Well, a few things changed.

I realized when emailing with a friend this week that this blog has not been updated in over 5 months. I'll make is short and sweet.

We had a great Christmas.

 We went to the Lower Lights Christmas concert. I love their music and the feeling present at their concerts. You leave feeling like you have a bunch of new friends.

We played some games with family, including a ridiculously large version of Tripoly.

In January we bought a new car:

I love my  new blue Ford Focus hatchback. Best zoom zoom car every.

Then on January 23 our lives changed forever. We went to work as normal. Around 11 am I got a call from a cousin who said there was a baby boy born in Texas and they were looking for a couple who could be ready and there that night. I called the coordinating social worker and talked to her about it. I talked to Daniel and we decided that we would put our info forward. So I sent her our homestudy and profile and 15 minutes later we were notified that we had been picked. We needed to have the fee to the agency by close of day and then be on a plane to Texas. I left work at my lunch break and went to Babies R'Us with my friend and mom. We got the basics. Daniel booked a hotel, rental car, and plane tickets. We stopped at the agency on our way to the airport and dropped off the necessary documentation. By 8:00 that night we had boarded a plane for Texas. The next morning we met Ariel and Lucas. Ariel was great. She was so easy to talk to. Holding Lucas for the first time was beautiful.

We spent parts of Saturday at the hospital and then running errands. Saturday after lunch Lucas was admitted to the NICU for a program of withdrawals due to some prescriptions that Ariel was taking. Nothing major, he just had to be supervised for a few weeks. We were in Austin for 3 1/2 weeks. We spent most of everyday at the hospital. My mom came and visited us during that time.

The last few months have been wonderful as I have been able to be a stay at home mom and spend all my time with my little boy. He's growing like crazy and changes everyday. Life is truly joyful these days.

To keep updated, follow me on instagram: @toadybear42

A needed night out

My mom was fortunate enough to get 4 tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Summer Evening of Music with Nathan Pacheco and Lindsey Stirling and as she is Guest Services Missionary (which means she attends all the Conference Center stuff as an usher) she let Daniel and I have 2 tickets, and my sister and her husband took the other 2. 

We headed down to Salt Lake right after work and met my sister and her husband at Crown Burger. I just love my sister and we had a good catch up chat. We text now, more than chat, since her move to Provo. I suppose I'll forgive you Ben, for moving her away. My sister and I get along well.

So, the four of us headed over to the Conference Center. We had a good chat while until it got started. I was completely taken by surprise by how good Nathan Pacheco is and especially this song. I was sort of listening, getting settled in. Then the words got into my heart and I was crying before I knew what had hit me. This song is amazing. It's like my battle cry now. As soon as we got home from the concert, I bought his album on mp3. I have listened to this song 2 or 3 times a day since. I am still getting choked up when I listen. Turn the volume up and close your eyes.



The rest of the concert was great. I felt my soul fed by the spirit. Except when Lindsey Stirling was writhing about. That was hard to watch. But I suppose everybody has their thing. She was good and I was surprised she didn't mess up doing her thang up there. But good heavens, the prophet was watching. Be a little more modest.

I an grateful for those times when the Spirit pours into my heart and feeds me when I didn't know I was spiritually hungry.

I am also glad the we Mormons are such contributors to the artistic and musical worlds. We have talents among us and I'm grateful for those that have chosen and are able to share their gifts. I'm sure they never quite realize the good they do for any individual among the thousands listening.

On spending a month alone

Don't do it. Tomorrow Daniel comes home after spending the last 4 weeks in China. It has been hard. The longer it's gone on, the harder it has gotten. Thank goodness for family and friends. I've had meals at each parents as well as my grandparents a couple of times. I've had friends help entertain me. Last Saturday I went with some good friends to go shopping, do a session in the Oquirrh Mountain temple, and dinner at Johnny Rocket's in Farmington. Very yummy, I may say. My back door neighbors even sent over some soup. (Thank you Craig & Melissa!)

You never know how much you depend on just having another person present, until that person is gone. I was only able to talk to Daniel once a day, at the end of my day, because of the time difference. This meant that by the time we talked I was worn out, tired, fed up, finished and exhausted. Making for a few whiny conversations on my part.

I've learned a few things about myself during the process. Some things I didn't want to learn. But don't we all have those kinds of lessens? Unfortunately the journeying isn't over yet. He'll have a few more trips to China before this is over. And even then he'll take regular maintenance trips once a quarter or so. Can I just say that, often, being a grown up sucks? Yup.

Another blogger, Kenna, wrote about being safe under her boulder. I must say, she put it well. I can sympathize. I've been hiding on my wingback chair in the TV room escaping into the world of Psych for the last month. I'm on episode 67 or something - in just a month. I think I have a crush on Shawn Spencer. Besides work, and the times I've come out to get fed, I have holed up in my house with my sometimes wonderful, sometimes obnoxious, dogs. I have retreated. But tomorrow I have to get up and come out and be a grown up.

Fortunately I'll have my wonderful, patient, hard working husband back to stand by my side while we battle the foes and challenges that come at us. I'll recharge and we'll be able to deal with the stuff that keeps getting in the way of our progressing to our goals.

I'm glad Daniel has a good job, but I'm also glad that we have been promised there will be no more 4 week trips. Hallelujah.

Being Home

As of writing this, Daniel and I have been home from Xiamen for 9 days. People keep asking us how it feels.

Well. I'm home. That's about all there is to say. It was a little surreal the first two days being back in our own house, but with only a bed and our suitcases. But Daniel and I both went back to work Monday morning and we've gotten back into the swing of things pretty easily.

The hard parts for me are when I think about Xiamen and realize I have no idea if and/or when I'll ever get to go back. I'm missing my friends there and I'm seriously craving some of the food. We ate lots of international stuff there. I went to a couple of grocery stores this week and scoured the international sections for spices and seasonings to resemble some of my favorite foods there. I'll let you know how they turn out.

I even went to the Oriental Market in Riverdale Road to see what they have. The dumplings were disappointing. They should have been marketed as pot-stickers, and not dumplings. My favorite dumplings from China were what is called shui jiao. Boiled dumplings of, most often, pork and Chinese leeks. Yummy. I like to eat mine dipped in black vinegar. Don't boil pot-stickers. They don't taste very good.

I bought 6 different yellow curries to find which is closest to the Malaysian Yellow curry I ate there. I loved the Chicken Malai Tikka at the Indian restaurant. And the cheese kebabs? Oh my. I'm sure I'll never find things like those again. It's like a deep fried cheese churro. Yummy.

The other big adjustment is the prices. We forgot how expensive some stuff in America really is. I find I was quite disconnected from the US dollar. I'm learning to grocery shop all over again.

But it feels good and right to be home. We are getting our house settled in. In the coming weeks we hope to be able to get our adoption profile back up and going.

Some people have also asked if Daniel is working for the same company. Yes. We went to China for the same company he has worked for for over 10 years. It was a single project. Now that we are home, Daniel will continue to travel fior longer, more frequet periods of time until the project is done. Then he will travel less just keep things current. He is still working for Lifetime and is happy there.

Any other questions?

Thanks for all the welcome home's we've had. We are happy to be back!

Yimi and Stuart

Yimi was probably our biggest help in China. Every time I needed something translated, or someone to interpret, or money on my phone, I called Yimi. This spring she started dating, her now boyfriend, Stuart. He is awesome. They bath have been very good to us. The Wednesday before we left they took us to dinner. It was a yummy dinner and a good time.

They are awesome and we wish the best for them. I am planning on keeping in contact with these two. We love you and miss you Yimi!

"The Rock"

or the "Sunday Death March." I don't call many things death marches, but this was pretty close. Fortunately it was interesting to help make up for it.

We went somewhere to see the "wind rock." It's a rock that moves when the wind blows hard enough. It's cooler when you see how big the rock is. There is also a shrine. I  had my fortune told there. It was interesting. It is also the location of a very old city. There is an old city wall  that skirts the south end of the island. It was pretty cool.

Here you go!

 The city wall.

 They've turned it into a really nice park.

 The rock.

 Getting my fortune told:

 You draw one of these sticks out (above) and then you throw these two pieces of wood down (down). 

 If the two pieces of wood land one up and one down, then you choose the right fortune. I had to do it twice to get the right one. Then you pay 1RMB and get your fortune and then however much you pay past that, is how good your fortune will be. Daniel paid 5 for mine.

Then you take your fortune paper to this lady. Then she translates it. Only part of it was in Mandarin Chinese and the rest was in the local dialect. Selena could only understand the gist and a few of the specifics. I'm having another friend translate the rest.

Then we headed to the beach to walk around the boardwalk. We saw this really cool staircase:

 The bottom was walled off so it was unusable, but it was cool.

 Then we walked around this out cropping and found a little cave.

There were aspects of that make me think it was "man facilitated." But it was cool.

There was another cave.

 This tree was very old. Daniel told me how old it was, but I can't remember.

Walking the edge of the wall.

The reason it was a death march? The temperature was over 95 degrees with 90%+ humidity. Daniel was moments away from heat stroke, he claimed. I was believing him. It took us over an hour to cool down again. We were all exhausted for days afterword. I think it was because of the heat exhaustion from that morning. We were only there for 2 hours, but it was a long HOT 2 hours. Not doing that again.

But it was a fun weekend.

We only have 6 more weeks here in Xiamen. We will be having a few more adventure and I'll blog about those. We're going to make the best of our remaining time!

We took a trip...

Oh my. It was a doozy. Caroline called it a "Mystery Vacation," implying that it was a vacation. I am still tired.

When we stopped in Haicang to pick up some of our people, we saw this.

 Someone started their day off wrong. That's a three foot deep canal/gutter thing. Awesome.

We were asked to go on a work retreat with a couple of the divisions from the office. We went to Dongshan Island. It's about 2.5 hours south down the coast. They call it Fujian's Hawaii. Now I've never been to Hawaii, but I think that's a stretch.

But it was pretty. When we got there we are a seafood lunch by the ocean. It was interesting.

When we got there, we found that the we and Kleins were to be given a hotel room, instead of the "beach hut" that the rest of the group would be staying. Supposedly we got the nicer end of the deal.
Here is what we found:

Um. No. I was scared to sit on the bed. About 20 min. later Selena came and told us that the huts were nicer and would we be okay to share one (Allens/Kleins). We said yes. Because it couldn't really get worse, could it?

It was so much better. We did have to sleep in twin beds, but as Daniel said, he wasn't going to bug me by messing up the bedding. I'm a bedding neat freak.

Much better.

Then we went to lunch. Fun! (here is where I wish had an emoticon that is the fake forced smile.) But the lunch wasn't actually bed. Just interesting.

 Our view from out table.

 The breeze was nice.

 Crawdads. They called them shrimp's uncle.

 Kung pao sea food. It was actually pretty good.

 Daniel getting ready to eat a cuddle fish (squid family).

 Black teeth from the ink sack. I promise that my husband brushes his teeth.

 Paul showing us how to peel the Shrimp's uncle.

 Oysters. They were cooked. Daniel said they weren't bad. Keep in mind, my husband keeps claiming he "doesn't like seafood." Yeah right. He does now.

 Bitter gourd soup with clams. The clams would have been good, except the bitter gourd made them taste like furniture polish.

 Kung pao clams. Good, but spicy.

They had a wave runner to ride. This was Bella with Paul. Selena took Caroline for a ride and Caroline said Selena was an awful driver. So they switched and it got better. Then Caroline went swimming with Selena and Christine. Christine, who lives in Xiamen - an island in the ocean - had never been in the ocean. They didn't have swimsuits, so they went in their clothes. 

 Tons of fun.

Waving at us!

There are too many pictures to put it all in one post, so my next post will be about dinner and fireworks and bobing. Tons of fun. I ate way too much food.

San Fransisco

It's been awhile now, but we went to San Fran back in August. We decided to stop over for a night on our way back to the states for a visit. Daniel had some PTO saved up and took a day off and we did some sight seeing.

 We elected not to ride the trolley - because it was over an hour wait to get a ticket. Ridiculous.

 Chinatown. Surprisingly enough, it was very Chinese. It was a little weird for us.

 The shops were just like the ones here, selling the same stuff.

 Pearls and other jewelry.So much of the same thing - down to the exact pattern of some of it. Crazy.

 Beautiful churches.

 The Thai neighborhood.

 Fur lunch we went to Joe's crab shack. It was great. Crab here in China is small and difficult to get out of it's shell. It's not very good. Here we got a bucket of crab. King legs, queen legs, and snow crab. I love King Crab legs. It was wonderful. Next time I'd just get a whole bucket of the king. Our view was good. We looked over fisherman's wharf while eating. It was nice. Because it was late enough in the afternoon, it was quiet and not crowded. I had a good afternoon.

 Alcatraz. We didn't have time to get out there, but we will do it when we go back someday.

 The sea lions.

 We have a friend who is a HUGE Hello Kitty fan. We saw this and thought of her.

 We went to Ghirardelli square and had ice cream and hot chocolate. And bought a bag of 80 assrt pieces of chocolate. I decided my favorites are the milk chocolate with caramel and the new chocolate caramel with sea salt.

 The "F" Street cars. We rode these a couple of times.

Daniel was fascinated with the CLEAN, functional public toilet.

It was a nice little break for us. That night we slept for over 13 hours because we were so tired. We went back in the city for a bit the next day before we flew to SLC.

It's crazy to think I only have one more long flight and then we are home. Well mostly. Daniel will have to keep coming back. In fact he has to be in China again from January 12 to March 2. I am not excited about it. I am going to meet him during the week of Valentines, also the Chinese New Year, and we are going to spend our time in the Philippines, in Cebu hanging out on the lovely beaches. I'm excited about that part. Not about the fact that I will have 3 weeks to either side of it without a husband. But we'll make it. After that his trips will be much shorter.

Gosh it's been amazing year and half.