Drum Roll Please....

Maybe I'll be back on the blog a little more often now that Andy and I have these....

That's right! Andy and I got our driver's licenses today! Yipee! After 10ish hours of cramming for the test which included some of the most random questions ever, we are now officially licensed drivers! Many questions were unrelated to real life traffic situations, written in terrible English, had counter intuitive answers (read: wrong answers), and some were just plain unintelligible. Here are a few examples:

True/False:
1. When a head-on collision is unavoidable, the driver should free the steering wheel, raise the legs and lie sideward on the right seat at the moment of the head-on collision. This can ensure his body is not struck by the steering wheel. Answer: True

2. When making a U turn on a slope, the foot brake instead of the hand brake should be used. Answer: False.

3. When a driver senses he will inevitably be thrown out the of vehicle, he should violently straighten both his legs to increase the force of being thrown out and jump out of the vehicle. Answer: True. WHAT??????????

4. When a wounded suffers bleeding in the forearm or shank, the rescuers may place a cushion in the armpit or in the rook of the arm, crook the armpit or rook and tie up. Answer: True

5. When encountering old people walking on the road and obstructing the traffic, the driver may continuously honk to urge them to yield. Answer: False

6. When driving at night, the driver should reduce speed and go forward if the vehicle coming in the opposite direction fails to turn off the high beam light. This is designed to prevent an accident from happening when there are pedestrians crossing the place where the lights of the two vehicles meet. Answer: True

Multiple Choice:
1.When the engine catches fire, the wrong measure is to_________.
a. swiftly turn off the engine
b. extinguish the fire by covering
c. open the bonnet to extinguish the fire
d. use the fire extinguisher to put out the fire
Answer: C Don't you dare open that bonnet!

2. After a vehicle falls into water, the wrong method for the driver to rescue himself is to _________.
a. close the window to prevent water from flowing into the vehicle
b. immediately use hand to open the door
c. let the water fill up the driver's cab so that the water pressure both inside and outside is equal
d. use a large plastic bag to cover the head and tight the neck closely

Answer: A Yes, that's right, D is one the right methods. make sure if you use a plastic bag that you "tight the neck closely"

3. When encountering a flock of sheep crossing a road, the driver should _________.
a. honk continuously to drive away the flock
b. speed up and bypass the flock
c. drive slowly and use the vehicle to scare away the flock
d. reduce speed and go slowly, or stop to yield when necessary
Answer: D

4. When causing a road accident involving only slight property damage and the basic fact is clear, the parties to the accident__________.
a. should not leave the scene
b. should report to the police immediately
c. should first leave the scene and then discuss how to solve the problem
d. should park the vehicles in the original place and discuss compensation
Answer: C

So how did you do??? You've gotta get 90% to drive in this country!

The total process took us 2 hours, a lot of paper work, and a health exam in which a lady wearing a white coat asked me how tall I was and if I wore glasses. (and of course we had to pass the test)

The traffic control bureau is actually about a mile from where we live! It's one of the very few places that's convenient to where we live. So Andy and I rode our bikes rather than taking a cab. Unlike America when you anticipate for months that moment when you can drive away from the DMV an officially licensed driver, we left quite anti-climatically on our bikes! Though we have a loaner car for the summer, our parents weren't here to drive us to the DMV, wait for us, and hand over the keys once our licenses were issued. We left just as happy as newly licensed 16 year olds, just not as cool on our bikes! The best part is that it starting POURING down rain right as we started home! Ironically, had it been father away and inconvenient like most places are for us, we would've taken a cab and stayed dry. Andy and I laughed and actually enjoyed the fun of riding in the rain. We were both so thrilled to have the test behind us that we didn't care one lick about getting soaked!

Our generous friends, Josh and Danielle loaned us their car for the summer so we were motivated to get this test over with! just so you know...we'll be driving their bread van this summer. More to come on the bread van in another post!

My Plumbing Woes

Yesterday Emma Grace peed in her pants four times and pooped in her pants once. I really thought we were potty trained. Guess not. But those aren’t the plumbing issues I’m referring to…


In the last 24ish hours, the plumber has been to our house four times….for three different issues. Here’s how it all went down:

First of all, our toilet lid/seat broke a few months ago. It took us a while to get to the “home depot” for a replacement, since it’s a 30 minute drive from where we live. We finally got there and bought the wrong shaped seat. Did you know there are only two toilet seat shapes in China? The egg and the circle. We have the egg. We bought the circle. Oops. In the mean time, EG managed to cut her eye on the broken lid while pulling up her pants. Oops. We finally returned the circle and got the egg and all was well in our bathroom. Until the new one broke a week later. Here is where the plumber comes in…I was really frustrated and didn’t know what to do since the home depot was a pretty far drive and the quality of the one we had gotten there was sub par anyway. So for a week or so, we just had a toilet seat with no lid.

Until one day…I was walking through the vegetable/fruit/everything market and noticed a toilet seat and lid hanging on the wall of this little store. The man had both the egg and the circle and I immediately bought the correct one and came home beaming with pride. I felt so proud of myself for solving this problem in such a convenient manner. Sometimes the littlest accomplishments in this country feel more like monumental feats. It seems random for a store in the market to have a toilet seat but what I am realizing is that most anything you need for daily life can be purchased in our little town. It’s the most “convenient inconvenient” town on the planet. I have now made a decision to always search in our town for the things I need before taking the time to go into town to the more “obvious” locations to purchase items.

So…I tucked my “goldmine” find of a plumbing store into my memory for later use. Then last week my pipes under my sink starting leaking. Arghhh. A side note on these pipes-they have broken more than once and last year I spent a lot of time and money searching all over the place for high quality copper pipes that would not fall apart regularly. At one point on my search, I went to a housing market and told the lady I would “like to purchase the high quality kind because the plastic kind that are held together with some 15 cent glue breaks regularly. I am tired of changing these. Do you have the high quality kind?” Her response??? “Oh no, these are something you will replace very often.” Arrgghhh. So my afternoon long search which cost me 20 dollars in cab fees ended in me coming home disheartened, holding a 15 cent tube of glue, all the while coveting my parent’s copper piping.

So…when my pipes broke this time, I knew the standard procedure. You can ether get the glue and repair the leaks or you can just replace the whole thing. I opted for the latter and went on a search for new pipes with Emma Grace. Yesterday we strolled into toilet man’s shop and showed him my pile of gross leaking plastic pipes which I brought with me. He had exactly what I needed and even agreed to come install my new pipes. Perfect. He installed them. I paid him. We were both happy and I put his number in my phone “just in case” I should ever need his services again.

Then this morning, I heard the sound of loud rushing water from the upstairs bathroom. I assumed Andy was shaving or washing his face. After a few minutes it dawned on me that if it was Andy in there, he was pressure washing his face because the water was blasting out. Upon checking I found that a pipe under the bathtub had burst and water was flooding the bathroom. The good thing about China is that they are at least aware of their plumbing issues and are prepared. Our tile floor is slanted and all the water was running into a drain in the floor.

I called my plumber (he’s sold me a toilet seat, fixed my pipes in my kitchen, and his number is in my phone so I think it’s appropriate to call him my plumber now). He didn’t even listen to what I said and immediately said he would come in the afternoon to look at it. I deduced that by “it” he meant the pipes he had fixed yesterday. Of course he thought I was calling about them. I mean they are a bunch of plastic, held together by wire coiled around the plastic at the joints, rather than the normal 15 cent glue. I am not sure which is better, by the way. “No no, my kitchen pipes are fine…it’s my bathtub.” A bathtub which by the way is not even installed. It is literally just sitting in our bathroom, though it’s the kind that should be installed against a wall on three sides. We have rigged up a three sided shower curtain to prevent water getting all over the floor while bathing. He came within 15 minutes and fixed my rusted busted pipes and all was well….

Until I called him again this afternoon to tell him that now the faucet that puts out water for the washing machine wasn’t working. I assumed it had something to do with all the turning off and on of various water knobs during the previous repairs. (by the way, there are a total of 10 buttons, handles, knobs that control the pressure, temperature, and source of our water. Does it really have to be that complicated? Really?) “Oh no” was his response, “I did not touch that faucet.” I said, “Well the rest of the house has water and I can’t figure out why the washing machine doesn’t.” “I’ll be right there." He showed up almost immediately with a new faucet head in hand. Apparently this wise plumber knows that faucet heads are something you “must change very often.” He was right. He took the old one off, put a new one on, and voila! We had water again.


He and I laughed at how many plumbing issues I’d had in 24 hours. He might not be so happy to be my plumber after all! I also thought it was neat how God took care of us…when that toilet seat broke a few months ago I was just annoyed and had no idea that God would use that to introduce me to a plumber IN MY TOWN just when I was going to need one!!!!
Now if I can just help Emma Grace with her leaky pipes, then we’ll really be getting somewhere!

A Date Night....well Sort Of

I've been off the blog for a while now...I actually haven't even turned on my computer in 3 days! That's really unlike me...Andy gets on to me for leaving it on for days a time. He says it's bad for it or something. We've been busy...doing what I am not exactly sure! Andy says this is the busiest yet most unproductive season of our lives to date. We don't accomplish much but we seem to always have something going on. Guess that's just what life with two little ones is like.



We had a really fun Father's Day. EG bought Andy a roll of Oreos and we also gave him money for some new running shoes and the gift of "exercise." He's been wanting to get back into running so I changed our morning schedule around so he'll have some off-daddy-duty time to run three times a week. Sunday afternoon he and some other Dads and friends played ultimate frisbee and we had a cookout. It was lots of fun and I think he really enjoyed the day. It was one of the first times I think EG really got the concept of celebrating a holiday and giving a gift, etc. (I think her birthday helped cement the concept-since then she randomly asks for presents from time to time! hehe!)



Andy and I are going on a date tonight. We are calling it a study date. In college we used to get together to "study" and inevitably would do way more talking than studying. We laugh when we think of all those study dates we had. Tonight is our date night and we're going out to eat but we're actually planning to study. We are hoping to take the driver's license test on Friday and we need to study a book of 1300 questions in order to prepare. In college our studying was actually an excuse to get together and talk...in marriage, our date is an excuse to get some much needed studying done. Oh how times have changed. That's ok honey....I'm sure, just like college, I'll get bored studying and distract you with some rousing conversation! Andy put together a little study music for us...just listened to EYE OF THE TIGER!! Now, I'm getting pumped up for this test.



Well, I should stop blogging and listening to my driving music...Carwash, I'm Coming out, Cruising down Ocean Boulevard...and actually do some studying! Not sure if I'll be back on before Friday. Will let you know how the test goes. Dratts, now the pressure is on to pass since all of you know I'm taking the test!

Jack's (half) Birthday!

A little blurry but still so cute! Here are some of his more serious faces!

Smiling and laughing are two of this little guy's favorite things to do! He can also roll over and tends to do that several times while I'm trying to change him! He also is getting really close to being able to sit up on his own! He sleeps on his stomach now and loves rattles and rings and anything he can put in his mouth! He's putting on the pounds with his hearty diet of peas, carrots, pumpkin, apples, pears, and milk! And his newest trick is saying, "Da Da Da Da!" So precious! We love you Jackie Boya, Jack Attack, Hungry Jack, Jumping Jack, Big Mac Jack...and the list goes on!

Emma Grace's Birthday-Part 2

Emma Grace didn't want to miss a single moment of birthday fun so she made sure to get up extra early on this special day! Our fun started at 6:15am with a birthday serenade to our earlier riser! We enjoyed a new family tradition-Andy and I made a poster full of ways we've seen God's faithfulness to EG over the last year. We read through the poster and prayed for Emma Grace. Our hope is that she and Jack will find their birthdays a great reason to stop, reflect and celebrate God's goodness to them year after year! After breakfast we enjoyed a little gift opening and some webcam time with Kacki and Poopaw. Thank you guys so much for the gifts. She loves them and she walks around with her Little People, which she calls, "Xiao Peng You's" (Chinese for little friends), saying, "Kacki gives 'em." The thermos has already become her favorite cup! After a fun family morning, we took our celebration outside...to see our real Xiao Peng You's! One of her little friends is Xiang Xiang, Milk Grandma's grandson and he just turned two as well. I convinced Milky G that we should do a joint birthday party in the courtyard for the two of them. I brought the cupcakes, music, and balloons and she brought the bananas. Jack received lots of love at the party as well. Something about chubby babies makes Chinese people melt. Here's how he feels about being called chubby...The only other non-cupcake-eating attendee besides Jack was Isaac. Sorry boys, maybe next year! I told our friends a little about the way Americans celebrate birthdays and why and how we as a family celebrate and then we started with the main attraction. (at least to the American kids in attendance)...THE CUPCAKES!!Julianna, Lydia, and EG scarfed their cupcakes but the Chinese kids weren't so sure about the whole gooey chocolate thing! Xiang Xiang wasn't sure about this whole American Birthday deal! Feng Yuan was a little upset about the chocolate on his hands! Milky G's bananas were a much bigger hit. Why does she always know how to out-do me?

One of the moms we hang out with is great with kids. She led them in some fun Chinese songs and games. Here they are riding the train.The rest of EG's birthday was low key. For dinner we had tacos, beans and rice...one of her faves! (Though she did throw up at dinner. Not sure what that was about. Too many cupcakes maybe?) She had 2 mini cupcakes at her party but none the rest of the day...surely it wasn't the cupcakes!?

Happy Birthday Emma Grace! We love you so much and we are so thankful God has given us you! You make us laugh. You make us depend on God. You thrill us with your curiosity. You delight us with your sweet little voice when you say things like, "I love pink! I love green!" I love that song!" You surprise us with your humor! You are a gift. We love you sweet one. Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Emma Grace-part 1

Here's the first installment of Emma Grace's Birthday Fun!

A few weeks ago Andy and I purchased EG's birthday gift....a new bike with a seat for her! There aren't a ton of fun places to go in our city, but when you have a fun mode of transportation, any destination becomes an adventure! We gave it to her a little early since it was ready before we planned. Here she is the day before her birthday enjoying a ride to the park with her Dad! For her birthday, we went with some friends to a nearby park and rode rides and bumper cars. (which was not a big hit with the little kids, though the adults loved it!) We had planned to get KFC and have a picnic but the weather wasn't looking good so we took our party inside! KFC was a great place for a 2 year old's birthday party! They had a special section for us to use and they gave the kiddos fun hats and gifts and even announced to the whole restaurant that it was "En Mei's (her Chinese name) Birthday! In attendance were: her right hand man....Two members of the red hat club...(I thought you had to be like 65 to join the red hats?)a few adults and....LOTS OF CUPCAKES!!!She loved the Happy Birthday song in both English and Chinese! And the highlight of the day (for all of us!!) was this moment!

That girl knows how to eat a cupcake! Happy Early Birthday China KFC style, En Mei!

WE LOVE YOU!!!

having trouble

having trouble uploading pictures. Will try again tomorrow. Got lots of fun pics from EG's birthday!

What will you be when you grow up?

When I was little, I was sure I'd be a lawyer. Since I liked to argue, I thought that would be the perfect career for me. I had a backup plan, of course. If my arguing skills didn't prove to be sharp enough for the courtroom, I could always be a hairdresser. I've now realized that I don't actually possess the knack for haircutting, though I have had a few very bad hairdos, which seems to be a requisite for all good hairdressers. Anyway, here are a couple potential career paths for our kiddos...

A Winn Dixie Thanksgiving

We just celebrated Duan Wu Jie last week and I thought I'd fill you in on the history and how my attempts to embrace the culture by celebrating this holiday went!

Daun Wu Jie or the Dragon Boat Festival (from about.com) "is meant to honor Qu Yuan (340-278 BC.), the pioneer poet of ancient China. Qu Yuan was a famous poet who was also concerned about the fate of his government. Unfortunately his stature aroused the jealousy of the king, who banished him to a remote area. The poet despaired of the government and its policies. When the state's capital was captured by enemies, he committed suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River (on May 5th according to the Chinese lunar calendar). The Chinese people felt this loss deeply, as he was a much beloved poet. Local folk searched for him in the river, meanwhile dropping dumplings of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves into the river in order to keep the fishes from attacking Qu Yuan's body.Since that time, it has been customary on this day to enjoy Zong Zi dumplings as a memorial to the patriotic poet. In addition, there is also a festival called the Duan Wu or Dragon Boat Festival. If you ever visit China during the Dragon Boat Festival, you can't miss the nationwide custom of enjoying Zong Zi. You are sure to be impressed with the delicacy of this snack, and with the faint scent of the leaves imprinted on the skin of the dumplings."

So there you have it...that's the Dragon Boat festival in a nutshell (or bamboo wrapping). And here's how it went for our family: We received many Zong Zi from neighbors and friends. These bamboo wrapped glutinous rice balls were filled with all sorts of treasures, from peanuts to fruit and dried meat. My favorite are the ones with sweet dried fruit in the middle. EG was not a fan of the Zong zi or the salted duck eggs that have somehow made their way into the celebration. On well.

After receiving a gazillion Zong Zi from neighbors, I decided we should also buy some (since I have no clue how to make them) and give them out to our friends. There were lots of sellers out and about, so I assumed that it is acceptable to buy Zong zi if you don't have time or skill to make them (both of which I am lacking!) We bought a bag full for a whopping 3 dollars and started our rounds of delivering the goodies. We were met with a lot of surprised faces. Maybe they thought it was way too strange that we were the ones giving out the Zong zi on their holiday? Or maybe they were appalled that we gave away store bought (actually street bought) Zong zi. My favorite reactions came from Milky G and Uncle Qi. After I gave Milky G a bag of our Zong zi, she promptly and quite firmly told me that street bought zong zi are no good, and that I should NEVER buy Zong zi. OK, I agree, homemade is better. But give me a break...I'm trying here! To add insult to my already injured pride she then loaded us up with her delicious homemade variety and some duck eggs to boot! I walked home not knowing whether I should laugh or cry. Will I ever get this culture? Mostly I just laughed at how un-Chinese I am.

Another interesting exchange was that with Uncle Qi. He showed up at our door that morning with a watermelon and some bananas. Maybe he thought we would not like the Zong zi? I thought it was very kind of him to try and help us celebrate this Chinese holiday in a slightly Americanized fashion. Kudos to Qi for his cultural sensitivity to us outsiders. But here's where it all went wrong. I had my bag of street bought Zong Zi ready for him when he handed us the watermelon. Again I was met with surprise and quite a look when I told him they weren't homemade. So there we were both struggling to embrace one another's cultures and both of us feeling awkward about the watermelon/bad tasting Zong zi exchange...so we sad goodbye. At that point I was really hoping the day would go ahead and end and this whole dragon boat thing would quickly fade in my memory. But later that day, Qi stopped by again. I suppose he felt weird about not giving me any of his Zong zi, since I had given some to him. So he showed up with a bag of piping hot glutinous goodness and some duck eggs. "Thanks Qi! I am sure they will be good! Did you make them?" "Oh yes...and they are much better than the store bought ones! " Ouch.

Andy compared my experience to a foreigner living in America trying to celebrate Thanksgiving. He said it would be like a foreigner showing up at your door on Thanksgiving with a store-bought Thanksgiving meal, plastic cutlery and all! I know, it's true-a store bought thanksgiving dinner from Winn Dixie certainly doesn't compare to my grandma's home cooking, but I would at least be grateful they tried! So next time a foreigner buys you a pre-cooked turkey and stuffing from the deli section, please please just smile and accept his measly efforts to embrace your culture! Actually, after all that glutinous rice with meat in the middle, a sweet potato casserole made by one of those deli workers in the mesh caps is sounding pretty good.

Summer time is here!

You over there in America are just entering your summer. Here in our city, we are right in the midst of our short and not super hot summer. Except for the no heat thing in the winter and the month of July, we love the weather here. It's quite mild and our city is appropriately nicknamed "The city of eternal spring." (Except of course the aforementioned winter and the month of July) During most of the year, it's really pleasant, lots of blue skies and perfect Jeans and Tshirt weather. May and June boast some of our hottest weather-80's and mid 90's We've gotten the pool out a couple times. (Though it did get stolen and subsequently returned last week) So we are trying to enjoy this unbelievably pleasant weather while it lasts...since the rainy season is fast approaching.

We've already had to pull out the rain boots because we've recently had a few days of all-day-off-and-on-rain, which is a preview of my least favorite month of the year here...July. (It seems like it rains all day every day in July. Thank you Lord for rain. And thank you blog readers for your ideas of what to do with my children during the rainy season!) I've decided to make the best of July and I'm trying to make some plans now. Last year I asked you how to entertain my one year old inside all day. So, what about a two year old?

My ideas so far....EG will be helping with lots of baking...maybe we'll stock our freezer with baked goods for the fall?

Head to the indoor pool for a swim

Visit friends from other parts of town

Go outside in the rain and play in the puddles with those cute red rainboots on. (that's what we did on Tuesday when it rained)

Read Read Read. Maybe she and I will make it our goal to read an hour each day?

Lots of baths

Learn to dress our self? is that too lofty of a goal for a two year old? Not sure.

Any other ideas would be much appreciated!

Our Heavyweight

Jack got his 6 month shots today! He did surprisingly well and slept most of the afternoon. The best part of the visit was getting his official weight for the grandparents! We usually weigh our kids at Metro, the grocery store we go to. It has a scale near the check out and Kathi had the brilliant idea to weigh EG when they were here last year. Though the metro scales do a pretty good job, I thought the grandparents would like to hear the official numbers! Our chunky monkey weighed in at 19 and 3/8 lbs (88th percentile). He's in the 81st percentile for his height and his head is very normal! Just thought you'd like to know we're are growing a Jolly Green Giant over here!