Frist day time post

Well this is my first blog post from America where the sun is up! We've been up every night between 1 and 3 am, which seems to be a great time for blogging. But hopefully we are getting back on the right track with sleeping and I will be able to start doing some regular business hour blogging.

Aside from the jet lag factor, we are doing well. Just trying to keep warm in this surprisingly cold NC fall weather! We all miss China but are glad to be here as well. EG talks about her A Yi and her friend NaNa everyday but she's also enjoying some special American treats-like playing outside in my parents' yard, chasing their cat and picking up lots of sticks and rocks.

The view from my parents' back yard. Fall is amazing.

What's an NC fall without pumpkins?

There's lots of room to roam here...

And plenty of rocks and sticks to gather and throw in the pond...

Heading to the water...

Trying to get Dan to eat a stick...

And my personal favorite-what a contrast-my sister, ready for her Fall Homecoming dance and me, still in my airplane clothes, no shower, and about to fall asleep...

I have showered since this picture and even found some maternity clothes that fit me! I was starting to think the maternity clothes industry had a conspiracy against me-all the jeans that fit me were high waters and the ones that were long enough fell off me. Yeah for clothes that fit. I am starting to agree with the Chinese maternity clothes philosophy-From the time you are showing til the baby is a month old, it's standard practice to wear pajamas-all the time-everywhere. I like it.

On a serious note, every time I return from China, I realize that I have been greatly affected by our time there. I am not the "American" I used to be. But I am not Chinese either. It's a hard and strange and wonderful thing that is happening in my heart and I wouldn't trade it for anything. There's a constant tension of feeling not exactly at home in either place, yet an often intense longing for whatever place I am not in at the time. I've been praying that I would enjoy the wonderful things about each place and that these strange feelings of being "not at home" in either world would make me long more for my eternal home-the place I will feel totally at home. Everything about China and America that fill my heart with joy and delight my soul are mere reflections of the "at homeness" I will feel with Christ. And the ways each place falls short and leaves me longing for something more are meant to point me to the one who will fulfill all my longings in himself. In him, I will be at home. I look forward to that day. Thank you Lord, for not letting me "settle in" here on earth. I am a pilgrim and I am glad to walk my earthly journey in two great nations that both delight me and at the same time leave me longing for my real home. Thank you sweet Lord.

8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. 11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.
13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

Another 3 am post...

Due to some serious jet lag I haven't been much for picture taking but here's a list of a few things I should have taken pictures of:

Emma Grace's first taste of Chic Fila

Emma Grace gathering rocks in my parents' driveway-there's more than she knows what to do with but she's determined to pick them all up and hold them all at the same time

Our first spin at driving a car...we drive like we are Chinese. Dangerous.


The "medium" drink I ordered today which was way bigger than the large in China. I will be going with the small next time.

The deli ham I had on my sandwich at 1 am last night. Amazing. I think I'll make another.


Emma Grace grabbing a picture off the fridge of some of her "A Yi's" from China, bringing it to me and saying "A Yi" over and over! Precious.

Emma Grace playing "quietly" with her toys the living room at 3 am due to jet lag. It's a little louder than "quiet"-she is currently pushing buttons on a firetruck. The little fireman just blew his horn and told her to call 911 in case of an emergency. Wow, I bet my parents are having a hard time sleeping right now. Sorry about that.

But due to some serious jet lag, I haven't been much for picture taking! I am hoping my little one will is gonna get over this need to have a 3 am snack and playtime really soon-otherwise I'll be doing more incoherent/no pictures 3 am blogging for a while!

We Made It!

While getting on our last flight to Raleigh, Emma Grace starting saying, "No No No!" She was excited to fly at first but when it was all said and done she'd had enough of "airpanes." Overall she did great and we are thankful to be hanging out in our PJ's at my parents house!

To our disappointment, Emma Grace didn't really like Chic Fila. We'll keep working on her though!

Well, I am so out it that I can't think of anything else to say. I am pretty sure I need about 3 days of sleep.

30 hours...

I'm playing a mental game-wanna join?

If I was given the choice between these two, which one would I choose?

30 hours travel from door to door-which includes 3 flights, 3 people (one of which is 16 months)and one has a big pregnant belly and only 2 seats. OR....

30 hours of labor

I mean labor is more painful but then again, there is always the epidural. Wondering if I could sign my family up for some sort of "knock out" drug for the flight?

Ok, well I don't have a choice. One thing is for sure: 30 hours of travel with my big belly, a toddler and 2 seats is definitely in my very near future. I just hope and pray that 30 hours of labor is not!

We're packed and pretty much ready to go. Heading over to the K's to eat some of Xiao Li's Chinese cooking one last time. (by the way, she came over last night to visit and brought some homemade cookie dough for us to bake cookies-how is it that she is Chinese and can out bake me? Not fair.)

We'll leave our house at 9:30 tonight and fly from here to Korea. We'll have 5 hours in a hotel there before our long flight-landing us in Atlanta at 1:00 pm Sat. Then we'll eat our Chic Fila and hop on our last flight to RDU. We'll be seeing those NC fall colors in less than 2 days! Though we aren't excited about the flights we are excited to see our families really soon! Yipee!

Please say a prayer for us-for safety and smooth travel and especially for EG as she adjusts to a new place, new time zone and lots of new faces! (and an extra seat on the flight too!)

Conceding Defeat

Today, October 21st, 2008, I, Erin Ashley Huffman concede defeat in the Gift Giving War with Milky G. As you know her reflexes are quick-she threw me a quick jab in the gut with the bag of bananas immediately following my flower arrangement punch. I thought I would be able to get back on my feet, recover a little and figure out what gift I should reciprocate with but I thought wrong. She shows no mercy to this rookie gift giver! While I was still in shock from the banana jab and stumbling to pull it together, she totally knocked me out. I had no time to come up with a gift. Today, just a little over 24 hours after the banana jab, she put me down for the count-with another bag of dumplings.

I should have expected to lose...I mean, I was battling on her turf and let's face it-she's a pro and I'm a newcomer to this whole gift giving war. I wonder how many others she has out-gifted in her 60 years? I was a piece of cake for her, I'm pretty sure!

But I may come back for more Milky G-I got moves you've never seen! Come February, when I'm back from the land of plenty, I'm gonna show you a gift or two!

I know-she looks mild enough holding these sweet kids, but don't be fooled-when it comes to her maintaining her Gift Giving Championship Belt, she's fierce!

My little helper and the war I can't win

Emma Grace is my very wonderful little helper. Whether I'm doing the laundry, sorting bathing suits (see above) or outside looking for trash, she's great at helping me! Ok, I don't really pick up trash outside but she's great at finding it and bringing it to me! She and I have become the official trash collectors for our apartment complex! Her "helping" is much appreciated but can lend itself to things getting a little misplaced! I found a necklace washed and dried this morning-that would be from her helping me with a load of laundry a couple days ago. And when I just can't seem to find things I'm looking for, they always seem to turn up in a random drawer in which she was playing! We're in a very fun stage where everything is interesting to my little girl. Here she is picking some flowers for me! I like those a little better than trash!
And of course hanging out with Xiang Xiang in the courtyard...

Seeing her best buds in the world, Nana and Ydia (Julianna and Lydia) walk into the courtyard...(check out my belly!)Nana with a cute puppy...
Remember my last post where I was proud of myself for being "chinesey" and giving Milk G a gift? Well, here's what I've realized-I've gotten myself into a gift giving war that I am pretty sure I can't win! My kind gesture was reciprocated two days later with a big bag of bananas. I am not sure what to do at this point! Do I just keep trying to one up her to show my love? Do I stop giving and concede that she loves me more than I love her? Not sure. Still working on that one. Aside from giving her my firstborn, I am pretty sure there is no way I can win this war. Along the same lines-we had Uncle Qi and his wife over a few weeks ago and they of course returned the favor this week! Matt kindly reminded us that we needed to bring a gift to their home. In this culture it is very polite to bring a small gift when invited to friends' homes. It was kinda last minute when we realized we hadn't prepared anything...but I figured a bag of bananas would do the trick! SHHHH....don't tell!

With three little girls running around, the place was lively! I think they really enjoyed it and Emma Grace ate her weight in some type of green beans with peppers. That was encouraging to me as a mom, since I had managed to feed her McDonald's for two out of the three previous meals. Here she is going night night with their giant bear!

On a final note...this week is going to be really crazy for us! We decided to head back to the America 10 days earlier than we were originally planning. (That puts us on American soil at 1:00 pm Saturday and at Chic Fila at about 1:17 pm-we have to change terminals to get to the Chic Fila in the Atlanta airport so that explains why we'll be on American soil for a whole 17 minutes before we have those mouth watering chicken sandwiches in hand!) With only two weeks planned in NC and a list of a gazillion things to do while there, we figured we needed a little extra time to rest and recover from jet lag and spend good time with the family! We are super excited but my packing is coming along a lot slower than anticipated. Might be because I have such a wonderful, sweet, cute, but totally inefficient little helper following me around, undoing most of what I accomplish! Ok, off to do some organizing while my helper rests from all her hard work!

I'm so Chinese...or not

Some days I feel so indigenous. I do something that feels really Chinese and I feel super proud of myself, like "yeah, I'm getting the hang of this culture." And then other times I realize I have so much to learn about this place.

Here's an example of me feeling proud for being "chinesey": After our flower arranging lesson I was trying to decide what to do with my very Chinese arrangement. (I am proud of it because I felt like it was so non-western looking but I also didn't actually like it very much for the very same reason) Anyway, so what do you do with a something you're proud of but don't really want to keep yourself? Give it to your grandma of course! That's what I did! I gave it to Milk Grandma. It was kinda my turn to give a gift. She gave me the dumplings recently so the ball was in my court. She seemed to like it and I felt really proud of myself for being so Chinese! Gift giving is not my love language but it definitely speaks volumes in this culture. Yeah me for making a Chinese flower arrangement and then giving it to my neighbor!

And here's a recent example of how far I have to go in learning this culture: Last night Andy and I were out in the courtyard with some other foreign friends and their kids. We were having a great time playing our American game of freeze tag and decided to teach the 10 Chinese kids out there how to play with us. It was going great at first but there were too many kids running around so they were getting "unfrozen" way to fast! We decided we needed to make the "get unfrozen" process a little harder. So I suggested that they had to crawl through the persons legs that they were wanting to unfreeze. Sounded good to me. Andy told them this rule in Chinese and they all busted out saying, "NO! NO! NO!" Why didn't they like the new rule? First I thought that they just didn't want the game to be harder. But then I decided I knew for sure what they were thinking...THE GROUND HERE IS SO DIRTY! WE CAN'T CRAWL ON THE GROUND. That made total sense to me but they were still yelling, "No! We can't!" It turns out they didn't care about the game being harder nor did they care about the dirty factor...they were scared of ghosts! Little did I know, in this culture which believes heavily in superstition, they think that if you crawl through a persons legs you will call out the ghosts. Talk about coming from two different worlds!

It's the little things like learning how to love people in their "love language" that encourage me and make me feel like I am a part of this world. And it's also the little things, like seeing how my American child game is unthinkable in this culture, that keep me humble and make me realize I have so much to learn!

Flower Arranging Class

Yesterday some girlfriends and I went to a flower arranging class. It was at the wholesale flower market that we went to back in August. I got some gorgeous flowers while there for next to nothing and the best part by far was learning the Chinese art of flower arranging! I must say that the definition of beauty really does vary from culture to culture! Check it out and see what you think of Chinese flower arranging!

The teacher (who happened to have a really thick accent) As if trying to learning flower arranging in my second language wasn't hard enough-he had to have a thick accent! I got the basics of what he was saying. One thing I did pick up is that Chinese flower arranging is all about the paper!

As you can see, each individual flower must be wrapped in several layers of paper and then put into a bouquet type arrangement which must also be wrapped about 10 layers. No joke!


Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of the finished product but it was HUGE and had lots of paper surrounding it. We learned how to make the bows that go on the finished product. Here we are sporting our handicrafts!

They didn't have any blue ribbon...

My personal favorite was learning how to make the stand up arrangements more so than the bouquets. Here's Laura working on hers!
And here I am pretending to add something to the teacher's. We learned that in flower arranging it is important to have straight lines, circles, triangular shapes as well as depth.The teacher's finished product:Here we are holding our finished products. I managed to get the straight and the circles but failed on depth and triangles. Laura did a great job with depth.
My arrangement at home. It got a little damaged on the ride home. Oh well! I am sure you still think it's beautiful.

That's Chinese flower arranging in a nutshell! What do you think?

The Sling Box

Andy's computer savvy uncle, PJ came to the rescue once again! He has been our go to guy for all sling box repairs (which we seem to need more than you would think) The sling box is something that allows us to watch what's on Andy's parents TV-pretty cool from our computer, huh? We can even fight over the channels from our computer. Andy mainly uses the sling box to watch college football and basketball. He is quite committed to his Mountaineer football and Tarheel basketball, getting up at all hours of the night to watch games. Unfortunately our Mountaineers aren't doing so hot this year. BUMMER! The one time he can actually watch the games and they aren't playing well. But at least he can watch them now! This is light years away from our first year when he could, at best, listen to the game and sometimes not even that!

On that note-here's a funny story. Andy went to drastic measures to watch football his first year. He actually brought over a VCR so his mom could send him recorded games. One day he received a package from his mom and I asked him wait to open it until I arrived at his house for our date later that night! I wanted to see him open the package which I knew contained a "football party"-it had tapes of games, snacks and even a football shaped chip bowl. Andy was so excited when he opened it and asked if we could cancel our date-instead of taking me out he wanted me to stay in and watch football with him. Now, being the wonderful, understanding, selfless girlfriend that I was, I said yes and was secretly fuming. I know, that's bad but I was expecting a night on the town with my romantic man-not hours of recorded WV high school and college football. Anyway, since the VCR was from America he had this special power converter to make it work. Evidently he had the setting wrong on it and about 5 minutes into our football party we start to smell smoke. We heard a "boom" and then a giant cloud of smoke came rolling out of the VCR. Can you imagine our reactions? He was almost in tears. I, on the other hand, was having a hard time controlling my secret satisfaction. I know, I am terrible! I can't remember what we ended up doing that night but the memory of that giant smoke cloud has stayed with me! As you can tell, the poor guy has had a long road to getting to this point where he can watch games live! Thank you so much PJ! You're the best!

It's going around

It's going around. First Lydia had it and now EG has a full blown case of it. It's only been a week or so since she started showing symptoms and it seems to be getting worse. Don't worry-it's not a very serious sickness, it's just the LOVE BUG and Emma Grace has it bad...for one person...her Momma!

She will not let me leave her side! Out of no where she has decided that I'm not only her favorite friend, but also her only friend! She won't even play outside with Xiao Li, which tells you something. Aside from Andy and me, Xiao Li is her favorite playmate right now and playing outside is her favorite past time! What's a mom to do? Stick it out I guess and keep encouraging her to have other friends besides me! I am sure one day I will be missing these days where she cried when I left her sight. But for now, I am just hoping she gets over this Love Bug before our 3 day anniversary trip to the beach in just about a month!

We had a fun weekend. Xiao Li and I took EG to KFC on Friday evening for some dinner and a quick trip to Walmart to stock up on some special new toys for our long flight back to America. Thing is, Emma Grace doesn't really like fast food. We've finally gotten her to eat a cheeseburger at McDonald's but she'll have no part of what KFC is offering. This is normally a good problem to have but not for us, not here. Living in China where our western food options are few, we eat at these two restaurants more than I'd like to admit. We never eat at either of these in America but something weird happens when we land in China-they both sound very good to us all of the sudden! Anyway, we're gonna keep working on Emma Grace.

What she does enjoy is Xiao Li's cooking! We went to their house this weekend for dinner and she ate lots! Here are a few pictures.Xiao Li cooking my favotire potato dish...

By the way, she made sweet tea and a carrot cake that was better than any carrot cake I've ever made. How does it feel to have a Chinese person cook American food better than me? Humbling.

On Sunday we went to the Shickleys for the afternoon. While the kids slept, we watched a football game they had downloaded from Itunes! Andy thoroughly enjoyed it! After a fun weekend we are playing it low key around here and starting to get things together for our trip to America. I can't believe it's three weeks from today! I made a pumpkin pie today and am planning to make some pumpkin bars with cream cheese icing later this week. My goal for these next 3 weeks is to eat as much stuff from our freezer as possible and right now we have a lot of pureed pumpkin in there. Well that's all for now. Hope you are having a great Monday. I am heading to bed...it's 8:19 pm. May read til the clock strikes 9, if I can make it that long!

Our little community

One of difficult parts of living here is being away from our families. But one of the neat aspects of living overseas is the relationships we are able to build with other foreigners here. They are like our family in many ways. Julianna and Lydia are like cousins to Emma Grace and we parents are able to really enter each other's lives and serve as family to one another since we are so far from our real families. They are the ones we share the ups and downs of everyday life with, who I call when my child is sick, who I celebrate birthdays and holidays with, who I go out to each lunch with on Sunday afternoons and of course who we watch UNC games with! We are thankful for each unique family God has placed around us and we truly believe the community we have here is so special. We are all learning to live away from our families, in a culture so different from our own, and we lean on each other in more ways than I can count. For example-When Andy was out of town and my power got cut off...(we won't mention who forgot to pay that power bill and left their poor wife alone for 8 days with no power-check my previous post for how much I really do love my hubby) anyway, when that happened I moved in with John and Alisa and John made me pancakes in the morning. Alisa gets me bread every time she goes to the grocery store near her house because it's really inconvenient for me to go there. Kayleigh is wearing some of EG's clothes that are too big for her right now. Laura and I have ongoing text conversations throughout the day about how things are going and I we have a running tab of who owes who money for all the things we help each other purchase-I am pretty sure I owe her 4 kaui for the the snickers she bought me the other day on our walk! Marianne and David come out sometimes on Sundays for what we call "Dean Day"-they just spend the day out here with us and we get a chance to play and share the things that are really going on in our hearts. We have murder mystery parties, we carve pumpkins, we cheer for each other's kids on their way to their first day of preschool! I love these friends and I feel so grateful that God has given them to us as our second family. These guys are the ones we are living life alongside and I couldn't have picked a better bunch myself-of course Sheryl and Andy, if you guys want to join us over here, I'd be tickled pink! And also Tim and Kathi and Dan and Lynnette-we could help you find an apartment right here in our complex if you're interesting in moving.

Along those lines, we have a moms group that meets every other week. What might you ask is a moms group? Well, it's just 6 moms who get together to eat chocolate, laugh and talk, pray and discuss things about our lives, our kids and our relationships with Christ. So, I thought you might find it interesting to learn a little more about our group by the numbers. A few weeks ago we had our kick off moms group for the year and I did a little calculating. Here are a few numbers and facts about our group:

13

number of years of combined experience we have as moms

7 1/2

number of years we've spent pregnant

Constant throwing up, nausea, dizzy headaches, varicose veins, pregnancy brain, leg cramps, kidney problems, sciatic nerve pain, indigestion, fatigue, dizziness, inability to drink diet coke, swollen feet, inability to sleep in our favorite positions, passing out, fainting, stretch marks, and bad complexion.

All the symptoms our pregnancies have brought along with them!

61/2

number of years we've spent nursing children

35, 430

number of diapers we've changed so far (give or take a few)

4,745

number of days we've spent knowing and loving our kids and being blessed to be moms!

And just think-all our kids are 3 and under! What will these numbers be in ten years?!!!

So there's our moms group in a spreadsheet. I am thankful for God' s love shown to us through these precious people.

Today's Top Ten

Here are 10 reasons from today why I am so glad I married Andy:

1. We prayed together this morning before starting our day. I love to come to God first thing with the man that helps me know him more!

2. He saved me the last pumpkin muffin for breakfast, even though he wanted it.

3. He picked me wild flowers on his way home today.

4. He's totally willing to change diapers-and he's excited about our switch to cloth diapers-even though it means more work for both of us!

5. We had this really hilarious conversation about the invention of toilet paper today (and debated what they used before then) He googled it and we had a great time laughing at what they used before toilet paper. Glad I was born in the 20th century! I'll never look at corncobs the same way again.

6.. He is wearing my favorite shirt, which happens to be pink. I love my man in pink.

7. I told him I want to get a baby sling to carry Buffy and he said he was unwilling to wear it. He's gotta look out for his manhood-he's still a man's man even though he wears pink. I like that he has some firm boundaries set up to protect his manhood.

8. He fed Emma Grace for me just now because I was exhausted-this third trimester thing is wearing me out.

9. We both enjoy eating, as you well know from our blog-so we are heading out in about 5 minutes to pig out on some cheap western food. Burgers-Enchiladas-Milkshakes. That's what I'm talking about. I really like that my man loves to eat as much as I do. What would I do if I was married to a sunflower seed-organic-tofu eating super health nut who looked down on my love of real food? (I'd hide in the closet and eat my Cheetos, that's what I'd do) Thanks Andy for letting me come out of the closet about my love of food.

10. He's really cute...did I mention he looks great in pink?

He's such a servant in our marriage-an area I really need to grow in! I pray I can love and respect him in the same measure he cares for and serves me and Emma Grace!

In other news-Buffy is moving like crazy and wearing me out! I took two naps yesterday and one today. Sprinkled in there were several sessions on lying on the couch, motionless, as if I'd been hit by a truck. I am so tired these days. We had a fun moms time last night and I am going to post some numbers about our group tomorrow. You should get a kick out of our mom's group "by the numbers!" Well, we're off to stuff our faces.

Happy Birthday Charlie!

Today, Oct 7th is my brother's birthday! Happy Birthday Charles Phillip Ross! You are one of my favorite people in the whole wide world and I am celebrating this day with a thankful heart that's full of memories of all the fun we've had together over the years! (And by the way, I'm sorry I made you walk from the high school to the middle school when I was late for school-I still feel really bad about that. See the middle schoolers weren't allowed to be dropped off at the high school because it was a little dangerous for them to walk to the middle school as they had to go through the bus parking lot and along a driveway where cars were driving. But I of course, being the selfish teenager that I was, made him walk when I was late. He would run from bus to bus and dodge behind them to avoid being seen by the principal. I am really sorry for that Charlie!) But I think I made it up to you when I helped you pick up brush in our front yard when that was your punishment for something you'd gotten in trouble for. It was about 120 degrees and we moved much faster with my "method" of picking up brush-though that got us in as much trouble as the first thing you'd done! HEHE. We won't drag all our family secrets out on the blog!)

Isn't he cute...

Can you be a state champion at age 6? Charlie was! His pee wee football team won the state championship!

Mom and Dan's wedding. Why did I have that haircut? You were way too cute while I, on the other hand, looked like a boy with big bangs in a puffy dress. And the man you've grown to be!
We're so proud of you and can't wait to see you while we're home this winter! Lots of love and Happy Birthday to one the neatest guys on the planet!