! It's officially official! My parents, my brother & sis-in-law are coming to visit. In a mere 73 days, I will get a real mama hug. Now the question remains: how to hasten the countdown?

Here are my options:

Option #1) Make a paper chain like we used to do in elementary school to countdown Christmas. But seeing that my ceilings are made of cement, it will be difficult to properly hang said chain for all to see & share in my countdown excitement.

Option #2) Employ one of those "pregnancy countdowns" on my blog. You know, the ones with the prego lady silhouette with the days left until baby comes. But that might send mixed signals to blog readers (if there really are any of you out there...)

Option #3) Busy myself with the finishing touches on the guest room, making a fun-filled itenerary of all the things things we have to see & do (most certainly including the hour and a half massage for $8).

Yes, I'd say that option #3 seems like the best bet. But don't be surprised if you see a prego baby silhouette on the side of the blog for the next 73 days...

The Energy Gluttons of the 4th Floor

Gone are the days of discretion. Gone are the days of a covert envelope arriving in the locked mailbox, informing you (and only you) how much money you owe to the electricity company. Gone are the days...

This is the welcome home we get once a month:


As you can see, the electricity bill for the entire building is posted on the door.


As you can also see, all the numbers surrounding ours are significantly lower. As you can also also see, these numbers are displayed for all to see. And, being the foreigners in town whose strange and curious ways are always worth knowing about, I wouldn't be surprised if any one of our hundreds of neighbors could tell you the exact amount the energy gluttons on the fourth floor are paying this time around.

Water Babies & Monster Coats

In keeping with the pregnancy theme that this here blog's got going on, I've got another story for ya, ags (and other non-ags--this is, after all, an equal opportunity blog).

When I was in eighth grade, I took this class called Life Management Skills. The sole reason I took it was because I heard that you got to take home one of those electronic babies that cries every once in a while to give you the experience of what it would be like to have a real baby. If you don't pick up the baby when it cries, the computer chip logs it as neglect. I think it had water in it too to make it feel more life-like. Well, my baby ended up being broken and cried every fifteen minutes without fail. Around 10 PM when the whole family was trying to go to sleep and the baby kept crying and crying. Despite my protests & fears of failing the project, my mom locked the baby in the garage and let it cry all night. So keep that story in the back of your head as a little prelude...

Our fall semester is about to come to a close at our English school, so we've been gearing up for next semester by recruiting new students. I know it may seem strange that it's nearly February and we're still technically in the "fall" semester, but that's the way things are around here. Their main holiday revolves around the lunar new year, so we'll take off the month of February and start up classes again in March.

So the point is that we've been recruiting new students, which involves going out and passing out flyers at primary schools and pre-schools to all the parents. Have I mentioned that it's been cold recently? Oh yes...perhaps I have. My dear husband even bought me this contraption that's become my winter best friend. It's more or less a hot water bag that plugs into the wall to heat the water inside. You never have to change the water and the sucker can get pretty warm. Throw it in bed at night or keep it in your lap for a while and I'm one toasty lady!

Since it's been so cold, on the first day of flyer pass out, I wore every single layer that I own. Our househelper owns this amazingly warm coat that she let me borrow. I call it a "Guai Wu Wai Tao" (which translates to "Monster Coat") because it has fur on it and it reminds me of a Yeti. To top it off, I heated up my water bag and shoved it down my coat. Sure, it looked a little silly but all is fair in love & warm.



So off I go to be the best flyer passer-outer of all time. But instead having beneficial conversations with parents about how great & wonderful our school is, this is what I happened with one of the fathers:

Father: Oh you're pregnant! How many months are you?
Me: (Long pause...not wanting to admit I've shoved a water bag down my coat) Uhhh...not yet.
Father: Is it a boy or a girl?
Me: Uhhh...I don't know. (Which, in reality, is the truth. I have no idea what gender my hot water bag is)

So there you have it, folks. Another pregnancy run-in. Don't ask my why I didn't just play the stupid foreigner card and say "I don't understand." Why didn't I just say "Oh I'm not pregnant" and be done with it? Who even knows?

I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe my "water baby" helped recruit some students because all the parents felt sorry for the poor pregnant girl passing out flyers in the cold. But then again, if those parents actually do register for classes with us, they might wonder why I never gave birth. Oh well... Even though this "water baby" created a bit of an awkward situation, at least my mom won't lock it in the garage...



(In this picture, I'm standingon the pond outside our house. It's been frozen solid! If you look closely, you can almost get a glimpse of my "baby bump.")

I give up...

It's been cold recently. Like really cold. Below zero everyday (of course, that is in celcius but the fact that it sounds cold makes it feel colder!) Seeing that winter clothes are bulky and wouldn't fit in our limited luggage space, I got rid of most of them when we moved here. All that to say, my sweater collection is a bit sparse. I have this one sweater that keeps getting me into trouble. My friend Rachel Ware even had it sent to me from America but I'm afraid I might have to stop wearing it.

No joke but everytime I wear it someone asks me if I'm pregnant.

Exhibit A:

Shortly after we did our Christmas lecure at the university in December, I received this email:

Dear Becky:
May you happy Christmas Day ! And enjoy your life in [Asia],with your darling and the coming baby.
Yours, Windy

(I had to leave the "Windy" part because I think it's funny that she chose a weather feature as her English name. Hello, my name is Tornado! Typhoon, so pleased to meet you!)

Exhibit B:

I wore my unfortunate sweater to class this very morning. After teaching two classes back to back of pre-schoolers, I thought I was entitled to sit down for five minutes or so before my third class began. But apparently sitting down while wearing the pregnancy sweater is a bad idea because a parent approached me and asked if I was pregnant, even making the round belly gestures just in case I didn't understand what she was talking about. (Which I do, by the way, but almost wish I didn't! Rue the day I learned how to say "pregnant!")

Exhibit C:

Back in the fall, I wore my "pregnant" sweater to school and was asked by another woman when the baby was due. The ironic thing was that I actually was pregnant at the time but didn't even know it. But still, I certainly wasn't showing!

What is the deal here? Did I get fat when I moved to Asia? Does my belly stick out past my toes? Do I need to burn this sweater? I asked all of these burning questions to my local friends. Apparently, it's not my wardrobe that suggest pregnancy but my age . Clearly, every 26 year old woman should have a baby already or be expecting a baby. Clearly.

Oh well. Either the sweater goes or I'll just have to put up with the comments. What I'm really hoping for is that the weather will get warmer so I can start wearing all of my non-maternity clothes again...

Our dog has become a woman

There comes a time in every young female's life when she starts to wonder about the changes going on in her body. Usually, at about this same time, school curriculums swoop in to explain. In fact, I still remember the video we watched in fifth grade. A girl was having a campout with her friends in the backyard when she started her period. Not knowing what to do, she went inside her friend's house where she explained to the friend's mom what happened. Her mom was in the middle of making pancakes and took the opportunity to illustrate the entire femal anatomy with pancake batter. I suppose you could say this video left a lasting impression on my, as I've not been able to ever eat a pancake again without wondering whether my breakfast looks more like an ovary or the uterus.

Unfortunately, they do not offer such great educational materials for puppies or puppy owners. If they did, perhaps someone would have spelled out to me in pancake batter to get your dog spayed/neutered IMMEDIATELY. I thought we still had some time but alas...Beans is officially in heat.

Whatever shall we do? The internet had some helpful suggestions and some not-so-helpful suggestions (like playing soothing music to your dog to calm their nerves...what?!?!) One of the helpful tips was to outfit our little dog with "puppy panties" so she doesn't leave little messes all over the house. Since there are no Pets-Marts around here, we had to improvise:



Beans is obviously practicing her new womanly, seductive charm in this picture. She looks like a puppy pin-up model!

We asked our mama friends if they would be willing to donate their little daughter's retired underwear on Beans' behalf. Snip a hole in the back and we have one diva puppy:



Now Beans sports Dora the Explorer panties when she's inside. This morning, she was shivering so I put on the sweater my parents sent her for Christmas. Now she's dressed and ready to attract every male dog in the neighborhood.



The funny thing about our little dog is that people are actually afraid of her. Not just a little uncomfortable but adults go out of their way not to cross paths with her, children cry and hide behind their mothers. Maybe it's just because pets are a relatively new concept for families here so they're not used to dogs. But I still have to wonder what in the world is scary about a weenie dog in a pink argyle sweater and Dora the Explorer panties? Nothing, I say. Absolutely nothing!

Onomatopoeias and other such things

I have never, ever in my whole life thought about language this much. What it is, what it's used for, why it is the way it is. Never again will life be as easy as walking into a store, moving my mouth around, an entirely intelligible string of commands eliciting forth, and exactly what I expected to happen taking place. Never again. (At least, not while my address is still in the Far East)

On the other hand, thinking about language more and more has made me realize what a subjective and cultural experiment it really is. For example, the onomatopoeia. (Which, by the way, who didn't feel like the proudest third grader in the entire world upon learning such a long & impressive word?) Recently, we've learned in our new language the onomatopoeias for sneezing, heartbeats, and the chug chug chug of trucks. What does ah choo mean anyways? Does my heart really say thump thump?

But these thoughts truly came to culmination when I was teaching farm animals to my kiddos at school a few weekends ago. It's impossible to learn about farm animals and not learn the Old McDonald song. Especially in light of the fact that the McDonalds golden arches are so wildly (and in my opinion unfortunately) popular here. Old McDonalds farm animals talk of course. They quack and moo and neigh and carry on like all good farm animals should.

After about the fourth verse of the song, one of my little students turned to me with innocent eyes and asked, "Is that really what they say in America?"

Now I have a little student wondering what would in the world would happen if Old McDonald brought an Asian duck, cow, or horse to his All-American farm. All because of onomatopoeias...

4 Years Later...

4 years later and I'm still this happy...



Today is our four year wedding anniversary. I love my husband. He is my best friend and the most patient man I know. He somehow refrains from laughing at me when I have melt downs in the kitchen and begin cursing Martha Stewart and during an argument make examples of parents not sending their kids to space camp and feel confident that this is proving my point. He is appreciative for every meal I make him. He brought home a puppy for me when I was sad and still lets me thank him for it every day. He realizes his personality isn't very spontaneous nor adventurous so he lets me talk him into going backpacking in Europe and maybe someday to Australia or Indonesia. He desires to be a father as much as I desire to be a mother. He is one of the most generous and hard-working individuals I've ever met. He loves, loves, loves God and seeks to honor Jesus with every aspect of his life.

Since our third anniversary was more or less eclipsed by jet lag, we're actually going to celebrate this weekend! They just build a really nice Sheraton hotel here in town, so we're taking the day off from teaching so we can go spend Saturday night there. They have carpet! And English TV channels! (OK so I'm pretty easy to please these days...) We have some marriage questions we go through every year to always be vigilant about finding ways we can better love & respect each other, so we'll be taking some time to do that this weekend too.

Thankful for marriage. Thankful for Kevin...

Happy one year Asia-versary!

One year. Twelve months of ex-pat life. This place is home now. Don't get me wrong. There are still those cultural stress moments when I long for the American life where things make sense, where I understand why people do the things they do, and what in the world they're talking about. But this place is home.

Though we lack most of the markers of American adult life that most of our friends back in the States have (an 8-5 job, mortgages, owning and driving a car, kiddos), I still feel like quite an adult these days. In fact, I think I've grown up a lot during the past year of living here. There's something about two visits to a developing country's hospital that will do that to a person I think...

So enough of the musing...on with the humor! Here is our top 10 countdown:

YOU KNOW YOU'VE LIVED IN ASIA FOR A YEAR WHEN...

10) You English is digressing at about the same rate your Asian-ese is progressing. Phrases like "how do we say that in English?" or "what's that word again?" frequent your daily conversation. Not to mention the lovely blend of Asian-ese and English that turns out to be the easiest way of communicating with our other American friends here.

9) Your big forks and little forks, who once were so nicely separated and organized in their own compartments in the silverware organizer back in America, now are forced to cohabitate in order to make room for the big players: chopsticks.

8) You are now the easiest person in the world to buy gifts for. All that has to be done to make your day is for someone to raid the spice aisle at HEB. Basil and oregano now hold as much value as the keys to a brand new BMW.

7) The shock you once experienced from removing black boogers from your nose is now replaced with the shock of a day going by when you are NOT removing black boogers from your nose.

6) People peeing on the street and spitting directly in your path just don't surprise you anymore.

5) The thought of wearing shoes in the house will never seem natural or sanitary again. (For reasons why, please see #6)

4) The first book you actually read and comprehended (using characters mind you!) will be etched in your memory as deeply as your wedding day or the birth of your first child. Most likely, the target audience for said book will be children between the ages of 3-5. (my first one was about six pages long and with a plot line involving two kids climbing a mountain...)

3) When a local attempts to be polite by remarking that you look fat that day, you will receive it for exactly what they mean it: a compliment.

2) The near-death experiences that occur when riding in a taxi no longer scare you. Yes, that bus did just come about six inches from your side of the car. No problem, it's just an open pot hole in the middle of the road.

1.5) Frog legs have actually been prepared in your kitchen and eaten at your dining room table. (Pardon the fractions...had to preserve the symmetry of the Top 10 Countdown while still capturing that real-life experience!)

And finally the top reason you can celebrate living in Asia for a year is...

1) No matter how strange it seems at times, there is no place better to be than the place you're supposed to be.

Thankful for one year! On to the next...