Wednesday

Two things near and dear to my heart... Had a fun and VERY RELAXING day today. Emma Grace and I went on a walk in the morning and stopped by starbucks for an iced caramel macchiato. Then we came back for a nap (both of us) and then over to a friend's house for lunch. In the afternoon we both took ANOTHER nap then headed out for a walk and met another friend for lemonade-it's easier to go and do with Emma Grace while we are here because she gets bored with the very few toys I brought for her. So walking around and visiting friends with kids (and their toys) makes for a more enjoyable day for both of us. Camera batteries died after this picture but I will try to get more tomorrow!

Out of Town Update

Howdy! We are doing well and enjoying some time away from home and the normal routine. We are staying at some freinds' home who have a small fenced in back yard so today EG and I sat out on the grass for a while and played. True to form, Emma Grace tried to eat the grass and leaves. I think I mananged to keep most of it out of her mouth, but I can never really be sure. We've gotten to visit with some friends here and have eaten a lot of western food and some really yummy local food as well. Emma Grace and I made a run to starbucks yesterday and I had a caramel macchiato and she and I split a blueberry muffin-she loved it! We might head back tomorrow! The past two evenings Andy and I have watched the BBC series, Planet Earth, which is just fascinating! You should check it out! It's amazing what's on this earth. I hate when they show little baby animals being hunted though-that's the worst.
I also wanted to let you know that I am 3 for 2 on my napping goal. Meaning I've mananged to take 3 naps in 2 days! I am more indigenous than the locals! Hopefully I can remember to get the batteries out of the sound machine (thanks Tim-we love that thing!) tomorrow morning and put them in the camera so I can take some pictures for you to see what we are up to! Well, hope you are doing well!

Heading out of town

We are heading out of town for the week. The exciting news is that the city we are going to has some good western food, including Papa John's pizza and my personal favorite, a starbucks in walking distance from the place we are staying. They also have incredible local food as well-way better than where we live! We are staying at the apartment of some friends who are back in the US to have their first child so it works great for us. It's much easier to stay in a home with Emma Grace rather than a hotel! They even have a crib so we don't have to lug our pack n play there! Andy will be busy in the mornings so I am guessing EG and I will make a daily run to starcucks for my caramel macchiato and hang out with some friends in area.

In other news, I'm becoming more Asian everyday. Recently, I've picked up the East Asian habit of taking a nap in the afternoons-anywhere from 20 mins to a whole hour and a half! Somedays I fall asleep reading and just nap for a few minutes and then other days I actually get in bed for a real nap! East Asians are serious about their afternoon naps. It makes sense because they often work really long into the night. High School students get out of class about 6pm and often have tutoring and then homework-staying up til 2am-so a nap becomes a necessity as you can imagine. For me it's much less of a necessity and more of a luxury! Though sometimes taking care of a little baby makes me feel like I've stayed up til 2 am! Anyway, my goal this week is to try and catch a nap everyday while EG naps! I'll keep you posted on my progress of indigenization!

Around the house

Here are some Saturday photos for you to enjoy!

Emma Grace loves playing with the wipes. They are a preferred toy over many of the other more expensive ones! I usually let her take one or two out of the package before taking them away. There is no doubt she would pull out every one if I let her! As we were playing with a wipe, which took a good 5 minutes of our day, I made it into a hair bow for her! I can't wait til she is ready for real hair bows! How cute!

My mom commented that I always seem to keep Emma Grace clean....this picture is proof that what you usually see on our blog is not the whole story! Here she is after finishing some banana vanilla wafers for her snack.
Her newest talent is pointing. She like to point at everything! Her favorite things to point at are the pictures on the refrigerator. She gets really excited when she points to the one of herself and I tell her, "that's Emma Grace!" She usually starts bouncing around and laughing. I really do think she is pointing at things so that we will tell her what they are. She's growing and changing everyday!

The reasons I love Saturdays

Saturdays are my one of my favorite days of the week.

Here's why:

Andy is off so we get to spend lots of time together.

We like to sleep in on Saturadays. Let me clarify, that means we wake at the late late hour of 7 am when Emma Grace wakes us up talking in her bed. We get her out of bed and put her in bed with us to play and have her bottle. Fun family time!

We usually talk with Andy's parents on the webcam while having our morning coffee...still in pajamas

We try to go outside and do something fun later in the day...the park, out to lunch, etc.

Saturdays nights we get to catch up on the TV shows we are into. Right now those are American Idol and Lost.

Right now we are in the pre-webcam, making coffee, still in pajamas phase of the morning! Just thought I'd say hello and wish you all a happy Saturday!

Andy's Birthday

Happy 27th Birthday Andy! We started the day with some homemade cinnamon rolls. These things are really yummy...you should check out the recipe on allrecipes.com. It's called "clone of the cinnabon" Here's the funny thing. I accidently left out the sugar when I was making the dough. oops. The good news is that the filling and the cream cheese icing more than made up for the lack of sweetness in the dough. Next time I will remember the sugar though! Emma Grace had some cheerios for breakfast while we enjoyed the cinnamon rolls. Your time will come EG! Check out Andy in his new robe-a birthday gift from me. Andy bought me a really nice robe for our anniversary this year-I am really glad I have it here in the cold winter but I wasn't quite as happy when we were packing it to come over. it weighs about 20 lbs and took up half of a suitcase. Also, check out Andy's new hairdo. I like it. Kinda reminds me of my brother.

Later in the morning, the Kvernens, some local friends and I surprised Andy with a trip to the nearby xue lan milk factory. Sounds like a wierd birthday outing and it is....but Andy has been telling me for about a year now that he really wants to tour the milk factory that is about 5 minutes from our home so I made it happen! We're both really into knowing how things are made. That's why we own the series "Unwrapped."

So, a few weeks back I went with Xiao Li and set up a tour for us and our friends. (sorry I forgot the camera) It was interesting...the only problem is that the tour was in chinese so there was a bit that got lost for us foreigners. Oh well. I did learn the word for "milking" as in milking a cow. We also learned that the milk that gets delivered to our home every afternoon came out of the cow that morning! wow-that's fresh! After the tour we ate donuts (which we brought) and had fresh yogurt...we asked for chocolate milk but somehow that got lost in the language too and we ended up with yoghurt. Oh well...nothing like a big glazed donut and some blueberry yogurt to hit the spot! hehe.

Originally we planned to have a picnic at a nearby park for dinner and enjoy the awesome weather we've been having but it's turned off quite cold. So option B...we had a picnic at home (I made Andy's favorite Janet Holtz chicken salad on homemade croissants) and watched our current favorite-AMERICAN IDOL! We also had a homemade keylime pie. So all in all, a great day for Mr. Huffman. Thanks for the birthday wishes for him!

Ultimate Frisbee Bash

In honor of Andy's Birthday this week, we hosted an Ultimate Frisbee Bash on Saturday to celebrate with some of our foreigner freinds here. We rented the field in our local town and everyone headed out here for a morning of ultimate frisbee and some THRILLS FROM THE GRILL! We lugged the grill (a gift for his birthday a couple years back) out to the field along with all the fixins' for a great lunch! We had grilled chicken sandwiches and hot dogs along with chips, drinks, watermelon and cupcakes! It was a treat for everyone to have food from the grill, as we are one of the few families that owns a grill here.

It was a blast and the food was really yummy! The best part-NO INJURIES! You might remember we had a Broomball party for his birthday a couple years ago that was a lot of fun but ended with a dislocated shoulder and a broken tailbone!

Our town has a really nice soccer field. Here;s the crew getting ready to play.

Here are the Kvernens warming up for the game. Couples were on the same teams to protect marital harmony.

The spread...

Emma Grace also enjoyed some of the lunch spread. While I left to grab something and Andy was "watching" her she managed to get a hold of my bag of Lay's potato chips and eat a few before I caught her! Notice she has them spread all over the blanket. oops. I guess Andy was having too much fun at his party to notice his daughter chomping down on those salty greasy can-choke-a-person-who-has-no-teeth chips! HEHE. Just kidding. We all got a good laugh, I took a picture and then we took them away from her!
What a fun saturday morning! Happy Early Birthday Andy!

Happy Birthday Andy

Andrew Reid Huffman is almost 27 years old! I just love this man and know he's the perfect man for me! The blog is usually a place where we share the mundane details of our daily lives for the grandparents and other blog-addicted freinds. (I am addicted to reading other's blogs too!) But today I thought I would share with you a little of my heart. I hope this entry encourages you in your marriages and encoruages my hubby too as he reads these words. Most of all I hope it encourages us all to press on as we pursue knowing and loving Christ.

It all started 9 years ago on a Friday afternoon in August. I met Andy on our way to the "Great Adventure Retreat" hosted by a Christian group on campus. We became instant friends and he was my first real guy friend who I'd seen passionately loving and following Christ. Four years later, on another Friday night in August we officially starting dating. This was an exciting stepping stone in our relationship. I'd always had a special connection with Andy-we could talk about anything, laugh about everything and I could tell he really geniunely wanted me to love Christ more. I could totally 100% be myself with him and know that I would always be unconditionally accepted. It was his kindness to me that I most appreciated and that drew me to him. There was a rare freedom that I felt with Andy that I knew was a reflection of God's acceptance of me and the freedom I have with him. Andy is steady, I am often changing. Andy is gentle. I can be harsh. Andy has deep roots in the Word of God. I am a newcomer to this fountain of life. But I had some "letting go" to do before I could totally embrace this relationship as being THE ONE!!! I had these ideas of the perfect romance with the perfect romancer. Through God's grace to me, I have slowly come to the belief that marriage is about way more than romance. Though romance is a good healthy part of marriage, (which I really like!) I am more and more convinced that God uses marriage to primarily help us-to help us to know him and love him more and to help us to be more like him. This life is really about one thing: knowing and loving Jesus Christ and our marriages are a big way God graciously helps us to do that! It was only because of God's grace that I, the ultimate over-the-top-in-love-with-the-idea-of-being-in-love-hopeless-romantic, came to believe that this is true. So, after some "letting go" and some "picking up" of these new beliefs about marriage, Andy and I had another special Friday night in August, 3 years ago. Becoming Mrs Huffman has one of my greatest most treasured privileges in my life. The reason is that I love "doing life" with Andy and most of all because I know and love Jesus Christ more because of him. Because of his love for Christ, because of his and my own shortcomings and struggles with sin and the way those make us desperately dependent on our savior for both grace and help. And for the way we both encourage each other on when the journey seems really long and really hard. We know we have a great and awesome hope awaiting us and we can remind each other of that when the days get long. So April 24th is a great day for me. It's a day I get to celebrate and thank God for making this wonderful, sincere, Godly, struggling yet depending on Christ, knower and lover of God and his word-my husband, Andrew Reid Huffman. I love you! Happy 3 days early birthday!

Naptimes are great for...

Naptime is the perfect time to get a lot accomplished. Here's a whole list of things one could do during your child's naptime:

Laundry

Getting ready for dinner since your child is most fussy at the normal 5-6 get dinner ready hour

Mop the floor from where a big glass of milk was spilled this weekend and not well cleaned up

Take out the starting to stink trash

Read a deep theological book

Wash the big pile of dishes in the sink

OR

one could sit down with a snack of cheetos and pepsi (this is the second time I've mentioned this snack on the blog-not a good sign for my health) and write on their blog about all the things they should be doing! you can see which one I've choosen. While I'm indulging in the latter and better choice, I'll post some pictures for you!

Emma Grace talked to her Grandma Nette this weekend on the phone...here's how the conversation went:

EG: Hello? Mamma Nette is that you?

EG: So when are you guys heading our way?EG: Can you repeat that, I think I heard you incorrectly!

EG: WHAT????You're not coming til this fall....That is insanity. I can't wait that long to see you!

EG: Listen Granny, you better get over here soon, cause I miss you and I want to see you ReeeeeaL bad!

10 months!

HAPPY 10 Month Brithday Emma Grace Huffman! We love you more than you can imagine!

Emma Grace is 10 months! She is currently screaming her head off in her bed while I write this blog entry. One of her new talents as a 10 month old is to sit up on her own. She has been sitting up in her bed when I put her down for her naps. This isn't a huge deal except for the fact that she hasn't figured out how to lay back down on her own. So Andy just went in there and layed her back down but she is not happy!

Here is a picture from earlier when she was happy!

I only got a few good shots and then she started getting fussy so I grabbed a piece of candy (still in the wrapper of course) and handed it to her, thinking that would make her happy and she would smile for the camera. The result was she tried to eat it....

Now here's where my strategy failed...The candy made her happy but she wouldn't put it down for me to get a good face shot...so I took it away. not a good idea....

So there you have it...the ups and downs of the life of a 10 month old. Man, Emma Grace, your mom is MEAN!

Pizza Party for Dinner!

Last weekend I had a pizza party for Dinner...not the meal but the person! On the right is my little buddy, Dinner. That's his English name. I am not sure where he got that name but that's his name. To his left is his buddy, Cindy-who I am almost positive is a boy. I guess picking a name in a language you don't know is really like taking a shot in the dark! So, here's my question: if you were going to pick a chinese name, what would it be and why? We've had freinds with all kinds of strange English names such as Success, Apple, Antler, Silly, Rico, and my new favorite, Richest! (not Richard)

Anyway, this weekend this crew of kids along with my neat friend, Wendy (in the back left) came over and I taught them to make pizza. I tried to teach them in a way that they could do at home if they wanted so instead of making my own crust (which I'm bad at anyway) I just bought some "bings" from the local market and used them as the crust. They are kinda like an oversized english muffin and I sliced them in half for the crust. No one cooks in a oven here, so though we made our pizzas in the oven, I told them how they could do this at home with the microwave. They had a great time and really enjoyed playing wtih all of EG's toys (and EG too, once she got up from her nap) Most kids here, especially ones from the country didn't have toys growing up and they have never seen anything like the toys Emma Grace has with all the sounds, buttons, etc! So they mostly played with her toys while they watched the movie cars and ate their pizza.

I've not been good at blogging these past few weeks. It's taken me a few days to really recover from traveling with Emma Grace! I took several naps after we got back and last night I fell asleep on the couch at 8:30. Andy and I were attempting to read Jane Eyre, a book we've been reading for the past 6 months now. By the time he'd read 3 pages I was already asleep. I can see why he gets frustrated with me when I say, "Let's read!" He gave up and I went to bed. Traveling just takes it out of you and it's taken me a few days to get back into my groove here. So hopefully I'll be better on the blog this upcoming week!

trip to Bangkok

We are back from Bangkok and have great news! Emma Grace officially has no kidney/urinary tract problems! We are thrilled for that news and also really happy to be home. Traveling with a baby in the "New York of the East" is not really fun-nor convenient-they certainly didn't have our hoopty stroller in mind when they designed the sidewalks! We had some fun family time and Andy got to see a movie, which he loves to do. I had my share of starbucks and 3 fresh squeezed lemonades and homemade pretzels from Auntie Anne's! Here are a few highlights via pictures...

My highlight of the trip was putting Emma Grace in all her really cute 12 months summer outfits. I was wondeirng if she would have a chance to wear them but the 90+ degree weather gave us plenty of opportunity! (We actually returned to 80 degree weather here so it looks like she will have a few more chances!)

Thanks to Aunt Katie H for this cute outfit


Some of the books I've read on parenting say you should take the paci away after the first few months-the theory is that their sucking needs have passed after a few months and you want to take it away before they get attached. I couldn't disagree more... Let's just say I am hoping she has this thing til she's five! I can see the reasoning behind it, but man, a paci is a really nice thing to have in hand while on a 3 hour, after her bedtime flight! She loves it and also loves to play a game where she puts in my mouth and then tries to steal it back from me! We usually only give it to her at night and at naps but a trip out of town is a special occasion and we need all the help we can get in keeping things under control.

Our main purpose for going all the way to Thailand....the amazing hospital. BUMRUNGRAD. Asian prices meets state of the art medical facilities and Harvard trained doctors! What more can you ask for in a hospital? The only thing i can think of is a Starbucks and they have one. This picture was taken the morning of EG's VCUG while I drank my caramel macchiato and EG checked out the cool water fountain in the middle of the lobby. Looks like a nice hotel huh?She doesn't know what is about to happen....
AHHHH Get me out of this place....
After a long day at the hospital and a recovery nap for all three of us we headed out for the "secondary but also very important" reason we traveled to thailand....

All in all it was a good trip. Traveling with a 10 month old who has quite the personality along with all her mother's opinion is less than easy. So needless to say we were glad to get back home! We are so thankful she is better!

Afternoon at the Park

My favorite day of the week is Saturdays! Andy takes the day off and we get to spend time as a family. Yesterday we headed to a new park about 25 minutes from our house! It was awesome! We picked up KFC on the way and had a picnic. Emma Grace loves being outside and so do we. The weather in our city is amazing right now. maybe 80 with a nice breeze. This park is definitely our new favorite family spot. It's huge, has rides (for when EG gets olders) but also has a lot of more natural areas-a huge pond and plenty of grass that you can sit on (this is a big deal considering it is usually illegal to sit or walk on grass here) I guess in a concrete jungle like a city of 4 million you have to protect the little grass you've got! Here's EG with her cheerio container. This is one of her favorite snacks!
Family lunch...

AFter our trip to the park EG needed a snack! (cheerios and yoghurt-she is quite the snacker!) Here she is drinking her yoghurt out of a straw. We usually got on a walk every afternoon after her nap and buy a yoghurt for about 20 cents! She demolishes it!
I'm a big girl. I can hold it myself.

Well we are headed out to Thailand in about 5 minutes! Will try to update from there!

Amusing...

I thought the challenge in finding one of those special tools to wash the outside of our windows would be my inability to speak the local language well. Boy was I wrong.

Here's how my quest went:

I walked into the first store and asked the lady, "Do you sell those special tools that you use to wash the windows? You know the ones that wash the inside and outside at the same time?

She looked at me absolutely dumbfounded and just didn't speak. (a good 5 seconds of awkward silence passed) I finally said, "do you know what I am talking about?" To which she replied, "we don't have them." I was pretty sure she had no idea what it was that I wanted anyway, so how would she know whether or not they sell them? So I decided I would look for myself. Unfortunately this store is not very stroller friendly and I decided to give up after walking down a couple of aisles and head to a store that I knew had more cleaning products.

Attempt #2:

Me: Do you have those special tools that you can use to wash the inside and outside of your windows?

The lady at the register: do you mean glass cleaner?

Me: No, you know those specials tools that have two parts that you can use to wash the inside and the outside of the windows?

Lady at Register: look in the back

At this point I was hopeful. She didn't say no, so that was a step in the right direction. I headed to the back and the other workers were pointing out different things that they were guessing I meant. On my own I spotted the tool I wanted and here is where it got difficult:

Me: oh this is it! how do you say this thing?

Worker lady: do you mean, how much is it?

Me: No, I mean how do you say it?

She then points to some characters on the box that I can't read. At this point I decide to ask the questions she seems dying for me to ask.

Me: so how much is it?

Lady: I don't know

We both look at the box and the label to see if there is a price

Me: So do you know how much it is?

Lady: hold on, I'll be back

After returning says: it doesn't have a price

me: it doesn't have a price?

Lady: No

Me: So can I buy it?

Lady: Ofcourse you can buy it but it doesn't have a price

Me: so how do I buy it?

Lady: come back later

Me: I walked kinda far to get here. Is there anyway you can find out the price?

Lady: silence

(I decided to change strategies at this point)

Me: Ok, who knows the price?

Lady: at lunch

Me: well, can you call them and ask?

Lady: hold on

(calling)

Lady: they don't know

(Calling another person who gives them a price that they think is too low)

Finally another lady in the store decides to just sell it to me at the "too low" price. I guess my persistence paid off.

Just when I thought I was starting to understand this culture, my quest to find a window wiper goes and blows all my illusions.

Here we are enjoying the UNC game last sunday morning. Emma Grace is really inito the game!
Cutest UNC FAN EVER!!!!

We had a great trip to a near by city to viist some friends. There were two families and some local friends that we went to see! The city is very big and very polluted...but they do live right above a starbucks. I managed to make 3 trips in the 48 hours we were there! It was fun to see other families. We had a total of 7 yougins all together. A little chaotic but fun! It's encouraging to see what God is doing in other parts of the country. Here's a fun pic from our time. Emma Grace and her best bud Lydia are playing ball! EG is the picther and Lydia is batting! Last night I went on a double date....

HeHe. Actually I went on a double date with Matt and Laura and my hubby (not the chinese man!) But the chinese man is Qi, our dear friend, neighbor, uncle (I call him that as it is appropriate in this culture) and our driver. The four of us plus Qi went out last night. We first went to a local muslim resturant and had really yummy lamb, spicy fried chicken, stewed lotus root, broccoli and a type of muslim bread. It was yummy. Then we headed to the ice skating rink to see a hockey game. (this is where we had Andy's broomball birthday party-which was a blast but unfortunately included a dislocated shoulder and a broken tail bone. this year we are having an "ultimate frisbee bash" and grilling out-we rented the local soccer field!) Anyway, back to ice hockey. Hockey is not very big here, just like in the southern USA but Matt, who is from North Dakota filled us in on all the rules and some of the culture of the game! Our local team played "team USA" (which was a group of middle aged balding men from boston who weren't that good) we mostly cheered for the local team. We invited Qi to come in and watch the game with us. I think he liked it but said he wanted to come back in the summer-it was cold! notice he has andy's jacket draped over him. we finally convinced him to wear it but he wouldn't put his arms in! He is a really fun guy and so nice to Laura and I. He takes us all over the place!

GO TEAM USA!!!!

In other news, Emma Grace is really close to crawling. She can get up on her hands and knees but then she just scoots backwards. we are working on the forward movement thing, but at least she is moving! I think she is getting more teeth. She's been fussy and drooling a lot lately.

We are hitting the road again on Sunday. Unfortunately we have to go back to Bangkok to get a VCUG done on Emma Grace (basically a test to see if her urinary tract is developed properly) we will be there through Thursday. If the Tar Heels make it all the way, we will be watching the game in Thailand. I am tired from traveling-this semester feels like it's been busy but I am excited to make a little trip to Outback Steakhouse! ok, talk to you soon!