SLEDDING VIDEO

SLEDDING!

We've enjoyed an incredible amount of snow since we arrived in the "north" last week! It snowed within hours of us getting to North Carolina. We arrived in West Virginia to several days in a row of snow! We even had a fresh couple of inches when we woke up on Christmas. It's been a welcome winter wonderland for us flamingos.

Yesterday we took Lucy and Zoro (The Huffman dogs) on a walk on the carriage trial. The dogs had a blast running in the snow and we really enjoyed hiking the trail in the snow. We played with ice sickles, made snow angels and enjoyed the snow covering the woods!

Today the kids went sledding right across the street. There's a little hill that's the perfect size for them! Tim was at the top of the hill to give them a little push and then Andy would stop them before they went into the road! They loved it!!!!!

Jack, our little dare devil sled by himself and even put his hands in the air!! Way to go Jackie!!

How could I resist making hot chocolate for these two cuties????

Celebrating Christmas

An excerpt from my favorite Advent Devotional Book, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus.

People love to celebrate. People love to break from the routine of life and celebrate. All over the world right now lights are strung and special music is being broadcast and trees are decorated and gifts have been lovingly purchased and lavish feasts are being prepared. The curse of C.S. Lewis's land of Narnia was that is was always winter but never Christmas. What monotony and tedium and bleak weariness! Life must be punctuated with celebration. It's a universal human impulse. And where did this inclination come from? God created us this way. "What is the chief end of man?" the Westminster Catechism asks. "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever." Now, that is celebration worthy of the name!

And we who belong to Jesus have powerful reasons to celebrate. God has come to us. God has shown us that this life is not the only life we will ever know, and that this world is not the only reality we will ever experience. God has thrown open the gates of heaven to us through Christ his Son. We have seen the celebration going on within those gates. And that's where we're headed!

TIME TO CELEBRATE!! Merry Christmas from the Huffmans!

Thacker Christmas

Jack and Emma Grace have loved playing with Sophie! Even though it's been cold, we've spent a good amount of time outside!We also enjoyed lots of indoor fun too!

Tonight I'm seeing my brother and extended family! Pictures to come!!!

Emma Grace's First Snow Man

On Friday I wore flip flops and short sleeves. We were excited to come north for colder weather. It started snowing within two hours of us arriving in North Carolina! A lot of it was gone today but Dan still took Emma Grace out and helped her make her first first snow man!


How cute! YAY for grandparents! We have lots of fun planned for the next two weeks!

One hour and counting

I have one hour at Starbucks and I have a lofty goal! While I'm sipping my Holiday Caramel Brulee Latte, I'm going to attempt to go back and update my blog from this past two months. Typically I just post when I have time, and if I'm too busy I just skip out. (see the past few months that only have 2 posts in them? That's because I've been a tad overwhelmed with life!) But, there are so many great things that have happened and I don't want to leave them out. So in honor of Alisa, the most faithful retro blogger I know, I will attempt to catch up....in one hour!
Happy speed blogging to me! So scroll down to Nov 1st to retro read our life!

A Fun Age

Emma Grace is at a fun age for helping in the kitchen! She helped me make cupcakes for Jack's Birthday! She loved doing the sprinkles. And her favorite part? Washing the dishes. I think she takes after her Aunt Katie (Huff) in being super neat and tidy! She got all dressed up for the occassion! Here she is enjoying the fruit of her labor!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACKIE BOYA!!!!

YAY for Jack's 2nd birthday! We had a great day celebrating this little gift from God to our family. We starting with pancakes and a gift and ended with cupcakes! I love that kids feel special with such simple things like balloons and cupcakes! It was one of those days that just felt really long, in a good way. Kind of like God multiplied our time as a family.

Jack is our tender warrior. Just last week he was doing some stunts off some stools in the waiting room of the doctor. Every time he'd do his final jump he'd run over to me for a kiss and then he'd head back for more kiddie stool domination. I love the special combination of tenderness and courage I see in him. He is certainly made in the image of his Heavenly Father. We love you dear Jack and pray you will come to know the tender warrior who came conquered sin and death for us because of his tender love for us, his people. He came as a humble servant, he will return as a conquering Champion. You reflect his image dear son. We love you and we are proud of you.

Rambling thoughts about my life

There are days when I miss China so much my chest hurts. It's a physical ache that I imagine many grieving the death of a loved one know well. It happens when I get a reminder of our life there-I smell a China smell (a good china smell, not the gross ones!!) like I get a whiff of really strong garlic or I hear someone in the store speaking Chinese (and I stalk them!) or when I listen to Chinese music. Yesterday I closed my eyes and pretended to be in heaven listening to a bunch of Chinese people singing.

The busyness of settling in is mostly over. The "fight or flight" reactions to being in a new place are now being replaced with deeper emotions. It's a sort of grieving I think. All in all, it's good. It's healthy. It's normal.

The one things that I've missed the most and I knew I would are my friends. Friends. People who know me. I mean really know me. It's really disorienting to move to a new place and be totally unknown. People don't know our story, our history, our families. Everything with everyone here has to have a preface, an explanation, an introduction. I am so grateful for this year we have here and the program we are involved in. There's a lot of structure to help us get to know people but like anywhere, it takes time.

I've felt my humanness more this year than in many past. I'm needy. I'm vulnerable. I cry a lot. All my new friends here probably think, "Oh that EA, she sure does cry a lot!!!" No one needs me. No one needs my prayers, my butter (I like to stock up in China!), my texts of comfort and understanding, my knowledge on whatever subject, my ideas, my size 2T boy clothes. No one needs me. I know that will come in time here and I am so glad for that. I think I will be more thankful for community this time around. Not having it is hard and I've realized my need for the body of Christ more than ever these few months. It's also been freeing in a way to come to the Lord and to this new place "offering nothing"- to be stripped of what I have to offer in some ways and to be in a position where no one depends on me for anything, I mean not even butter. It makes me think about coming to the Cross empty handed, being there totally to receive mercy and love and grace from Jesus and not offer him anything. I think I'm growing to like that.

Impromptu Christmas Photo

It's Snowing!

We attended a really fun "Christmas Around the World" Party at Andy's work tonight. It was actually fairly chilly. They had lots of food from different parts of the world and the focus was on Asia this year! So fun! They had dumplings and noodles and Chinese Acrobats and Japanese drummers! They even had a Navity/petting zoo area! We got to pet a donkey! They even had fake snow! Jack was obssessed!

A tribute to our Life Group

One of the neat blessings of this year is the program we are participating while we transition back to the US. It's been a TREMENDOUS help to have so much input into our lives as individuals, as a couple and as parents. We're a part of a group that meets weekly to hear from God's word on different topics. We also have the privilege of hearing from one another and sharing parts of our life stories. It's been such a blessing to hear from people who have lived all over the world what God has done in their lives. One of my favorite parts of this year is our life group. Our larger group is divided into small groups, called Life groups. Our life group meet every other week to process life together, to pray together, to eat and laugh and share very openly and intimately what God has and is doing in our lives. This group is just incredible. We have so much fun together and they are a huge part of our lives this year so I wanted to introduce them on our blog!

Daniel, far left is a UNC grad. He and Andy carpool to work together! He is loyal and witty! Christina, bottom right is a sweet and tender friend. Jodi, bottom middle lived overseas for 11 years. She's sincere, full of life and fun! James and Alex (Green sweatshirt and black vest) lead our group along with Jodi. James is kind and funny and has played a huge part in God leading us back to the US. Alex is incredibly insightful and has "carried my burdens" this year. Hiroko, far right, is from Japan but speaks English better than I do. She brings the fun factor up about 5 notches in our group with her awesome sense of humor. She is a breath of fresh air. Erin and Brett, both in red in the back lived in China for 10 years! Though we didn't know them there, it's been really fun to get to know them now. We have lots to talk about and joke about since we both lived in China! Erin is my work out partner. Basically, she makes me go workout and I am grateful. She is laid back and kind and delightful. Brett is sincere and has a great sense of humor. He also keeps us laughing.

This group has been such a big part of our lives this year! We are so grateful for each new friend!

It's cold here, sort of

I took this picture on the way to the post office this morning. It's starting to get cold here. Well, cold by Florida standards. You know, like down in the 40's at night. We are loving the cold and excited to wear our winter gear. By the time we walked the 1/8 mile to the post office I was stripping off my winter stuff. Ok, it's not really cold here.

Our Christmas Tree

Here is our Christmas tree from last year:

Although it was fake and the middle strand of lights was a little dim, we loved our tree. We got it when we returned to China after getting married. As you know, Kathi Huffman is quite particular about her Christmas decor. Andy follows in her footsteps. Although we like real trees, he and I prefer traditional Christmas tree look over the tree being real. And since we couldn't find any trees that looked remotely like the perfectly shaped Frazier Firs that we grew up with, we decided to stick with fake. But fake in China can be tricky too. Most fake China trees are pretty sparse. So after looking high and low, we found the perfect tree. The only problem with it was that it was COVERED in fake pine cones and fake snow. So my dear husband spent several hours clipping each and every last pine cone off the tree. Then he beat each branch and got as much snow off it as he could. We were left with a great looking tree, lightly dusted with snow. Andy was left with a pounding headache from all the fake snow he inhaled. I'm not sure why I am telling this. I guess all this to say, that tree was meaningful to us because it was with us all of our married years in China and we loved the way it looked, despite the fact that it used all the power in our apartment to run the lights. HEHE. So even though it was fake, it was hard to say goodbye to this dear tree. But leaving it was made easier by the thought of getting a REAL tree this year. And here it is, in all its glory....drum roll please.....

I know I know. It's ugly. And not real. And 4 feet tall. What in the world happened? I'm not sure exactly but I'll just say once we got it up, I cried. Actually, we are going to be out of town for two weeks at Christmas so that was the first strike against getting a real tree. And the second was just how busy and overwhelmed with life we have felt since making this transition back to the US. Andy first mentioned that he thought we should "go simple" this year and surprisingly, against my nature, I readily agreed! That's so not like me. I like big and bold and fun and complicated. Not simple! But this year I just went along with it. Even though I was sad not to have a real tree, it was nice to just decorate simply this year. We only used ornaments that have special meaning to us so it's a fun tree to enjoy! I was kind of sad about how little it looked so I put it up on stand to make it look a little bigger. HEHE. Maybe next year will be the year when we get that perfectly shaped real tree. My favorite part of the Christmas season so far has been reading Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus, an Advent devotional book. It has really helped me to understand more of the goodness of Jesus as I reflect on different aspects of his coming to earth. Andy just plugged in our pre-lit tree and said, "It doesn't look that bad." Oh, Christmas Tree! Oh Christmas Tree! How ugly are your branches!!!!!!

Perfect

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. James 1:17

You know those times where God just works something out and every detail is just so perfect that you know it's a gift perfectly crafted by your Heavenly Father who knows you so intimately and loves to lavish you with exactly what you need? OK that's a long sentence. But you know what I mean. Something that's just so perfect you can see God's intimate care for you in every detail. That's what our weekend with the K's was for Andy and me. From the flight only costing 13.99 plus taxes and fees to having the treat of staying at Andy's parents beach home! My parents got to come down and keep EG and Jack and I think all parties involved had a great time.

The beach was beautiful and quiet. It was sunny. We laughed and cried and prayed and ate and played cards and watched movies. It was the perfect amount of time to be have deep conversations and fun too! Matt and Laura are our dear friends from China. We laugh that God sent us into exile together out in this little town where we lived for the past 3 years. We learned lots of lessons out there doing life together and both of us have learned a lot about how to be a friend. A lot of the people from our town actually thought our two families lived together in one apartment! Although we didn't go that far, I would say we lived such interdependent lives that we are as close as family. I treasure this sweet family. God is writing an incredible story in their lives and we've had the privilege of sitting on the front row and watching it for these past few years.

As if that wasn't enough, God put the icing on the cake with an unexpected trip to NC. it didn't work out for us to fly from Wilmington, so we drove with Matt and Laura to Chapel Hill where we met my Grandparents. They picked us up and we spent the night with them so we could fly out of Greensboro the next morning. I would have never guessed how life-giving those 12 hours in NC would be! We ate NC BBQ on the way to meet my grandparents. Ahh, what a treat. And it snowed in NC that day so we got to drive through rural NC and see a winter wonderland and look at lots of Christmas lights. Andy and I often talk about how people are connected to places. I will be forever connected to North Carolina, like the Israelites were to their land, I imagine. It brings life to my bones just to be in my hometown.

And we spent a sweet late evening and early morning with my grandparents. We had sausage biscuits courtesy of the Breakfast King, my grandfather! What a sweet sweet gift from the Lord. Andy and I drove to the airport in a winter wonderland, just praising God for his goodness to us. We even crossed paths with my parents at the airport and got to catch the details of how their weekend went with our kids! I left my house a mess. It was my parents so I felt only mildly ashamed! HEHE. But I came home to a clean home, laundry done, doors and drains repaired, bathrooms clean, microwave not gunky anymore. It's the little things. Well, and the big things. This weekend was full of little and big gifts from the Lord all wrapped up in a perfect package for me and Andy to receive!!!

Christmas 2010

Each year we purchase an ornament for our kiddos. We hope these ornaments will mark each year and help them reflect God's faithfulness to our family We'll pass them on to them once they have their own tree! This year's ornaments....

Moving to Florida is a HUGE part of their stories. God has led us here. We see that it's his perfect provision for our family to be here for this season. We aren't sure how long we'll be here but we are looking forward to seeing his plan unfold as we enjoy flamingos, palms and lots of sunny days!!!!