JUST A FEW RECENT PICTURES

We were invited to a birthday party for a team member's daughter last month. Jim was asked to sing. He sang the Beatles song "Birthday" and was a huge hit. He has everyone clapping and singing along.....he had a blast!

At the same party the Howe family was asked to say something about the birthday girl. We weren't sure what to say (we really don't know her very well) so we read a Happy Birthday poem to her. I thought it to be a little cheesy, but everyone seemed to like it. The newspaper was even there and took pictures of us. Emma says it's because we are a "freakishly large" family!

My Joseph Wayne all bundled up to go outside....

Hello Mrs. James Howe

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I'm Back!!

It has been over a month since I last blogged, and I'm full of excuses, but I won't spend my whole time with the computer explaining my lack of writing.

Sometimes I feel I have nothing new to write....we are so used to our new life here, that it seems like everything is normal now. Jim has been teaching English for awhile. His class is from 3 to 4:30 every afternoon. He admits it's not his favorite thing to do, but he's doing really well. It takes him about 1 and a half hours every day to prepare for a days' lesson. He is very dedicated and I'm so proud of him. Neither one of us absolutely LOVE teaching English but it's what we have to do while we're here. Jim will probably only teach this term, which ends March 27 but I teach every weekend. Teaching English is a great way for us to meet people in our community. We went to dinner with Jim's class one Saturday and I invite a few children at a time from my class over to our home for dinner and to play our Wii.

One place we love to go and teach English is the orphanage near our home. We are treated like regulars there and we spend time their every Tuesday and Thursday evenings. The kids are very attentive during class and then we just visit awhile afterwards. Our young friend, Feng Sian is always a treat to visit with. He is one month younger than Joseph. He has a nanny that spends all her time with him. She sleeps in his private room and he is the king of that place!! He is the youngest, and all the kids there love him......and so do we. He doesn't reach for me yet, but he will let me take him from his nanny and she will gladly hold Joseph while I love on him. His nanny refers to Jim and I as his American mamma and pappa. His nanny wants me to talk to him in English all the time so he can grow up learning English. Everyone thinks it's a big deal to know English. Feng Sian's nanny is kinda a funny lady. She doesn't speak any English and always talks to me like I know Chinese fluently......apparently I've snowed her with my smiles and nods.....she nods, then I nod......she smiles, I smile.....she frowns, I frown....ect. I always take time to find her and visit. She is working as Feng Sian's nanny in order to save money so her son can offer a large amount of money to the father of the girl he wants to marry. Before some of you freak out, that is not the regular custom in our community but she is from a remote village in the country that apparently still practices this custom. I don't know much more, but I'm very interested in her story.

Our Chines lessons are going well......but slowly. Apparently Jim has beautiful Chinese handwriting.....who would have guessed? His English handwriting stinks, but our teacher says his Chinese characters are wonderful and that I need more practice. I'm not upset, my cursive is prettier than his!! We learn new vocabulary every day from our in-home helper and then 3 days a week we go to a classroom to work on writing and pronunciation. We are holding our own. I can only use Chinese in the community, so that's where I get my practice speaking. I've written before about my friend who's the baker. I now go to her bakery every Tuesday and Thursday mornings to visit with her. She has a friend who now joins us. Her friend knows more English than she does.....but it still isn't very much. We just sit and try to visit in the bakery as people come in and out. Joseph is usually with me and he is always a conversation piece. We also eat fresh bread from the oven !! Joseph goes into the baking area and watches her make bread, and if he points to anything and grunts, he gets to eat it. He takes a few bites of one cookie and then grunts for another and gets it!!! Those two women spoil him rotten and then I have to take him home. Yesterday when hot pans were taken out of the oven and set on the cooling rack, Joseph said "Hot! Hot!" without any prompting. Those women roared and had to tell everyone who came in what he did. So fun to watch others enjoy him!!

My children are not making friends as quickly as we hoped. We've just decided that they aren't the friendliest kids. They are given opportunities to meet new friends, but they won't do it.....I must admit it's the Day in them. Jameson has a Korean friend that visits us every Friday night. His parents are team members of ours, but their family lives in a nearby town. They come here every Friday for the weekend meetings. His name is Heman but some call him Ernie....I love calling him Heman because I don't know anyone else with that name. He and Jameson are so funny together. They talk a little, play video games together separately and wrestle on the floor alot. It's fun to watch these two boys interact. Jameson is content with Heman and when he has the opportunity to meet other boys, he turns it down.

The girls are still doing okay. Selah is refusing to do her school work, so she spends alot of time staring at her books. Emma gets her work done quickly so she can watch the latest American Idol on the computer. Emma is also a movie watcher and spends her spare time watching DVD's. Selah is like me. We don't watch movies much. She'd rather play in our sun room with her Barbies. She has some Barbie furniture and she has taken over a corner of the sun room, where our clothes hang to dry, for her Barbie world.

We keep so busy that our weeks fly by and our weekends zoom past. We are very happy and know that we are right where we're suppose to be!!

A HOWE'S WEEK IN REVIEW

It has been a week since I last blogged. We have been so busy and when I have time to blog I'm too tired. So I have a little time now and would love to share with you some highlights of our past week.
A team member introduced us to a young College guy last Sunday evening. He was in our area on winter break and agreed to come to our apartment to teach our children Chinese. So he came every morning this past week except Friday. He seemed to enjoy the children and using English. The children enjoyed his company and each day he stayed and ate lunch with us. He lives a couple hours away and doesn't have the means to come here very often, but we invited him to stop by anytime he's in our town. We hope we see more of him.
Jim finsished his second week of teaching and is getting used to it. He has made plans to meet with his students next Saturday at Jim's favorite dumpling restaurant. I accuse Jim of "using" them because we can't go there without a translator to order for us. I look forward to meeting his students...and I must admit....the dumplings too!
This past Friday we invited two boys from my English class to our home. They loved to play our wii and we ordered pizza and spaghetti. They were very well behaved and when they left they said they had a "great time". We didn't even plan much, and the boys still loved being in our home. They were such good guests that I look forward to their next visit. I'm trying to have each student over to our home.....it's fun to get to know the children one-on-one.
Tuesdays is our regular night at the orphanage. The directors invited us to roller skate with the children instead of English class. We had a wonderful evening of watching children skate. What a blessing it was to watch children enjoying a treat they rarely get. My kids had a good time and didn't want to leave. Thursday was our other evening to teach at the orphanage, but we had to cancel. Jim and I have been having headaches and we both had one Thursday night. I have been having them daily....if I don't wake up with one, then I usually go to bed with one.
This morning (Saturday) Jim spoke at our weekly meeting and I helped with the breakfast. I hated not hearing him, but then again I got to pick what everyone had for breakfast. We had biscuits and gravy, egg casserole, fried potatos and fruit salad. I don't know what the Korean team members thought of it, but the Americans loved it! This evening we met a family who lives outside of our town. This family is from Virginia and they run a dairy farm. We have heard alot about them and we get our milk from them, but we had never met face to face. We met tonight at a restaurant that you cook raw meat at your table over hot coals....it's probably Jim and Jameson's favorite place. They have 5 children ages 11 years to 7 months. The man will be a great help to Jim, as far as knowing where to buy tools and how to build things the Chinese way. They have been here for 5 years. They also home-school their children. The restaurant we went to was a little noisy, so I look forward visiting with them another time when I can hear a little better. They are currently managing a dairy farm, but hope to help feed orphans some day....and we hope to provide homes for orphans some day so I'm sure we'll keep in touch with them. When we met they gave us a huge block of mozzarella cheese that they make. YUM!! It was frozen, so Jim cut it in half when we got home so we could eat some now and save some. We are all pretty excited about the cheese...now only if we could get some butter!

HOT JOUT ZI

Yesterday was such a busy day....I knew it would be and had trouble getting out of bed and getting the day going. But the day did start and Jim took the kids to the school where we teach the children and I got Joseph ready for our outing. I had been invited to my new friend's home (the friend I met at the grocery store) to meet her husband who would fix us lunch.Yeah! Joseph and I headed out all bundled up and went to the nearest mall/market to buy something so we'd be very Chinese and not go to a home for the first time empty handed. I finally decided to buy fruit as my "thank you for inviting me to your home" gift but found all the fruit vendors packing up when I got there.....I'm not sure why they were boxing up all their belongings......but that's just how things work for me sometimes. So I glanced around and saw a nut vendor. This woman had every kind of nut and I remembered how nuts are one of the most favorite snacks, so a bought half a jin (similar to a pound) of pistachios.....who wouldn't love that! Joseph and I then headed for a taxi and began our journey across town. My friend told me to call when I got close, but because I've never been there that was hard to do. The taxi stopped in front of a building so I got out and called my friend. She came down from her second floor apartment and led the way for us.
This was my first time in a Chinese home. I was kind of surprised by the apartment. It was considerably smaller than ours and there were very few belongings. The furniture was old and simple and the kitchen had no modern conveniences. My friend's husband (a doctor at the city hospital) was busy making jout zi (dumplings) for our lunch. He carefully rolled out each piece of dough while sitting on a short stool at a table mayber 9 inches off the floor. They were very hospitable to Joseph and me and made sure we sat in the warmest part of the floor (everyone's heat is thru the floor) . My friend and I visited and waited for lunch. Her husband's English is not as good as hers, but I could understand his questions. When lunch was ready they carried the short table from the kitchen into the living area and we ate home-made dumplings filled with pork, celery and onions. YUM! My friend's husband showed me how to eat them, and even though I've had them many times, I watched him and did as he did. I, too , picked up a dumpling with my chopsticks (it took me a longer time) and dipped it in the soy sauce and vinegar mixture and popped it into my mouth and I wasn't done until I took a bite of raw garlic with a mouth full of dumpling. I was doing good until I realized how very hot the inside of the dumpling was. I tried to act big.....I didn't want them to think I didn't like what was in my mouth, but WOWEEE was it hot! And I still had to bite the garlic clove.......I did my best......but was not lady like at all! I had to prove I liked it and that I could do it the same way. My mouth was burned in several spots, but I it didn't slow me down too much. I ate all the dumplings given to me and some of Joseph's rice porridge (made especially for his visit). Right after lunch I had to leave. Joseph and I made it home in time for me to drop him off, touch base with Jim and the kids and get to my English classs.
Jim and I both now have busy teaching schedules. I get done at 3pm and he starts at 3pm. I go home and our helper leaves at 4pm. Well, when I got home, I got a phone call that a reporter was at the Foreign Language school and wanted to take our family picture for an article he was writing about our time in Hunchun. What a crazy request! I didn't have time to bathe the children, or even dress them in nicer clothes. We ran a brush thru our hair and headed back to the school When Jim got done teaching we were ready for the picture but the reporter was 45 minutes late. Finally he arrived and we ended up having a photo shoot with another American teacher and her infant son. The reporter posed us with Jim at a dry-erase board like he was teaching us and we looked at him like he was saying something profound......it sure was hard! We kept giggling and the reporter wanted us to smile or just look at Jim. I'm still confused why we got our picture taken this way. If you subscribe to the Tumen newspaper then you could see the picture of us.
We now have an extra child every evening from 5 to 8 pm. We babysit fellow team member's son (one month younger than Joseph) while they teach English each evening. The kids love having an extra baby to love......and Jim and I enjoy having the extra baby in the home, but both agree we don't think we would do well with two the same age for more than 3 hours at a time.
Last night was our evening at the orphanage. So we packed up both babies, bundled up the kids and took our bi-weekly walk to the orphanage. We had a good time, as usual and have made plans with the orphanage directors for lunch this Monday...just us adults (and Joseph of course). My nine month old friend ,Feng Sian ,was sick. He had a fever and cold and looked like he felt awful. He still didn't like me, but I think it was because he doesn't feel well....atleast that's what I'm telling myself.
Once home, and the kids in bed I curled up on my bed and reflected on the busy day. I'm concerned about Feng Sian, so I will make an extra trip to his home tomorrow to check on him (and take him a treat so he'll like me). I also thought about my home and my friend's home. We live so modestly compared to our US home, yet so extravagantly compared to a typical Chinese family. I think I need so much, but after visiting that home, realize I don't NEED anything......besides food, it's all WANTS. I'll never fully live Chinese, because we are not a Chinese family, but I did learn something. Our household is truly blessed. We live very simply and I like that. Too much stuff will bogg us down and we won't be able to stay focused on our tasks ahead.

A NEW FRIEND

Emma playing a game with the girls at the orphanage....she's doing so well with teaching English to anyone who wants to learn.

Joseph and his friend Thomas at the orphanage.

Yesterday Emma and I went shopping. She still had Christmas money from Grandma and Grandpa and was making me crazy about spending it. She had it in her head that she wanted a shelf for her room. When out without her, I found what she wanted so we ventured out together to try to buy it. We first went to a new grocery store (new to me not to Hunchun) so we didn't have to carry a large shelf with us to the grocery store if our shopping was successful. Emma and I were talking in an aisle when a woman approached me and asked if I was from America. Her English was very good and she was so excited to meet Americans. We visited a little while in the grocery store and then we exchanged phone numbers. I asked if she could come to our home the next evening for dinner (tonight) and we made plans for her to visit our home. Her name is Rose and she came this evening with her 5 year old son. Even though she is Korean/Chinese she has studied English for a long time and her profession is an English teacher. She teaches adults and a few children private English classes in her home. I was excited to fix dinner for them but was unsure what to fix. So I decided to fix the perfect American meal for a five year old boy. We had chicken nuggets, french fries and macaroni and cheese! The first time I've ever entertained with such an easy meal! We had Country Bobs, ketchup and mustard for dipping and lemonade with oranges. Rose and her son Allan really seemed to enjoy it.....kinda funny! I may just be giving good cooks in America a bad name....I hope they don't think chicken nuggets is the best we have. We enjoyed the company and next visit I promised to cook adult American dinner. Rose's husband is an emergency room doctor.....I hope that never comes in handy! And Rose helped me with my Chinese pronunciation. She will be a great tutor. She has time to help me and the excitement to also. Chinese women are never shy to ask me my age, so when Rose did I asked in return. She will be 40 this May.....how nice to make a friend close to my age. What a blessing and productive trip to the grocery store......Emma thought so too......we ended up carrying home a green free-standing shelf she bought with her own money.

Last night was our night to go to the orphanage. We love going there and I always have to play with the 8 month old boy, Feng Sian. It makes me crazy that he doesn't like me so I took cookies for him this time......and wouldn't you know......he just got done eating and wasn't hungry!! I can't win. But I still play peek-a-boo across his nanny and visit with her about this sweet boy. How my heart aches that he will be in an orphanage his whole childhood. Most of the children there have some type of family to visit and have lived with family at some point during their childhood, but Feng Sian has no one outside the orphanage. For our class time we played Go-Fish using phonics sounds and we talked about the upcoming Chinese New Year celebration. We try to teach a little English and then teach a little about our culture....so we introduced Sweetarts! No one spit theirs out, so they must have liked them.

Our days zip by and we keep very busy. We're amazed at how fast the days fly by....except I feel like we have been away from the States longer than we actually have. I feel like we've been gone forever....our past life seems so long ago.....and this life becomes more natural and normal to us every day.

WELCOME 2009!

A well-bathed Jameson sneaking a chicken wing from our New Year's Eve buffet.

Our New Year arrived with very little excitement this year. We ate junk food for dinner, buffet style and Jameson said, before he even took a bite, "This will be my favorite meal yet". We bought fried chicken wings from the restaurant near our home, leftover meatballs and potatoe soup from dinner the night before, assorted chips, cookies, fudge and french bread and cream puffs from our baker friends. I kept asking Jim what he would like to eat, but he wouldn't answer seriousely, so Jameson and I went to the store by ourselves and came home with the junk food. We settled in our living room with full plates around 7pm and watched the pilot of the 1970's Incredible Hulk with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferigno.....the kids found it....interesting. Emma wanted to continue, as we bought Jameson the complete first season for Christmas, but the rest of us had had enought. We then watched the movie "Hildago". We would have enjoyed it more if we could have heard it above the kids' constant talking and questions. By 11:30 I was so tired(and relaxed with Joseph asleep with me on the couch ) that I said my "Happy New Years"s" and went to bed. Straight up midnight fireworks....loud fireworks.......went off and the kids tried to see them out our windows. I don't remember anything after that.

On the first, we lounged around in the morning and then walked to a mall close by to try out their food court. We were clearly the only foreigners there, and we each had something different. I had cold noodles in a vinegar-based sauce. It was very good and I'd probably get it again.....reminded me of my mom's cold spaghetti salad....YUM! After lunch we walked to a nicer mall and Jameson and Emma used Christmas money to buy remote control cars.

Once home, Emma and I snuggled together on my bed and watched "Gone with the Wind" and Jim made sure we had few interruptions. She liked it, but had trouble understanding why some of the women were so frail and weak....Emma can't relate to that!! Like the scene where the women take a nap after the BBQ while the men talked politics and smoked cigars......Emma couldn't grasp that, but I wish we still did that on busy days! Anyway, a nice memory for me to treasure....introducing my daughter to Rhett Butler and being glad she saw the wickedness in Scarlett O' Hara.

Speaking of Emma, we didn't have internet connection for the biggest part of the day, and she is so disapointed that she couldn't skype Sienna at Sienna's midnight. When our computer is down, it's always a big bummer. We rely on it so much. We make all our calls back home thru the internet as well as keeping in touch with skype and emails. Although Jim and I are limited with our computer skills, we try everything when it won't work....tonight we must have done something right and I am now able to wish all a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!