Seeing The Unseen

With December winding down, I really need to post something here. This month has passed by in a blur of Christmas parties, packing, goodbyes, and traveling. It's been a crazy month full of the unexpected. But with no time to spare and the help of some friends we got everything packed up and made it to the airport on time. Tracking across continents with two small kids in tow is never easy, but they were troopers and survived the long trip better than I could have asked. With our travels behind us we have safely arrived at my parents house and are ready to soak in the Christmas season here. We have loved our last few Christmas seasons spent in China, it's been a great together time for us and has allowed us the chance to establish our own family traditions. But this year I am relishing the chance to let my kids experience a good old fashioned American Christmas with all of it's trappings. They have never seen houses decked in Christmas lights or been part of a b...

I love the conversations that happen in the back of my car while I am driving.  Mostly I just get to listen and hear what my kids say to each other.  One of my very favorites from last week happened just around dinner time.  It had been a crazy day of running errands and we still needed to pick up Rob after a later class, everyone was was getting grumpy and hungry.  Robbie said very dramatically, “Mommy, I’m SO hungry, I’m starving”.  Maddie retorts with enough attitude for a 13 year old, “We’re going to Mcdonalds right now so keep your tummy inside!” Today as I was driving my kids were discussing the reason for Christmas amongst themselves.  Robbie was talking about Jesus coming to earth and asked Maddie if she knew why.  She told him that Jesus came to take all the badness away, like when kids disobey their mommys.  I smiled at their earnest discussion and the simplicity of their faith.  I love the world from a child’s viewpoint.  This year and very specifically this month I have ...

Some days it feels like you can’t catch your breath. Life moves at such tremendous speed. Nothing in life is very dependable, especially life in this place. Some days the sun is shining, making me eager to tackle the day, and some days the rain and wind are so bad that I wish I could stay in bed and hide forever. In this month of Thanksgiving we have taken extra time as a family each day to verbalize our thankful list. It’s something we do every day in family devotions, but this month we’ve been writing it down on a thankful tree (I’m sure you’ve all seen them on pintrest). There are more things to be thankful for than I could ever fill a tree with. I am well aware that my cup is full and my blessings are overflowing. But my heart is aching all the same. Not for me, because I have far more than I could ever ask for. But it seems as if every day the list of my dearest friends and family who are suffering keeps getting longer and longer until I feel as if my heart will burst ...

This fall semester I have taken up the challenge of becoming a preschool teacher! Yikes! I still can’t believe that when I say it. I never had any aspirations of becoming a teacher. I like children, individually, but taking care of a room full of little children has never been my idea of fun. I very seriously much prefer a room full of injured, bleeding, sick people to a room full of small children. Being a nurse was a dream job for me, in fact I often still dream of it and am disappointed to wake up and realize it isn’t true. Teaching is my husband’s passion. He lives and breathes it. I have always admired his ability to command a crowded room and get them excited about whatever he is teaching. But it’s never been something I wanted to do. In fact, standing in front of a room of people used to make me physically shake. But life is full of things you never thought would happen to you isn’t it? And you have to keep adjusting, and changing, and growing to be able to thri...

This week we had the opportunity to do what I have wanted to do for the last 3 ½ years. I have been waiting for the perfect moment, where my kids are old enough, the weather is good enough, our schedule is free enough, and I have a good enough friend to feel comfortable imposing myself out into the rural village life of China. My dear sweet friend Sunny invited us to visit her family’s farm, about a 3 hour drive away into west of our province. We had planned to go in the spring, but things didn’t work out. So when she asked again for this October holiday I was just dying to go. We decided on a 2 day one night visit because it was long enough to enjoy ourselves, but short enough to not be too much of a burden to her wonderful parents. After getting off the highway, we followed Sunny through winding roads full of bicycles and tractors, out into the countryside. We drove into her village and parked right in front of the chicken coop. The village was set up with home...

Today was a scary day to be a citizen of the world. You may not have felt it where you live, maybe things in your neighborhood were quiet and normal. But if you lived abroad today odds are, you didn’t feel that way. Most likely the embassy where you live, sent you a message to avoid protesters and stay away from large crowds even if they appeared peaceful at first. The international air is thick with tension this weekend, for many different reasons. In so many countries today the protests were violent and stem from deep religious and ideological differences that have formed a great divide of hatred. Many of those protests and much of that violence in the Muslim world is directed against the U.S. In our spot of the world the anger isn’t directed our way (something which we are very thankful for). We have always been treated graciously. But the tensions among Asian nations here are at an eruption point. In our city, and around this nation today, anything and everything Japanese c...

Our little spot in the world is famous for a few things, beer being one, beaches another, and sailing 3rd. We were given the rare opportunity to genuinely experience the last one on the list this past Saturday. Rob and Alex have gotten to know a man named Jimmy in the past few months, who is a good friend, and a witty conversationalist. They have had many varied discussions on topics all over the grid, ranging from our very favorite book down to Jimmy’s very favorite hobby; sailing. Apparently Jimmy is quite the experienced sailor, having sailed in clipper ship races, from here, to Europe, down to Brazil. The boats he takes on these crazy races are quite large and manned by a crew of a few men. But he also docks a smaller private sailboat in the marina which is for fun shorter excursions. So Saturday he graciously agreed to host us, the Tandon’s, and our friends Hunter&Sarah on our first sailing expedition. I have always wanted to go sailing. But meeting a friend w...

We are so blessed to live in a costal city and be a 15 minute drive from the beach. It really is awesome to be able to put your feet in the sand and watch the kids run in and out of the surf without much effort involved. When we lived in PA the beach was a few hours drive away so it was at minimum an entire day activity and most often reserved for weekend trips or vacations. Having the beach so easily accessible is definitely one of the bigger perks of living in our current location. I get a great deal of laughter every summer over the very stark contrast between American beaches and Asian beaches. Walking out on the beach, you quickly realize the landscape is very different. As you walk out onto an American beach, you notice beach umbrellas dotting the horizon, and about one million towels and blankets stretched out to accommodate the many eager sun bathers. Most everyone enjoying their day in the sun is dressed in as little clothing as they deem appropriately possible. O...

Olympics around our house were quite an event, as I’m sure they were for many of you. We don’t have a TV so we couldn’t watch them live, but we enjoyed following them on the internet and were able to stream some video from a few of the events for the kids to watch. At the kickoff of the Olympics, the kids preschool announced it wanted to teach the kids about the Olympics and would begin with it’s very own special opening ceremony on a Friday evening. They would select on kid from each of the Kindergarten classes to be the torch bearers. So they encouraged us to teach the kids about the Olympics so they could answer questions and win the spot for their class. Robbie and I had so much fun looking at all the different event photos from the Beijing Olympics and learning what we could about how it all works. To our surprise Robbie was selected from his class (well maybe not a complete surprise since they do like to have a token foreigner involved whenever possible ). Robbie’...

About 1 1/2 years ago now, I went for my drivers license. Not because I though I would ever use it, but because my husband encouraged me to do it with him for a just in case day. Then we bought a car, and he started driving. I was still swearing up and down that it wasn't for me. Driving here is a full body and mind experience that requires focus and nerves of steel. Focus I can do, nerves of steel not so much. But as Rob got busier and busier I eventually caved and started driving in really small doses, and have gradually worked my way up to being fairly comfortable in the chaos. One of the days of my family's visit here, we had the chance to go blueberry picking. Although we have a fantastic fresh fruit selection in our area, blueberries are extremely expensive and in limited quantities around here. So when my neighbor invited us to go to a blueberry farm and pick them ourselves I jumped at the chance. Off we headed in two cars. My car carrying myself, ...