In Loving Memory

......................Chris Phillips and Vickie Johnson

This has been a tough week for my family because of the passing of my dear aunt, Vickie Johnson. We are rejoicing that she is at home with the Lord and can't wait to see her again. But her passing leaves a void in our lives that no one else can fill. Vickie loved Christ and was committed to his work in this world. She was also the most organized person you will ever meet! If you ever needed a closet or a purse or a sock drawer organized, she was your woman! One of my favorite things about my Aunt Vickie was her thoughtfulness and her generosity. She reflected God's character to all of us in this way. She would come up with the most thoughtful gifts or find ways to help that most people would never think of. Being the mother of 2 boys who she loved dearly, she still had a special place in her heart for little girls and always did special things for me growing up-you know, girl things! She loved Emma Grace from the moment she found out I was pregnant and showered both of us with the most thoughtful assortment of her own children's "favorites" from when they were little-books, special music, etc. My home is full of sweet reminders of Vickie-the recipe box she gave me for wedding, filled with our family's favorite recipes will be a gift I treasure my entire life. Oh Vickie, you would not be so proud of me if you saw how unorganized my recipes box has gotten! A life that reflected God's love for people and his thoughtfulness. Thank you Father for creating this precious person and allowing all of us to know and love her and to be known and loved by her. We will miss her so much and we look forward to our reunion.

I was very encouraged by my friend Kim, who posted this verse on her blog after her mom passed recently. I wanted to share it with you, as it has been such a source of encouragement and hope for me as well.


"For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed, but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come." (2 Cor. 5:4-5)

My friend pointed out that this verse says that our bodies are swallowed up by life, not death! It's exciting and encouraging to think that Vickie's body has been swallowed by life and that the life she is living now, at this moment, is more real and more wonderful than anything we can imagine! Oh praise our sweet Jesus for the hope he gives us in the life to come! Vickie, we miss you dearly but we can't wait to see you again!

Pickles, Pizza, and the Pool

Sunday night here and I am getting ready to head to bed after a fun weekend. Xiao Li and her little sister Xiao Min came over on Saturday to teach me to make dill pickles! It was really neat to learn and I think I can do it on my own now. I can't really take any credit for these pickles because they did everything and I just watched! These women are PRECIOUS! They both love the Lord dearly and love each other so much! They moved to the city together from their small village to work-they have both helped foreign families for about 8 years now! Xiao Li LOVES Emma Grace so much and is such a blessing to our family! She helps me in sooo many ways and she has truly become one of my best chinese friends. We've both cried to one another, laugh together ALOT and she helps me understand more about the culture! Now she's teaching me how to make American pickles! She's Superwoman.
The result...we have to wait a few days before we can open them. They have some red pepper flakes in them so they will have a little kick to them! Will let you know how they taste!

I snapped a picture of what Andy was doing while EG slept and we made pickles.... GO WVU!
We had a fun day today also! After church we went out to eat with some new friends at Pizza Hut. We weren't planning on eating there until the end of our book-it program but they wanted to so we did. We are still planning a personal pan pizza outing if we read enough books. We finished up Swiss Family Robinson and we are on to Count of Monte Cristo. If we don't get enough stars on our book-it chart to get the personal pan, it will be MY FAULT! I always fall asleep during our reading sessions. Andy is powering through several other books outside of our joint reading. He's currently sitting beside me reading right now.

After EG's nap today we went to a nearby pool that I recently discovered. It was a lot of fun! This time I remembered to bring my bathing suit (see Wednesday's post) but still mananged to look a little silly swimming. We had to wear swimming caps at this pool, which of course being the non swimmers that we are, we don't have. So we bought some really awesome looking ones at the pool. Emma Grace was the cutest thing ever. I wish I would've taken my camera. She had a pink swimsuit on with a pink swimming cap. Next time I go swimming I think I will go all out and wear my teal 80's swimsuit with my newly purchased red swim cap. With my just-starting-to-show pregnancy belly, it doesn't get any funnier looking than that!

Super Baby

These days going outside presents quite a challenge. Emma Grace loves to be outside so we try to spend lots of time outside-searching for puppies, cats, roosters, looking at flowers and waving at everyone who walks by (literally). We have a lot of fun together on our walks and we usually end our walk by singing a few of our favorite songs on the way to the house. But going outside can be a little challenging because EG doesn't know how to walk yet. She enjoys holding my hands and walking for a while but gets tired and wants to revert to her super hero power-crawling. Seriously if my child were a super hero her power would be that she can crawl at lighting fast speeds! So I spend a lot time trying to get her not to sit down and crawl through red mud, dirt, or whatever happens to be on the ground.

Yesterday we took a trip to campus, where Andy teaches English. This place has changed so much from when we first started teaching there! It was literally a few buildings and a lot of mud. The red mud is still readily available for speed crawlers to plop their hands and knees down into, but for the most part the campus is covered with greenery and trees. They even built a really nice duck pond-we saw some ducks yesterday, chased a dragon fly, heard a big bull frog and even crawled in a little red mud. Here's a picture of Emma Grace standing at her stroller by the pond, sipping on some milk. Wish I would've gotten a picture of her covered in the red mud, but by that point we were all just trying to get home and not spread it everywhere!

Here she is lowering herself down into super-crawler-baby position! It was fun to get out and do something a little different. Today it's raining but we are so thankful for the week of great weather we've had! Tonight we are having some new friends over for dinner and tomorrow I am learning how to make homemade dill pickles with Xiao Li and her sister Xiao Min. Xiao Min is going to teach us-how funny that a chinese person is teaching me how to make dill pickles! (dill pickles are a strictly American thing, I think?!) She learned from her old boss, who is American. I can't wait!

PS-Rossi- this in one of the outfits you got for EG. The first time I put the pants on her, I wasn't sure if they were supposed to be pants or capris. If pants, they were a little high-water. If capris, a little long. But she keeps growing like a weed, so they are officially capris now and look great on her! thanks thanks! Maybe I'll let her keep wearing them til they are shorts!

Sleeping in?

One of the reasons Andy and I were excited to get away for two days and a night was the opportunity to sleep in. You see, my little lovebug, as cute as she is, has an internal alarm clock that goes off between 6:30 and 7am. Even if I wanted to sleep in-7 am is the limit. Now that's not that early but if I want any time to myself before she gets up my wake up time is early, really early. It's so good for my soul and for my perspective throughout the day if I can get up when all is still quiet and spend some time with the Lord. Now that doesn't happen everyday, but when it does-things just seem to go much better!

So you can imagine Andy and I were both excited for the chance to sleep til our bodies woke us up! No alarm clocks. No 'get me outta here cause I need something to drink really badly cries'. Just us, comfy pillows, a room with AC and curtains that made the room dark. yes! You can also imagine that we were both quite disappointed in ourselves when we awoke at 6:30 for no reason at all. We managed to stay in bed til a little after 7-but man, what is wrong with us? I have two guesses-one might be that I fell asleep at 8:30 last night while we were finishing Swiss Family Robinson. I managed to wake up to finish it and watch a little TV (a hotel treat for us since we don't have TV at home) before I actually went to bed for the night. But my early bedtime might have contributed to our early wake time. Secondly, this is just where we are in life right now. We don't sleep in so our bodies don't know what to do when we try to. SAD. I remember the days when 7 sounded so early to me. I am sure my mom remembers even better trying to drag me out of bed to get me to school on time. Sorry about that mom.

Aside from our inability to sleep in, the time away was great. We were able to relax, have fun, eat great food and do some talking, praying and planning! Much needed! The best part was the 5 dollar 1984 bathing suit that I wore to the pool. Andy said I shouldn't put a picture of it on here so I won't-but man, it was awesome! I forgot my swimsuit so we went out and bought one for me. There were several choices but I landed on the teal one piece with a sequined belt and some kind of mesh material swooping from side to bottom. WOW-if the 80's are back in then I am way in style!

Emma Grace did great without us. We missed her lots but also enjoyed a break! Here we are eating at this really fun, delicious Thai restaurant!

The hotel where we stayed was having a wedding so I took some pictures of the cars for you! Remember two weeks ago I wrote about Chinese wedding traditions and how they decorate cars? These were too good not to show you! This symbol is called the "shuang xi" which means "pair of joys." This is a common symbol for well-wishing, blessing in weddings...The hood ornament. I guess they don't drive super fast with these things on their cars...Well that's all from us for now. It's 8:40pm here so it's about my bedtime!

Sundays

Sunday evening here and we just put Emma Grace down for the night. We have to leave for church at 9:45 so she only sleeps for about 15 minutes before we leave. That means two things: a tired and fussy child by lunch time but a GREAT Sunday afternoon napper. Today she fell asleep in the car on the way home (about 1:30) and slept til 5 pm! Normally I wouldn't let her sleep that long because I want her to be tired for bedtime but today I was napping too so we both had a nice extra long snooze. I think we were both worn out from our big 4th of July weekend. Andy and I usually both "read" on Sundays. He actually reads and I fall asleep trying to read. I am usually woken up by the WVU fight song. After reading he likes to play a game of football on the PS2. Most Sundays we eat out for lunch and then order chinese in for dinner. I don't like to cook on Sundays so that's what we usually end up doing.

Emma Grace's routine has changed a bit recently, which we all really like. She can stay up for longer periods of time-about 3 hours before needing a nap. So she naps later and goes to bed later and gets up later. (So if we want to sleep in, we now get to sleep til the late hour of 7am!) Now that she doesn't go to bed immediately after dinner we like to head outside for a walk or to play before she turns in for the night. When it's not raining, these walks are a treat! Here we are today after dinner. We borrowed the Kvernens' car for Emma Grace to use and she loves it! We are hoping to get her one of her own pretty soon! (we were also tossing the baseball)
with a xiao pengyou (little friend)...
I love the look on her face... Here we are in action...

4th of July

Happy Fourth of July! Hope you guys had a great holiday! We tried to be as American as possible-we started off the celebration by spending the night with John and Alisa on the 3rd. Andy and John grilled steaks in the rain and we had a yummy dinner. Emma Grace took her first bath with a friend. Here they are getting ready for bathtime! They had lots of fun splashing around...
Here's Emma Grace hanging out in the morning. John made us a big pancake breakfast! yum yum. Since John and Alisa just had number two, we didn't have a place to sleep-so we slept on the living room floor, which was actually not as bad as it may seem. The beds in China are much harder than in America so we've gotten used to a firmer mattress. We both commented in the morning that we slept pretty well-even 4 months pregnant. I am not sure we will ever grow up. Here we are grown with a child and we are still having sleep overs with our friends!
On the 4th we headed to Steve and Marlene's for another celebration. You might remember this table from our Thanksgiving post. Then it was filled with turkey and dressing. This time it had hot dogs, hamburgers and the works!
Andy was in hog heaven!
It's a little strange to celebrate the 4th in another country but being away really makes me thankful for America! Living in another country helps me to not take our home for granted! I decided to make a list of 10 things I love about America. Here goes:

1. Our families are there

2. The beach

3. My grandparents' house

4. Chic Fil A
5. Bang Bang Shrimp (Bonefish grill-that was from Andy)

6. Freedom. You don't realize how amazing that is until you live in places that aren't free.

7. Ice in your drinks (they don't do ice here and they drink their water hot)

8. Baseball (another Andy chime in)

9. Grass (there's so much of it in America and you can walk and sit on it!!!!)

10. That every small town has at least one mexican resturant-sometimes two!

Hope you guys living in America enjoy the small and big blessing of being an American today! Think of us when you sit on the grass or have a big glass of iced tea!!!!

The week in photos

I said I was getting back on the bandwagon so here goes. Here are Matt and Andy with their girls outside on Sunday afternoon. We often head outside after EG's nap and run into the Kvernens. Julianna is on her car which all three of the girls love. We are trying to decide what kind of outdoor toy to get EG. The Kvernens are going out of town for three weeks today, so we might borrow their car for a test drive. Daddy's girl...
BIG GIRL! I love this picture of Emma Grace! She looks like such a kid. This is another Kvernen goodie-a kid chair. We went over to their house last night for pancakes and eggs and to hang out before they leave us here all alone. Just kidding. I realized Emma Grace is really attached to Peanut, her elephant that she sleeps with. I knew she liked him a lot, but last night showed me we are in serious trouble if we ever lose it! I forgot to bring it for when EG when down at their house and she screamed really loud for a while. Finally Andy ran home to get him and within a minute she was quite and off to sleep. Last night I decided to order a second one as backup before they stop making them! The Big news for EG is that she can stand on her own with no one holding her hands. she can't get into a standing position on her own yet, but if you put her there she can stand "no hands" for a few seconds. we are getting closer to walking everyday! The big news for our city is RAIN RAIN RAIN. It's been raining so much that the streets are flooding-check out this picture our friend John took of one of the major roads in town. In some places the water is knee deep. we are supposed to go into town today for a July 4th party-not sure if we will be able to get in or not. The airports have not been allowing big planes to take off but hopefully it will start to dry up today. If not, the Kvernens mght be joining us for our 4th party instead of getting on a plane. Bad news is-it's still raining here.

While trying to do some indoor entertaining, I got a few boxes for EG to play in. She was entertained for about 5 minutes. We made some tunnels and a house for her and we play peekabo with the house.

ok, well that's week in photos. will be back soon!