Thank You Uncle Wang!

When we go in and out of town, we often hire a driver to pick us up and run us to the places we need to go. We don't have a car and there aren't taxis in this part of town, so we've become friends with some local people who use their personal cars as taxis to make money. The great part about this set up is that we just call, they come pick us up, we load our car seats in their car and off we go. We don't have to brave the insane traffic ourselves and the best part is-we get to build an ongoing relationship with them as they've become a regular part of our lives. There's Uncle Qi, Vincent Van Guy and his wife Van Gal, and there's Uncle Wang-his name means king and it's fitting for him. We call him the King of Drivers. He kinda rules the roost in our part of town. He was the first driver in our area and he kinda gives orders to all the newbies. Wang is so kind to our family and has really made an effort to reach out to us and our kiddos. He took Andy cherry picking last spring and he's been asking us for a few weeks now if we wanted a "tu." Not sure exactly what he was talking about, we declined. But this week, we figured out what he meant and we agreed to accept his gift....Here's Emma Grace holding a "tu zi" (he kept leaving off the zi part so we weren't sure what he was talking about. But now we know....)

That my friends is a bunny. And here is the other one....

And there is also a GIANT one, which Andy thinks is actually a hare. Not sure the difference between a rabbit and a hare, but the light brown hare is huge. Uncle Wang took us to his house on our way back home and picked out two bunnies for us to raise and one hare for us to eat now. He asked us if we ate meat. YES, we love meat. Not sure about rabbit. He also asked us if we have ever killed our meat ourselves. That would be a resounding NO!


We let the kiddos play with the bunnies when we got home. We left the hare in the plastic bag it came in.

We decided we couldn't keep the bunnies. We live in an apartment and I have a bad history with rabbits. My mom once bought us a rabbit for Easter. Roger was great until we lost interest but still had to go out in the creepy scary dark and feed it every night after we got home from basketball practice. Roger had an under bite and had to have his teeth clipped every month so he could open his mouth and eat. So there was no way we were gonna find someone to give it to. Who wants a rabbit with a debilitating under bite? So for years I had to feed that things in the dark with my heart pounding, sure someone was gonna grab me or Roger was going to bite me.

Emma Grace was a tad distraught about our decision.

But we came up with a great plan! We felt obligated to eat the hare but we had no interest in or ability to kill it ourselves. We decided we would give it to Xiao Li. She has raised lots of animals and even killed chickens so we thought she could help us take it the market and find someone to kill it. Then she could also help us cook it, since I don't know any rabbit recipes and we could honestly tell Uncle Wang we ate the hare. All was well and good until Xiao Li saw the rabbit and decided to couldn't bear to have it killed. Xiao Li, you softy, you. So her mom took the hare on a 7 hour bus ride, I guess in the big plastic bag, to her home in the country....where it will reside from now on. No rabbit meat in our near future. I'm still not sure how I will break the news to Wang that we aren't eating it.

As for the little bunnies-We just don't have a place or desire to keep them. So I decided to see if Milk Gmaw wanted them!! SHE WAS THRILLED. She said, "This is just too great, I was planning to buy some next week and raise them myself!! I will raise them and then when it's time to eat them, I'll invite you over for a feast!" PERFECT. I finally out-gifted her! She gave me a pear as I was leaving...a pear? seriously? I just gave you two live animals. I totally win the gift war...at least for now!!

She's been bringing the bunnies out each day to play. So EG will have lots of opportunities to play with them...at least for now.

What are they looking at?

I think Jack is looking at Emma Grace who is looking outside. She spends A LOT of time in her window sill...her room overlooks our apartment complex's courtyard. There is usually something of interest going on out there-little kids playing, boys climbing the big rock structure and shooting plastic guns at each other, Chinese women dancing in the mornings and evenings. Emma Grace is definitely their biggest fan! We also like to snuggle up in the window sill with some books for some afternoon reading. So thankful for the sunshine and the awesome view we have from our house. We are so blessed.

Here's Another Reason...

Andy and I are gaining weight. Not only did our town get two Papa John's and two Dairy Queen's, we also got....

CHEWY CHIPS A HOY!!! We've had regular Chips Ahoy the whole time we've lived here and we've dreamed for years that this day would come. This happens to be Andy's FAVORITE cookie, outside of homemade ones! When we live in America, he finishes most dinners with one or two of these guys! (explaining our wider waistline while there!)

Laura told us that she saw these in our little convenient store in town. Then today she bought some as a surprise for us. Needless to say, we dove right in. Our dear friends, the Dickeys have sent us these before....woohoo....but now we can get them here! So Dickey's-instead of spending your money on outrageous postage sending them to us, save that money and come see us in person. We will feed these to you after every meal and make your waistlines bigger.

The best part is that the packaging has the same weird, gross, kinda creepy cookie guy as the American ones do!! Check him out. As our friend Chad once pointed out, the only thing grosser than this cookie guy is that toenail fungus medicine commercial where the fungus is a little guy and he lifts up a toenail and goes in. Do you know which one I am talking about? Gross. Ok, I can't eat cookies for a while. I am totally grossed out.

Phase DANGER!!!

Seems like our kids are always in some kind of a phase. These phases go almost as quickly as they come. There's a phase for everything it seems...a sleeping great phase, a bombing the morning nap phase, a I just discovered I have hands phase, a put everything I touch in my mouth phase. Well, Emma Grace and Jack have both happened to enter the same phase at the same time. I really hope it's just a phase and will pass really quickly. I call it "phase DANGER!!!!"

For Jack, it invloves his ability to crawl and climb. He can go just about anywhere he wants and he does. He's climbed the stairs several times while we were looking the other way. He has tumbled down a stair or two but we have no major injuries to date...

For Emma Grace, the problem lies in the fact that her abilities are far greater than her common sense. Her physical abilities matched with her crazy personality and her 2 year old reasoning makes for a diaster waiting to happen. This phase just came upon us out of nowhere. In the past week, here are a few things she's done that might help you see what I mean about the "abilities>common sense=disaster" formula.

She somehow reached up on a cabinet, grabbed a candle, extinguished it, and filled the candle with water from the water cooler.

She got scissors from Andy's desk and began cutting one of Andy's books.

She undressed herself and got in the sink to give herself a "sink bath."

She came running to me and said "what is this?" She had found a string of unused firecrackers on the ground.

She cleaned her hands with all purpose cleaner. Guess she took the "all purpose" thing seriously.

In all seriousness, I've been praying a lot for her lately. Please join me. I am hoping her common sense will catch up to her physical abilities really soon!!!!

A Few Analogies

Andy has an amazing ability to make analogies. Sometimes he uses simple analogies to explain a complex concept to me. Other times his analogies are just plain silly.

Yesterday he told me that changing Jack's diaper was like being a wildlife officer trying to tag a wild animal. You know how they capture the wild animal, wrestle it into submission, tag it as fast as possible (all the while it's squirming and kicking) and then the moment they loosen their grip, the animal goes running or flying back into the wild. That analogy is dead on.

He's love for analogies is rubbing off on me...

Yesterday Andy cut my hair. My hair was getting too long and there aren't many options for a good haircut in my neck of the woods. Last time Laura cut my hair, but I was in desperate need of a trim and I didn't have time to go borrow the scissors from the local hair cutting place and find a time for her to come over and cut my hair. (why I won't let the actual hairdresser who owns the scissors near my hair is fodder for another post) Anyway, I was desperate. So I cut as much as I could in the front and then I talked him through how to cut the back part. I couldn't actually see what he was doing, but I told him exactly where to cut and how to hold the craft scissors.

I told him I felt like we were on one of those shows where a group of people is lost on an island and the only doctor in the group gets really sick. He of course has to talk a terrified trembling member of the group through how to take out his appendix with a pocket knife in order to save his life. Though we're not on a deserted island and it wasn't really a matter of life or death, Andy was as scared of cutting my hair as most people would be of performing surgery with a pocket knife and no training.

As for what my hair looks like now...Andy says the back of my head looks like the roof of a Spanish style home.

Eastern NC BBQ in China???

Last week we had a double date with Matt and Laura. We got all dressed up, went out to a nice dinner, had great conversation about deep topics and then saw a movie. HEHE. Just kidding. That's not what happened AT ALL!!!

We had 5 people under the age of 4 in attendance, so it was more like our family had a date with their family! Instead of dinner and a movie, we opted for a more family friendly option-we had a picnic and played outside. Laura and I made Eastern NC BBQ, homemade Mac n Cheese, Hushpuppies, a fruit salad and a banana pudding! It was so yummy and so North Carolina! (I give all credit for my BBQ to Andy. I first started making it about a year ago and it's now a family fave! He had been asking me to make it for over a year and I kept refusing because I was convinced I could never make anything close to what we can get at home. We had a bet about something and I lost so I had to make it for him. I was pleasantly surprised at how GREAT it turned out! It tastes really similar to what we can get in good ole Burlington NC!-It's made in the crockpot and has apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, salt, red pepper flakes, and hot sauce. It tastes even better after it's been in the fridge for a day! So since then, NC BBQ has become a regular on our menu!)

After all the kiddos were down for the night we played a rousing game of spades. I think the final score was 90 to -34. Something terrible has happened to our spades skills-it's called marriage. Before we were married, Andy and I were great spades partners. Me, being a risk taker, a bite-off-more-than-I-can-chew kind of person matched with my conservative, play it safe boyfriend made quite a team. My risky bidding was perfectly matched with his play it safe nature. He always seemed to be able to bail us out when I over estimated our hand and I took the risks that landed us the lead. But marriage is changing us. We are both moving to the middle, becoming more like each other. The changes that have been great for other areas of life and our marriage in general are WREAKING HAVOC in our spades game. Just think how bad we'll be at spades by the time we are old and gray!

Creative Movement

Emma Grace and her favorite buddies in the world attended their first dance class today-"Creative Movement" taught by Julia. They happened to be the only students this week. There was lots of laughter, frilly dresses, spinning, one busted lip (EG), and lots of creative movement! All in all, I'd say it was a huge success and lots of fun! Emma Grace came home and promptly enrolled all her babies in a dance class-she's the teacher of course!

Our new Camera

We love our new camera! Can't wait to play with it some more!

Going to the Zoo Zoo Zoo

We had a great time at the zoo last week. Since then, we've been singing the Raffi song, "Going to the Zoo Zoo Zoo, How about You You You?" Jack now loves that song and smiles when he hears it! The zoo was really neat. We were able to touch and feed lots of animals! Jack hung out on my back the whole time and even slept for an hour!

"That was Good!"

Since there were two Chinese holidays right in a row Andy has some time off. We went to the Zoo earlier this week, which was AWESOME! I'll post pictures soon! We decided to use the rest of the time to divide and conquer. There is a list a mile long of things I have been needing to get done so today he's keeping the kids so I can work on my list. Tomorrow I'll keep them and he'll work on his equally long list!

This morning while I was getting Jack dressed, EG was downstairs checking to see if we had any yogurt in the fridge-her favorite breakfast treat. When Andy and went downstairs she came running to the bottom of the stairs and said, "That was good!" I asked, "Do you mean the yogurt, Emma Grace?" still trying to figure out how she managed to reach it in the fridge and get a straw open and into it. "No, that, " she said, pointing to my coffee cup. I am pretty sure she drank about a fourth to a half of a cup of Starbucks regular coffee. What a way for Andy to start his Daddy Duty Day! I'm upstairs and so far it's been surprisingly quite in our house...guess the caffeine hasn't quite kicked in yet!

Miss Independent

Emma Grace likes to dress herself. She's getting really good at putting on her own clothes, even underwear, socks, and jackets! It has revolutionized my life. I usually pick out the clothes and she puts them on. This day, however, she picked out her own clothes. She calls her slippers her cowgirl boots. Not sure where she got that.

My first date

I remember it well. He was the Man of my dreams. We wore matching clothes and went to this romantic little dive called McDonalds. He didn't have a car of his own, so we had to have a chaperone drive us around. My mom took lots of pictures as we were leaving. He was embarrassed about how many pictures she took, but she didn't care and neither did I!

We had a great time and I'm looking forward to many more dates with this man in my future!

The Spring City

The current number one reason you should move to our city...

Roasted Duck Anyone?

Hmmm, I'm feeling hungry.Let's see what I can find to eat in here.Ahhh, some duck. It is a Chinese delicacy, you know. So good.

Oh so good.

Let's just put that behind us

My lack of blogging recently is an indication of how OSP went-it was much harder than I expected, harder than the previous OSP, and harder than I could have imagined. Even with all the preparations I had made, it was really hard. But Andy is home now and I am so grateful. So I kinda want to put OSP behind me and pretend it never happened. Actually, by God's grace, I was able to spend time with him each day and to shower-two factors that highly influenced my survival during the time Andy was away. I'll spare you all the details but suffice it to say, I am so thankful I'm not a single mom. Now, let's move on to happier topics.

Did I tell you Andy is home? Yes I did. Ok, what else? Did I tell you we've had two major Chinese holidays this week? Here goes- It was the 60th Anniversary of the country on Thursday and it was Mid Autumn festival today. Usually these two holidays don't fall so close together but since they do and since it's the 60th anniversary of the country, lots of people are off from work for 8 days. We received and gave moon cakes for Mid Autumn Festival and I am pretty sure ours won't get eaten just like the ones we gave out. It's so weird, but no one really even like moon cakes but it's a must to give them anyway. Did I tell you that someone in our apartment complex bought a really loud rooster this week to eat for Mid Autumn festival?? It was alive and making it's presence known for a few days before the holiday. It's gone now I think. Did I tell you we bought AN AWESOME camera today and it will be here in two weeks? I am so thrilled. It is a digital SLR camera, which takes great photos and has a video feature that does up to 20 minutes of video. So I am hopeful that we'll put more videos on the blog!

Did I tell you that it's 8:17pm and I'm gonna go to bed?