Little Friends at Work

This is where I went hunting for fabric to make the girls sheets. They really gave me the foreigner inflate, but they were super nice and I always stop back by to see them when I go to the market across town. This little guy loves being doted on. He's always showing off for me. He, unlike most kiddos, actually has several toys, but he still hangs out on the sewing machine

My friend Hang here is the tinmaker's son. (Or is it a "tinsmith??) He was out showing his patriotism and unknowingly drumming up business for his Baba. His tiny brother was toddling all over a long sharp piece of edging... his flag had already broken.

Isn't he handsome??

He did a little patriotic show for me :)

This little tot helps out with the meatgrinder in the market. (Notice the massive gash on his forehead?? It's a wonder he's still got his fingers!)

Someone told me that in America we try to control the environment, but in Asia they control the children to adapt to the environment. Some of us vary on this at home, but I'm still a little taken aback by the extreme discrepancies...

The market can be REALLY crazy. I've seen fights break out when old men are hit by bikes, motorcycles take out stalls, someone in a van stops to shop and blocks traffic...
This wasn't a main drag, but I was still surprised to see this little guy. Partly because I've never seen a walker, and partly because I feared for his safety!

These children were on break from school (they have a 1.5 - 2 hour daily lunch break), so they stopped by their families' market stall for lunch and a little pedaling of veggies!

There was some sort of traveling market in town (Complete with some carnival games!)

This little guy was about a 1/4 mile from the action, all alone and having a ball in the peace and quiet.

Santa's little helper! This was a week or so after Christmas, but I guess it was a functional hat. I thought she was cute... She exchanged Ni Haos with Em and proudly showed us her very fetching necklace.

Kids do the darndest things! They really pick up what they see :) A couple of weeks after we got here, she also tried to hauk a lugey (sp??) on the sidewalk. And Emma said "This is how the Chinese people smoke" and proceeded to hold her fingers to her purse lips, remove, and puff...

These covered the entire sidewalk for the length of the laobon's (shopkeeper's) store. I was gingerly trying to step around them when some guy came flying through on his bike!

I'm forever amazed at how these hunches over old people manage to haul so much in their baskets! Then again, maybe they are only 45 and they just look this way from all the hauling ;)

(Sometimes I FEEL this old when I am hauling our things!)

Our favorite noodle maker on the way to the market. I've actually never eaten there, because I am either rushing to get to the market or loaded down on the way home. But he is very fun to watch and quite personable.

Grandmas and Grandpas almost never want their pictures taken, but they are forever stopping the girls to have their grandchildren say "Hullo!" or pose for a picture.

So I've told some of you about the first meal we ate, the day after we got here... We were so pleasantly surprised by how good it was!! ...But it was a good thing I didn't see the dish washing station until AFTER we ate. Most restaurants in town use the same system, and it's one of the many things that I just have to deal with because there's nothing I can do about it. At least outside there's a better chance of the water being warm...

This is the "drinking water" section at the three wells!

More stoves and kettles on the sidewalk...

Laney, happy for a sunny day and the chance to get OUT!

Laundry Time :) This is actually a laundromat type place -- they do have one machine, sitting on the front step beside this setup. They do mending as well. But you often see people washing and hanging their laundry to dry on the sidewalk/ street.

Peppers! Lots and lots of peppers... sometimes spread on the street, in baskets... and when they have had some good sunshine, they get hung up to finish drying and be stored.

Traveling salesmen are always pedaling their wares!

Simple beauty everywhere!

Grandmas and Grandpas are almost always with the little children. I don't think they ever stay home, either.

A new perm! (the contraption looked pretty daunting to me!)

Outdoor pool tables are a big attraction!

And we ALWAYS see construction!

This ramshackle building is becoming just like the ones around it!

(Not very reassuring!)

They pick everything they need to out by hand with pickaxe and sledge... then tons of people work very hard to hand mix cement and lay handmade bricks.

I actually stopped one day to watch them pull the wet cement up to the second story -- quite a show!

Emma and her new doll, Mei-Mei ("Little Sister")

(I FINALLY found an Asian "baby" as promised when we left all of their dolls behind!)

Laney's cast (pretty sorry to begin with!) is looking pretty worn and haggard by now.

(I have retied the wrapping several times when it has come undone!)

We are hoping that she will get this off on Monday!!
Yay! She'll be able to wash her own hands,
get dressed, and lots of other things by herself!

(One last fun Christmas pic!)

Christmas Celebrations

A lot of you have asked about our holiday celebrations, so before I get "back to basics" with some info and pictures about daily life and our place, I thought I'd show you some Christmas Highlights.

It WAS lonely and it WAS hard -- even in the midst of all the fun and new friends. We really missed our loved ones at home (as well as traditions and special foods/events), but it was really nice despite all that. We were really thankful to get our first two packages -- meds from Matt's mom and some WRAPPED gifts (a real treat!) from mine. It really helps us feel less lonely to get ANYTHING from home! (Thanks SO much to those of you who contributed to the packages on their way!!!) Even though we missed "normal" things (like Eggnog and turkey and friends and family!) we had lots of chances to be reminded of the real reason for our celebration!

I also really enjoyed being able to get the girls some things to play with (although what we really wanted to get them was a PUPPY -- maybe next year!) and to pass out gifts to new friends and explain why we do it!

Matt's main gift to me was getting a wooden kitchen made for the girls. I'd been wanting it for "center time" (i.e. to keep Laney and sometimes Emma out of my hair during school time!) and I knew it would go a long way. We'd been told it was really easy to get things made, but turns out it's a bit more difficult when you don't know much language (go figure...). Matt maxxed out his language capabilities, but he did a great job -- and what we ended up with was good enough to get them really excited and occupy even Chloe for hours on end. (Amazing how even "baby toys"can become appealling in a hurry when they're the only option!) I even found a few little cups, bowl, plates, and glasses (all real and breakable) and a set of that really great wooden food with velcro that you can "cut" (a rare gem in a place with no quality toys -- occassionally they rip off some of the higher dollar toys they produce. Not sure about lead paint, but luckily we don't have any mouthers anymore!)

English Par-tay!!

We were nearly partied out this year! We really enjoyed it, though.

We sang, told stories, had games, and just enjoyed the chance to chat!

This was the hugely successful English Party at the school. I don't have my pictures from other parties but will post them when I get a chance.

As usual, the girls were wildly photographed. They were pacified with the sweets (I baked and someone bought western cookies!) as everyone passed them around to get photographs with them. Once it starts, no telling how long it will last! Everyone has a phone with a camera.

This is actually one of our good friends, Emma!

Helping prepare... we got there early to decorate and stuff stockings for prizes.

We usually go to hang out about one night a week. Chloe said "I like it here" and Emma said, "Yeah, they're fun and they can talk English." :)

It's nice to have friends we can virtually hold an effortless conversation with. The students in the Senior class can speak fairly well. Most can understand us, thought it's sometimes a stretch to understand them... But it's also nice to be able to ask questions about how they live, what they like, their holidays, their families, etc.

Their First Asian Apparel

I bought the girls Christmas outfits. There's some pretty gaudy stuff out there! But I found a skirt for Laney that was really cute while I was looking for warm shirts that would fit over her cast. Then I took Emmy to the market and let her pick out an outfit just like all the little schoolgirls wear (minus the red cowboy boots -- but her slippers worked fine!) She is especially fond of the beautiful red skirt and the softness of her bunny fur coat.

How do I say "Mui Fabuloso" in Madarin???

She wore the things for at least a portion of every day for three weeks! Well worth the $9.50!

Laney also got this fashionable beret :) Many of the hats are gaudy and wild, but I thought this was really cute!

An ALMOST Western Meal!

It took a lot of planning, but I was able to pull off a semi-traditional Christmas meal. I usually don't go to the trouble of seeking out Western items, but I definitely snag them when I see them for a decent price, and I try to recreate some of our favorit dishes to a reasonable extent (like my wok pizza, or spaghetti sauce, and occasionally a semi-mexican meal).

However, I was determined to make a nice Christmas dinner and not have anyone say, "Chinese food AGAIN?" (Funny, huh?) and try to make it as close to home as possible. We weren't willing to shell out the $20 bucks a pound to order a turkey from another city, so I got the really tough chicken breasts we can get here for a few dollars a pound and simmered them a long time. I made mashed potatoes (even got to borrow a friend's mixer at the last minute!), gravy, stuffing with the odd mix of spices I scrounged up (had to make the bread first! ... I really missed Stove Top), rolls, corn, sweet potatoes, and apple crisp (more like sog, but it tasted good!). I even found a can of olives (when I took Lanes to the dentist in another city) and saved it so it would be more like Grandma's :)
The cucumbers were a sort of non traditional relish tray, the stuffing had rice and red pepper in it (but miraculously tasted good, and like stuffing!), and it was quite a trick to keep everything warm around my 2 burner stove... but we all appreciated it! I even had Matt make a big deal out of "Carving" the chicken breasts :) The girls loved it!

This one's random -- not from our meal, but from a western party with friends. (We even had a "White Elephant." Not at all rivaling the uproarious fun with my mom's family, but still a nice time!) I just have to tell you how much Emmy reminds me of Grandpa Bill. We had soup and sandwiches, and she took the precious crumbles of bacon (my friend bought from the import store for the soup) to put on her sandwich, then spread peanut butter on the other side. I stopped her just before she added HONEY!!! "Well," she expalined, "I like pancakes that way (with peanute butter & bacon), so I knew it would be good!"

The girls entertained themselves with the olives while I finished up.

Chloe did her best to help -- it got a bit frantic :)

...And they all said, "Mmmmm.. it smells like Grandma's!"

(They also get excited if I make bread & we have peanut butter toast, because it reminds them of Grampy!)

Happy Ballerinas

So Emma's gift request was a "dancing suit." The girls sometimes (especially on rainy days) jam out in our living room, as it is the only place we can play music and it's a big tile floor. One of their favorite things at home was our massive dress-up collection, so they were really missing their garb... Nothing of the kind is available in our city, but when I took Laney to the dentist in November a friend was kind enough to take me to a whole shop of dance apparel. For $10 I got Em and her sisters entire performance costumes (complete with accessories like fake pearls and gloves from the 2 Kuai). They were so thrilled that, while Matt and I were wearing coats and gloves, they immediately shed their warm jammies to don the new duds and show off their moves. Emma was especially funny with her new Traditional Ethnic moves!
(Above is NOT one of them!)

Some freestyle fun...

Mixing in her b-ball skills with her new ball in her favorite color...


Ah, the image of grace...

Little One-Arm needed some assistance. Matt's hat is a special tribute to all our Brooklynn friends!!! (I have a pink one... Matt wanted a plain hat but the selection is pretty wild. They take whatever logos they can find and turn up with some crazy conglomerants. Like "Raccoon Club" "A & F" "Canadian Water Wheel Association" and "VonDutch" all on the same hat...)

Most of you know Matt's affinity for sweatbands... Yeah, even before Dodge Ball came out he had this slight obsession with them... the dorkiest way to say "Team." So he enjoyed sporting this new fave :)

Laney had been singing "Me, I want a HULA HOOP" for months. Luckily, they're available at every stationary store! They come in a wide variety of sizes and colors, too.

Chloe knew I was tired of burning myself trying to use a wet towel to get things out of my mishapen and tiny oven... so she used her new knitting skills to fashion this lovely potholder! She was so cute, hiding it from me while she worked. Unfortunately, it has some pretty big holes in it so it doesn't prevent the burns... but it's a pretty sweet gift for me to cherish!

The girls all used their allowances to find the best gifts the 2 Kuai (Dollar Store or, more accurately, 30+ cent store) had to offer! They were so proud.

Chloe's main request was a volleyball. Luckily, all the stationary stores have these, too! Balls are kind of expensive and after a few bumps it was already ripping, but she was still really happy. She wants to be like Cousin Courtney :)