night-night kisses

Josiah's new favorite game: If we pretend to go night-night, he'll wake us up with a kiss! It started when I really was trying to go to sleep, and Michael coaxed him to kiss me. He hasn't stopped since. He'll often say, "night-night" so he can kiss us. Um, adorable. :)

Duibuqi/Xiexie

Sorry/thank you. (Say: dway-boo-chee and shye shye..sorta. that one is hard to spell phonetically!)

Sorry for not updating about Thailand yet. We've been home a week, but I just can't seem to sit down and write it all out. Not sure why. Soon.

A very belated thank you for all the mail we've received. Many of you heard my cry for Christmas cards and sent them! Thank you, thank you! Special thanks to those who have sent packages. It's always awesome to get a package...even better when it's stuff we dearly miss or truly need. Shout out to my parents who have sent multiple boxes...some out of necessity, some out of wanting to shower us with love. (We hear there is a V-day box waiting for us...now if only the campus PO would open so I could retrieve it!!!)

Just another way we feel blessed to be here...knowing we have ya'll at home, rooting us on.

let the injuries begin

I'm not ready for my little man to get hurt so often. I don't like the bleeding. Nor the crying. Nor the fighting of momma's help.

Josiah got his 2nd fat lip in 2 weeks the other day. This one was worse. The first happened 2 days before we left to come here, and it healed quickly. This one seems to keep re-opening, usually when he eats. And the crying continues. But, I have a feeling this is only the beginning......



Saying "teeth"

In other news, Thailand is still super wonderful. In the past two days, I've scored 1 dress, 3 shirts, 1 pair of leggings, and 1 pair of sandals...each costing less than $7. Yes, please.

Thailand is the bestest!!

We're here. We've been here for 7 full days now. I don't want to leave.

All last week we spent at/near the beach. Our hotel walked out onto the beach, but we didn't actually spend much time there. Maybe we're lame. Or maybe we just like to look at it instead. Josiah and Michael had a great game of soccer on the beach. So cute. The next day, a lady commented on little man's skills. Haha. Our hotel was a 15 min walk to "town" (aka a bunch of random shops/restaurants/vendors/motels/cafes). We often rented bikes for $1/hour so we could explore a little more. It was fun and relaxing and our room was fab.

We arrived in Chaing Mai yesterday. I already love it more than where we came from. More cafes. More foreign restaurants. Cute alleys with mom and pop shops. And this is only from a few hours of exploring. We're going to be here the next 2 weeks. Can't wait to see more!

Josiah is loving just running around. Poor kid has skinned knees and lots of leg bruises from falling (does this ever end??), but he doesn't even cry. Gets up and runs some more. This morning, we were at the mall and someone gave him a balloon. He played soccer by himself all over the mall for at least 30 mins until we forced him back in the stroller since he only had one shoe on. One broke, after buying it 4 days ago. Lame, knock-off, $3 crocs. For now, a twisty tie is holding the strap on. Haha. Maybe we'll spend another 3 bucks to get him another pair. ;) (*Insert grammie complaint here.*)

Also a bonus, Josiah is sleeping well. We haven't even had to put him in the bathub yet--haha. These 2 hotels have had an actual crib. He's not the best sleeper in new places, so a crib has definitely helped. (He is terrified of his little tent we got him....) Hotel #3 probably won't have a crib....ugh. We'll see what happens.

Welp, the tike is about to wake and we're headed out for more adventures. Weee!!

still here...

Nothing eventful to post about lately. The hubs has finished classes, and since then we've been doing a lot of just hangin' out. Movies, random errands, and of course lots of basketball with Josiah.

Thailand cannot come soon enough. We leave in 3 days. We will dilly dally at the beach for a few days, then head to a city in the north where we'll have about 1 week free before we enter conference time. Things I'm most excited about:

- Warm weather! This includes the whole family playing and frolicking outside aimlessly.
- Western food!!!! Enough said.
- Carefree worship with our entire organization. Renewal. (Note: We haven't been to a worship service we could actually understand since August. Hence, why we're stoked!)
- Seeing friends who have become like family because we're all in the same boat.
- Speaking English and knowing the Thai will respond in English. ahhhhhhhh!
- Western food!! (Don't worry, we'll also eat our share of Thai and Indian food!)
- Adventures...perhaps a night safari, riding elephants, etc.
- Doctor/dentist appointments on the CHEAP. But still great quality. Yes.

We're not sure how much internet access we'll have there, so if you get a post in the next few weeks, consider it fortunate.

ramblings.

We're trying to teach Josiah how to pray..or at least to be quiet during a prayer. It sorta clicked the other night before dinner. We said the usual, "Ok, Josiah, we're going to pray now." Then exaggerated our head bow and hands folded so he would follow. He did! I began to pray and he looked up and said (with his finger over his mouth, mind you), "shhhh!" Haha. I guess I interrupted him!

Carrefour opened last Thursday, as you may remember. This Thursday, Friday, and today, it has been closed. If I could read Chinese, perhaps I would know why. Instead, I'll just check every day until it re-opens.

A length of one of our walls is filled with Christmas cards. I know a few more are still on their way, so I'm waiting a little while longer to take a pic. Thanks to all of you who took the extra effort to send one!

Michael finished his first semester of classes yesterday! Now we have 2 months off. I'm hoping to get in the classroom a little bit next semester!

We leave for Thailand in 16 days. PUMPED! More on what we'll do there in another post.

Carrefour & Pizza Hut!

Liangxiang is forever changed. Before Friday, we had 2 McDonald's, 3 KFCs, (The Chinese like their chicken!) and several mid-sized supermarkets with zero foreign goods to offer.

We have anticipated the openings of Carrefour (French version of Wal-Mart) and Pizza Hut since we moved here. We would ask around when it would open and everyone would confidently give us a different date. On Thursday, we heard some big fireworks (what every new store and new bride does to scare away the "evil spirits.") We had high hopes it was what we had been anticipating. And it was!

A teammate and I went to Carrefour over the lunch hour. It was its opening day, but surprisingly wasn't jam-packed, as we expected it to be. (We learned later they didn't even announce the opening, knowing it would be packed either way.) We were on a time crunch, so we quickly went through the 3 floors of clean merchandise. (The other stores tend to get grungy b/c of so many people and it's so dusty here.) But we didn't see an import section! We had to find it. They had to have one!

We stopped to ask a worker. He had no idea what we were talking about. Soon, a manager-type-guy came out who spoke English--always a good thing! He led us to the import section and we were blown away. Pasta, a few kinds of spaghetti sauce, cereal, Nutella, English tea, more European goodies, etc. This was groundbreaking! We usually had to make an all-day trek into town to get these items!! However, we were curious if we could request more items if we wanted them. The manager kindly took my friend's card and said he'd be in contact. We let him know our main commodity was CHEESE! He laughed, knowing what we were talking about because he had lived in New York. I still don't think he knew the gravity of our request, but we were happy he was at least willing to try.

We made our way down to the refrigerated section and found butter. Several kinds of butter! (We've had to buy butter in bulk because sometimes they'd run out and not re-stock.) We were happy campers.

The next day, another teammate went to check it out. (See how excited we were??) When she went, they had 5+ kinds of Land o' Lakes CHEESE! We about died! And lots of (chinese..eh) ice cream! I'll still take it. :) Either Mr. Manager really got on the ball (doubtful) or they just hadn't stocked everything (realistic).

I went again yesterday to scope more things out. Mistake. It was a Saturday. Below is not the greatest pic, but there were hundreds of people trying to get in. A worker was yelling over a megaphone, but of course I had no idea what he was saying, so I joined in the pushing game. I literally almost fell over--but there was someone 1/2" on the other side of me to "catch" me. Haha. Wow, that was nuts.

And Pizza Hut is open!!!! We have a Chinafied pizza place in town--yuck. However, a teammate went to PH and said they don't have plain pepperoni--or any of our usual pizzas. They have the ingredients, but they'll pile a buncha other stuff on it. Ex: pepperoni, ham, shrimp, corn, peppers on 1 pizza. Yikes. We'll just have to tell them how to make it the right way! We're hoping to try it out soon, but every time I pass by, there's a major line. And, it'll be a treat--a small pizza (9") is about $7. That's a lot of yuan for a small pizza. :)

And a bonus picture. Safety first!