Missed you too!

I know I'm vain to think you missed me as much as I missed you...

Things have been, well, more than busy around these parts.

And... for the first time in 13 years (okay, 2nd), your Christmas card will be late :(... tell ya what, busy busy busy.

In no order (such is the theme of this season, lol), here's what's been going on:

Went to Hong Kong. Here we are w/ the skyline. When Tim was little, he was obsessed with skylines, so we love to take this kind of pic. The beautiful girls are Katie's, my good friend from high school.


K, if you're reading this, Katie, then you'll love this pic too. We scrambled to all get in the pic, but with the kids, and water near by, we just jumped in. And I'm reaching over to hold on to Tim... but it looks like I'm wrapping my arm around Sam. And I especially love this uncropped pic- for the guy off to the far right. Dude thought his tail would look great in our family pic, so he hopped in too, ipod and all.


A fam pic while at our hotel.


Hunter... the cutest little sheep in Bethlehem (front, left of the cow). Love that here in China there is no offense in having a full on Luke 2 nativity play.


Drum roll please... here's the real reason we've been a bit behind on things for the last month+... But we aren't allowed to blog about this, for another 6 months.


Tim's parents & aunts/uncles came to visit. Aunt Sandy (blond) said she'd adopt me as her own... made me feel like gold! We already miss all six of them!


After many ear infections, the ENT Dr said it was time Tann got tubes. No wonder why he was favoring Chinese so much- it's a language of tones. The Dr. said with his hearing tests, it was surprising he was talking at all! Yet another blessing of living here, the tonal language for Tootsie Tann!

His English vocab has already doubled since surgery.


These are the most recent pics of this bunch. This was last Saturday. We were the MCs for our compound party, in both languages. Afterwards, the news crew came home with us and interviewed us for about 30 minutes+. I love this picture of Tim. It reminds me of pics I saw of him when he was a student in China, long before we even met. He's got that sparkle his eye. That boy sure loves China.


Couldn't resist. Another one. The entire interview was in Chinese, and we must've looked weird- dressed as Mr & Mrs Claus. Do you remember that Santa suit I had made for Tim at the fabric market? Sure has gotten a lot of use!

He/Santa is going into work again on Christmas day, this time giving away socks to all 250 employees that have to work that day. The news crew will follow him in for that.

As if this year's Christmas couldn't get any busier... the news crew (China's largest news reporting station) will be joining us Christmas morning for the opening of presents. Shoot, that means I'll have to shower before opening presents... there's something wrong with that, no?

Christmas night we're hosting a dinner... a little on the ghetto side. Bring your own plate, silverware, glass. Bring a side dish for 10 people. And, wear your most obnoxious socks in your drawer; prizes to be given.

Anybody out there remember this 'funky sock' party we had in Castle Rock? I thought of the idea b/c we had new carpet, and I was worried that if we had a party the carpet would get hammered.

See, there's always a way to still have a party.


Here's about 1/3 of the students I've been teaching. I teach three Business English classes a week, only 4.5 total hours weekly. They are all advanced English speakers. They are all casual, we just had a pot luck in this pic. I have to write reviews on each one of them within the next 9 days. Argh, that's the not-so-fun part of my fun job. If you really call it a job. I love it too much!


In mid November, I got to fly home to see my family. It happened to be the exact 10 anniversary of Barry's passing. Here we are at the Grave Marker. Todd is reading the grave marker (I'll post about this later), so we are a bit somber. But the rest of the time was spent in up-roaring laughter. It is true, the pain is not as intense over time. We certainly miss him so.


Side note- on the flight out from China to the US, I sat next to a missionary. This was so special, because his MTC check-in date was the exact day as mine, 10 years earlier! And even cooler, I went from speaking English to learning Chinese; and he was going from speaking Chinese to speaking English (he was from sichuan, and he said there were over 80 missionaries in the field from mainland China!).