Update!

Hi everybody, yes, we are safely in the US! I'm sorry it's taken this long for me to post, it's been a whirlwind these last weeks--leading up to traveling as well as just arriving here. We did arrive safely late on Tuesday night, but about 30 minutes earlier than scheduled, so that was very nice--making a 30 hour trip only 29 and a half. :)

Since then, we've been in constant motion. There's luggage to unpack, shopping to do, sorting and organizing, preparing for the next weeks ahead of travel, and doing the myriad of details that come along with transplanting your entire family overseas for a few months. John's also still been quite busy with financial work and emails, but is making some progress so that's good. We're so thankful to have arrived safely at this point! It's crazy when you've planned so long for something and then it actually happens, it's almost a bit surreal!

The girls were excellent travelers and were so, so very good on the long flights home. They slept a lot, played quietly, enjoyed their kids meals that John ordered for them and really did great through two countries, three airports, and in lots of new situations. Thanks for your prs for this! Unfortunately, I went into our travel day feeling a little queasy; first I thought it was just nervousness or excitement but finally I lost it "all" in a bathroom in the BJ airport. Yuck. I did feel better after that, though sadly, even Starbucks was not appealing! I got on the long flight feeling terrible, but the L was gracious and I was able to rest quite a bit, as I was only in charge of Clara Anne (our family was split over the aisle, and John had the other two) and she slept for 6 hours straight. There may have also been peace having to do with the fact that she watched Aladdin three times as the flight wore on. Hmmm, do you think so?

It's been wonderful to be back in my hometown again. My parents have had such fun playing with the girls--my dad took off work AND gave up an out-of-town trip this weekend so he could be with us, and my mom canceled all of her piano lessons so she could spend time just playing. What a blessing that has been! It's been so sweet to see them get to know the girls a bit apart from just webcam.

We've packed our days full since arriving back and will be leaving again quite soon to be visiting other family and attending a meeting on the East Coast. So, I'm shopping, organizing, and preparing to repack very soon. This afternoon John and I completed our once-every-three-years comprehensive trip to Walmart and whew, I'm glad to have that finished! I know I've mentioned before that I don't really enjoy shopping and so though I am thankful for the opportunity to do so, I am glad when it's done! We got smart this time and did NOT take the girls with us; in 2007 we did and that made the trip more stressful. So, we're now stocked up again on medicines, some food items, deodorants, you know, all those necessaries.

Of course, we've been to the Pizza Ranch and Subway already, and my dad grilled pork steaks for us tonight which are my favorite. Yum! We've had haircuts, the girls had professional photos taken yesterday and this morning got to participate in a community wide Easter egg hunt, which they thought was fun, fun, fun.

It's been interesting being back in the US again. This trip back feels so much different than our one in 2007. For one thing, we really left Asia on a high note. Things were going very well, we were seeing wonderful things happen in various areas. We were at home there, speaking comfortably, enjoying our relationships with other Americans as well as nationals. So our trip back to the States this year feels more like just that: a trip. As Clara Anne reminded me, "Mommy, first we go to Hong Kong, and then we come home. Then we go to America, and then we go home." I responded that she was absolutely right. I did feel like I was "leaving home" to take this trip. That in itself, my friends, is a grace and blessing. PTL! I could not have said that three years ago. Then I felt more like a displaced person, but now I feel more secure in my identity of a "between two cultures" person. He is faithful!

So, in the midst of transition and lots of details of things to do and accomplish, stuff to buy, etc, we are thankful. The L has been so good to us. We are enjoying the warmth of wonderful family relationships as we are back, trusting Him for the grace to do the traveling and visiting that we've planned, and thankful for the opportunity to be here.

And next time, (I hope!), pictures!

Catching up and Heading out!

It's been many a week (it seems) since I have blogged, and my only semi-plausible excuse is that we are busily getting ready for our trip to the States! We leave on March 23rd, less than a week away, and oh my, I still have many miles to go before I sleep!

Though this time in the States will be much shorter than our trip in 2007 (we took 6 months then and are only taking 2.5 months now), it still requires a fair amount of organization and planning. I won't go into the laundry list here, but we're just plugging away and hoping and praying that everything will get done before next Tuesday morning. John particularly has a lot of work to do in order to leave the business in other hands for 2.5 months. He is making progress but has been getting up really early every day in order to get solid work done!

I am trying to manage the home front: clean out the cupboards, frig, and freezer; organize and sort clothing so we know what to buy when we're back in the States; taking inventory of the house and household items, also for shopping purposes; thinking about homeschool questions and making plans to talk with people and attend a homeschooling conference when we're back in the States; and then there's the packing! In the midst of this, of course, life is going on. Spilled milk needs cleaning up, the girls and I are reading the first Boxcar children book together, there's the constant picking up of toys and meals to be made and laundry to be done. Whew!

But it's worth it! We are truly excited for this trip. For one, our girls are a bit older now and should (hopefully will!) travel a bit smoother. Also, it's just fun that they know a bit more of what's going on and they themselves are excited to see our family and friends back in the States. The other day I asked Clara Anne what she thought we'd be eating in the States.

"Jiaozi, Mommy. Maybe we'll eat jiaozi!" I mentioned that I thought that was pretty unlikely, except, of course for whatever we make ourselves!

"Well, then, egg and tomato--my favorite!" Well, Clara Anne, we probably won't be eating much of that, either!

"Zha ji liu?", she asked in a hopeful voice. (This is deep fried chicken strips). Probably the closest guess! I thought it was funny that all three of her suggestions were Asian foods!

So, the travel day is quickly approaching and at the end will be my dad, waiting late at night to pick us up along with all of our many pieces of luggage. We estimate it will be about 30 hours travel, door to door.

If you feel so led, we'd surely appreciate your prayers--not just for the travel to go smoothly, but for our entire time in the States. We'll be taking the girls into a lot of situations which are familiar and beloved to us, but completely new to them. They'll be seeing lots of new people, and probably getting a lot of attention. In the meantime, John and I will often be busy relating to others. My prayer is that we can find a good balance of family time and time relating to others, being sensitive to the girls' needs and feelings while at the same time spending time sharing with others. Also, our schedule is quite full, with plenty of traveling (we estimate about 7,000 miles). We love road trips, so that sounds fun to us, but we do hope that all goes smoothly with our vehicle, time in the car, and even not getting lost!

I hope to give a quick picture recap of our trip to HK on my blog if time allows before we leave. So look for that, and in the meantime count down the days with us until March 23rd!

Dear HK Disneyland

Dear Hong Kong Disneyland,

I always love to go to Hong Kong Disneyland, it's my favorite time of year. My favorite ride in Disneyland is the Small World. I really liked the fireworks that came out of the castle and the music too.

Thank you for letting me be in the parade this time, it was so much fun.

This was my very first time to be in the parade and ride in the special taxi.

I Love you Disneyland! Love, Clara Anne Wind

As we entered the park that morning, we were invited to be the Grand Marshal for the parade that afternoon. What a unique opportunity! We met the guest relations ladies at "City Hall" later in the afternoon, and they presented us with gifts (the Mickey/Minnie hats, embroidered with our names, some princess notepads and stickers for the girls) and gave us the huge Mickey hands to wave with. We walked to the front of the parade route and they ushered us into our special "taxi." What fun! I wondered how the girls would do, if they'd be shy, but when the time came they eagerly smiled and waved to everyone and were tickled that people waved back! Then at the end of the route, we were able to get off and enjoy the rest of the parade. It was a fun, special opportunity!

This was our favorite visit to Disneyland, mainly because it wasn't blazing hot like the other times we were here. The park was still beautifully decorated for the Lunar New Year holiday, but all of the HK students were back in school so the lines were short or nonexistent and we really enjoyed the day! I am still so impressed with the whole Disney experience--everything spotlessly clean, good quality food, fun and safe rides, and the "cast members" (i.e. people who work at the park) were always looking out for my kids and trying to make the day more fun for them. And it was a big day: we left our flat at 8:30 and returned at 9:30 that night! I'm so glad we persevered and went, even though it was during the night prior to our Disneyland day that Chloe and I got so sick. We took some airsickness bags along just in case, but thankfully no one had to use them!

The only bummer was that our camera's demise had happened the night before and so was very erratic during our time at the park; the few pictures you see were the only ones we got--we ended up just giving up on it. The pictures of us as Grand Marshals were taken by the guest relations ladies.

Clara Anne wrote that letter to Disneyland after we got home, so I hope you enjoyed reading about her day from her perspective! Chloe had this to add: "On the teacups I was a little scared, but not so scared, and I wanted to tell you the horses were lovely [she means the carousel]. And that's all. Goodbye."

Thanks for the memories, HK Disneyland!

Jiaozi, coming to a city near you

During the recent national holiday, a traditional activity is to make a traditional food together: dumplings, known as "shui jiao" or "jiaozi" in this country. Mothers and grandmothers all over the country whip up the "xiar" or meat/vegetable filling, throw together the dough (just flour and water), and then everybody rolls up their sleeves and starts to "bao jiaozi" (literally "fold dumplings"), making them together.

It's a fun group activity as long as you keep the chopsticks with the raw meat in the raw meat bowl and don't accidently use them to eat your dumplings! It can be a little time consuming as well, since everything has to be chopped very finely and our national friends insist that if you chop and roll everything by hand, (as opposed to using a food processor), it's more tasty. Call me crazy, but I think they're right!

Random trivia for you, according to some of my neighbor lady friends, traditionally, you don't just make and eat jiaozi on the lunar New Year's Eve, you have it all prepared, including the water boiling, so that at the stroke of midnight you plunge the jiaozi into the pot of boiling water. "That's the way to eat jiaozi!", they told me with beaming, satisified faces.

One of our friends suggested having a jiaozi party during the holiday, so we enlisted our house helper and prepared for a festive evening. The possibilities for the fillings are endless: green bean and meat, green onion and pork, pork and cabbage, egg and tomato, shrimp and egg, egg with black mushrooms and green onions, carrot and beef, you name it! For our party we chose three favorites: cabbage and pork, carrot and beef, and egg and tomato.

I can "bao" the dumplings all right; mine are not particularly pretty but that's all right. Actually, everyone has their own style, from perfect fan shaped dumplings made with three folds on one side and three on the other, to rounder packages made by folding the dumpling closed using the space between the thumb and first finger, all at once in one smooth movement. So I sat down and assigned myself to that role. The fun is to talk, laugh, and have a good time together while doing the (seemingly endless) handiwork.

Here we are in the midst of the messy fun: the girls are already eating some that were freshly boiled, even as I and some friends are still folding the dumplings. With jiaozi, there's always a party in the kitchen!

This next picture isn't me at my most flattering, but I thought it was a funny picture. Yum, yum, jiaozi!

We like to eat them dipped in a bowl of dark vinegar with a few drops of sesame oil, with a little spicy sauce on the side.

The girls had a great time with their aunty making the jiaozi!

These were ones that I made. Not perfect, but deliciously edible!

We all enjoyed the jiaozi so much that night that I have decided it will be on my "take to America" repetoire. The last time we were in the States, we did a little cooking as we visited various friends and relatives, and it was really fun! But up until this morning, I didn't know how to do all of the jiaozi process. Now I am learning, and plan to make it for friends and family that we see as we travel during April and May.

So, if we're coming to see you, let me know if you're interested in eating jiaozi! We'll bring our skills with us!

Cause and Effect

I think I've mentioned here before that I've been hosting a mom's study on Tuesday nights. Well, recently, since the entire country was taking 2-3 weeks off for the biggest holiday of the year, I invited some of those moms over for a morning of baking. Usually I serve them something sweet from my kitchen on Tuesday nights, just because I enjoy baking and enjoy even more when people enjoy my baking, and they always express interest in what I make and how I make it. So I invited 6 ladies over, and 5 of them came, bringing 4 children.

And you know what happens when you invite people over and keep their moms occupied, so that the kids are playing unsupervised? Things like this: [Oh my! They helped themselves to a box of beads, foam pieces, and foam stickers from the cupboard and dumped them all out over the floor. This one thing alone took 45 minutes to resort and clean up!]

But then things like this also happen:

My dear friend and neighbor, she lives right across the hall. And, things like this happen, kids having fun, glad that you invited them to your house:

And there are smiles all around. And everyone loves the oatmeal raisin walnut cookies and pumpkin bread that you make together.

And they enthusiastically eat everything! And have fun in the process!

And then it's all worth it. We live in 502, the lady in blue is in 602, the mom on the left is in 402, and the mom in the middle is in 202. What a wonderful blessing! Father certainly knew what he was doing when He found this apartment for us. I am thankful for these good friends!

It's truly a blessing to have friends to invite over and make a mess together! Recently my girls have complained, because often on Tuesday nights the guests (children) will play really wildly, pull out every toy and throw it around, break things, etc. And we always clean up before bed--living in a small space really doesn't allow us to let the clutter lie. But we often remind the girls, and I remind myself, that cleaning up a few toys is so worth it when we think about building relationships with these moms and families and reaching out to them. If a mess comes along with hospitality, then we want to be thankful for that cause and effect!

Under the Wire!

It's 11pm on Sunday, and I should be in bed, but I wanted to get a quick note in under the wire before we hit the month of March! Here's a few updates for you from our house tonight:

We had a wonderful trip to HK. Simply wonderful. The Lord blessed, gave peace and joy, helped us to get up early for quiet times, gave us energy for the days, and we had a lot of fun! Our medical checkups went very well, and everyone appears to be quite healthy. The weather was much better than we expected and we only had a bit of rain the first day. I really liked memorizing a verse each day to keep my heart in a good place! It was a true blessing and felt like the most God-glorifying vacation we've ever taken! PTL!

Just two clouds in our sunny HK experience: Chloe and I both became violently ill one night in the middle of the night. She threw up (three times, but who's counting?) all over herself and the bed (I've never been so thankful that we had a washer/dryer right there in our borrowed apartment!). I had gone to bed early, not feeling well, and while trying to help John clean up had to rush to the bathroom myself. Yuck, yuck, yuck! The next morning we were supposed to go to Disneyland, and we actually were able to go through with it, though I packed some motion sickness bags just in case! Thankfully, no one else in the family got it. We're not sure where that nasty bug came from! Good thing I was trying to eat more moderately during our trip anyway; otherwise I might have been really disappointed that basically two full days of the vacation I was missing out on tasty food. As it was, my heart was content to let the food pass me by, PTL for that grace.

The other cloud was the brief demise of our camera. One night, as John played fun, jazzy music through his computer and the girls were dancing around in delight, I reached to grab the camera and snap some pictures. I grabbed it by the strap of the camera case. . . but the case wasn't zipped and the camera fell to the floor. Argh and double argh!! The sickening thud was enough to make me sick to my stomach all over again. After that, the camera was unreliable; working occasionally but refusing to focus at other times. The silver lining to this cloud was that we had already taken several hundred pictures on this trip, AND upon returning home we brought it to a Nikon dealer who was able to do the necessary repairs for about $50. That turned out much better than I expected! We'll pick up the camera tomorrow and I'll hopefully post some HK pictures soon.

So, we left the air conditioning behind and returned home to winter again. Today it began to rain, which then turned to snow. Yes, SNOW again, on the eve of March, a rarity in our city no matter the time of year. The girls are thrilled and the accumulation is already an inch or two; we may be playing outside in the morning!

Just three weeks, and we leave for America! I have my work cut out for me; lots of home things to organize before we leave. I plan to sort through basically our whole house in preparation; determining what to keep, what to get rid of, and what we need to buy in the States. That time is approaching fast!

Well, I'm off to bed. Happy March, everyone!

Travelers, again

We're off in a few hours on a brief trip to Hong Kong! We have some medical appointments to complete (actually a rather thorough medical checkup) and then plan to spend some time playing. However, that also meant that my husband got up at 3am today trying to finish some emails before we travel! Better that than "work" pursuing him into our time away. We hope that the week will be quite refreshing!

Something new for us this time is that we are seeking to do our best to "vacation to the glory of God!" This is something we've been trying to do for a long time but I think not ever really doing a great job at it. Why does it seem like "vacation" in our minds means: checking out, being lazy, eating all we want and more, and just generally indulging our every selfish whim? Why do we believe the lie that this kind of behavior is more "fun" than being disciplined to spend time with the Lord?

I think part of it is fatigue. Usually we are tired and just wanting to "relax" going into vacation, which leads to us indulging ourselves, sleeping in everyday, using media or food or whatever to try to fill that need for rest and refreshment, rather than maintaining our spiritual disciplines and seeking refreshment from the Lord. By the end of vacation, we might feel physically rested and with satiated appetites, but we can tend to feel spiritually dull, since we have spent all of our time satisfying the flesh. Another part is probably just the age-old temptation to sin. Not trusting the promises of God to be truly satisfying, trying to make satisfaction for ourselves, rebelling against the idea that disciplining ourselves for the purpose of godliness CAN and DOES bring refreshment, not just physically but for our whole person!

But I finally feel like we are growing in this and hope to make this vacation different. That's not to say we won't still go out to eat, do fun things with the girls, and all of those things, but our attitudes are different. Our focus is different. By His grace, we hope to keep our priorities in the right place and enjoy the benefits that He brings through that!

What about you? Do you find it difficult to maintain quiet times and a vibrant relationship with Father while traveling or on vacation? What do you do to combat that? I'd love to hear more ideas about this topic!

Here's one idea to get started: I plan to try and memorize one verse each day, so that even if my morning time is a bit shorter or interrupted by kids getting up, I can take that verse with me into the day and meditate on it. We plan to do lots of things out and about, so this could be a good way to keep my heart focused even in those situations.

So, will you pray for us this week? John and I are of one mind on this and want this vacation to be different, for God's glory and our good. Thank you! I'll be sure to write an update when we get back!

Quote of the Day

Last night as we were reading the story of Hannah in our family devotions, John was talking to the girls about how Hannah was praying, moving her lips but not using her voice to pray, and Eli the priest thought that she was drunk.

"What does it mean to be drunk, girls? Do you know?" John asked.

Clara Anne shook her head. Chloe had no idea.

"It means that you've drunk too much . . . " John prompted them.

"Al-co-homa," said Clara Anne. And I tried my best not to laugh.

Sorry to my Oklahoma friends!

A Feast for the Grandparent's Eyes

Here they are, the long-time-coming photos from our 2nd Annual Christmas Eve family photo shoot. There's some great ones in the bunch. . . have fun looking!

I love this one.

Sweet sisters!

Clara Anne Danielle, 5 years old!

A beautiful smile!

My dancing princess, only too glad to pose for the camera.

Chloe Rachelle, three and a half. Love that big grin!

Giggling at Daddy.

Taking her turn doing some dancing.

Christin Arielle, 20 months, wispy hair, red nose, sweet smile, and all.

Love this precious one!

I didn't do such a great job choosing backgrounds this time. The dresses, which are actually quite a dark, beautiful burgundy, showed up in the pictures quite red. The deeper color of the background came through quite purple. Oh well!

Piling on Daddy was fun at first...until Christin got smooshed.

Not half bad! It's hard to get everybody looking and smiling at once!

That's a classic Christin face if I ever saw one!

Funny girl!

Here's where piling on Daddy was still fun!

Daddy daughter love!

And some Daddy-daughter dancing!

How about a little dancing with Mommy?

Love my Clara Anne!

And the last picture, taken with Lou, our dear helper and friend. Of course she was with us that morning, helping to arrange the girls' dresses, make them smile, keep track of our winter coats, etc. We love and appreciate her!

So, another family photo session has come and gone. I was reasonably pleased with the results and am glad we had it done again. Time flies by so quickly, in a few years we will be so glad we have all of these pictures, capturing the girls and our family at this stage. The girls also love to look at old pictures, so now we're preserved in these photos for all time! Hope you enjoyed taking a look!

A Teaser

Finally, I have some pictures to share from our Christmas Eve photo shoot at the studio downtown. I don't have time to post all (26!) of them tonight, but here's a teaser for you to enjoy in the meantime. And this first one may be my favorite of all.

In other news, today was a fun day at our house. I invited five friends over to make oatmeal raisin cookies and pumpkin bread together. This weekend is the most major holiday of the year, so many people are off work and one of my friends even asked off so she could come and participate this morning! Three of them brought their children, and it was more than a little crazy! I had everything set out on my lazy susan and taught through the process, step by step, with my friends writing things down and taking pictures all the way, while the children wreaked havoc in other parts of the house. (Including taking out an entire container of beads and foam craft pieces and dumping them all over the floor!)

We had fun, though! These ladies are all part of my Tuesday night book club where we are reading Sally Clarkson's "The Mission of Motherhood." It was fun to get together outside of the study and they seem to really love coming to our home. I also will say that I took an hour long nap after it was all over this afternoon! Wowza!

Tomorrow we have another fun party planned--the tradition for this holiday is to make dumplings, so we are having a dumpling party with some friends tomorrow night. It should be fun, and tasty too.

That's all from our house tonight! Good night!

Off to School (not quite)

On school (kindergarten) mornings around our house, there's a curious phenomena that takes place. Clara Anne and Chloe drag their heels, eat as slowly as they can, protest having their hair combed, and things like this because they insist they don't want to go out (in the cold); they'd rather stay at home. Christin, on the other hand, gets very excited when anyone is ready to go anywhere. She's ready to get her coat on and go out the door, despite the fact that she's still wearing her feetie pajamas!

But look. . . she's ready to go! "See you later Mama!"

"Oops, maybe I forgot something. I'd better go back and look for it. "

"Well, maybe I'll stay home after all. I do love my morning nap in the dark bathroom. Plus, it's cozier to keep my jammies on a little longer. I guess I'll wait a bit longer to go off to school."

In related news, recently as I was biking home from school with Chloe strapped to my back in the Ergo and Clara Anne riding in the bike seat, Clara Anne shouted up to me (shouting is necessary due to the noisy traffic on the street): "Mommy, what are you going to do when Christin has to go to you'er yuan (kindergarten) too? How will you carry us all?" I told her that honestly, I wasn't sure, but that we would work something out when the time came. Not for awhile, I hope! Clara Anne and Chloe didn't start kindergarten until they were 3 and a half, so we'll be waiting a bit longer with Christin. No rush!

Speaking of school, the girls and I are studying Mozart today. Time to pop in "The Marriage of Figaro" and do a little dancing!

Let's tour the School Room!

Are you ready for a tour of the school room? (It'll be quick, I promise, the room is only about 10x15!) Let's go have a look!

The view from the door . . . The school table. Notice the lack of anything creative, interesting, or beautiful on the walls. I'm not really homeschooling yet! But I envision it filled with fun charts, maps, the alphabet, etc. Also notice the terrible use of space on the table top. A project for the future is to decide what I need, buy some organizer/sorter things that can stack, and use the space going up. Right now, I'm just happy to have a printer and plenty of open space for the girls to play, do crafts, etc.

A different angle . . .

Here I'm standing at the door and looking straight in. I love all the natural light! The cozy blue/white chair really is the heart of the room, in fact I'm sitting in it at this moment! It's my quiet time chair, my read aloud chair, Clara's rest time chair, and even occasionally the girls all pile in there to watch a movie, set up on the ottoman. Thanks Ikea for cozy happy furniture!

The bookshelf, with its doors open, invitingly beckoning us to come and read...come and read...

And here's my view from the chair with the bookshelf doors closed. Neat and tidy, just the way I like it!

Baskets of board books and pillows on the windowseat complete the cozy corner. So, my school room is still in process, but I'm thankful for its welcoming warmth! I think it will be fun to teach and learn in this space.

Hope you enjoyed the tour! Sit in a cozy chair and read some books with your kids today!