Do-overs and apologies

Today I looked at the calender, and wondered where time went. I do this often, maybe too often. I haven't blogged in ages...okay maybe months. When I first decided to blog I thought a weekly blog would be easy, I am learning some things look better in theory. November, December and apparently January ate me alive. Either I was busy, busy, busy, or found life too mundane to bore you with the details. I'll give you a quick review nevertheless.


We celebrated Thanksgiving out at a local hotel holding a western buffet, it was nice but not the home cooked family feel this down-to-earth girl prefers. We all came home and agreed there was "something missing". The girls were enrolled at a British school at the time, and so they didn't even have the day off. I would have pulled them out, but it was also a testing/assessment week. Weird just about sums it up :)

 Mia's birthday came and went in early December...(what do you mean she's 8!?!?!) We had a crazy fun time with the "Mad Scientist" theme she picked. We wore messy crazy hair, goggles, and made t-shirts into lab coats! We experimented, played with green goop,made monsters,  and drank the top secret Potion #8 ( Sprite with yellow and blue ice cubes....what's more fun than a fizzy drink changing colors before your eyes?) The party wrapped up with Rocket Balloon Races. It was awesome!

In November/ December I was going to school almost daily. I had been asked to arrange and direct the Christmas program for Olivia's class. It was a lot of fun. I really got to know the amazing staff at YCIS, not mention the equally awesome students :) In between all of this Olivia hurt her knee, pretty badly and was out of school for over a week. There are no elevators in schools here, and stairs were a big "don't" . She had some traditional Chinese medicine and massage, in addition to physical therapy. Add in a few bouts of flu for each of the girls, and most of November and December are blur otherwise.

Then came December break :) What a relief! or maybe not. YCIS informed it's parents at this time that all secondary students would be moving to the Huangdao Campus. It's a beautiful campus but it's 1h30m away! I just can't ask Olivia to give up 3h of her life sitting on a bus.So three days into break we took the girls on a tour of our second choice of schools. The Chinese program is a little less intensive( the only real reason we chose to go with YCIS). Due to the change in schools the girls were on break from December 16th- January30th! It was like summer vacation in the middle of winter, except much colder and a little boring :) The girls no longer have uniforms, Mia and Olivia promptly invested in neon sneakers. Rosie has snatched up all things pink....and I have lots more laundry to do now! Oh well :) Today is their 2nd day of school and so far so good !

Christmas was different but still very nice, we found an artificial tree and some additional decorations to add to the few we brought. We did all the usual things, watching our favorite movies and baking. We missed you all very much, but were also blessed to be able to celebrate with our Qingdao family. We invited a great bunch of friends over, and it definitely  felt like a holiday! I made dinner, and everyone brought a little something to round it all out.

January first, came without too much fuss. I actually spent New Year's Eve with a dear friend I met at YCIS, Olivia Yang. They took me out for Shanghai Cuisine. I tried duck's tongue, bamboo shoots, lotus roots, and a special chicken dish. I love the veggie dishes here, and as for the ducks tongue? I'll try most everything once....most being the key word. The meat was not bad, a different texture. It was the bones I couldn't get past...yup, I'll never be a bone cruncher, it's just not in me.

During break we visited YCIS for their Spring Festival to say good bye. The girls made jiaozi (dumplings), learned to bamboo dance, dabbled in traditional Chinese arts and enjoyed a "Changing Faces"performance. It was a nice way to end on a positive note and I really appreciated them letting us join in for the fun.

  For all the craziness that is Chinese New Year we celebrated with a Mexican Feast! Our house was filled and I mean filled with people. Many of them are from the girl's new school and it was a nice way to meet the school community without the pressures of being scholarly :) I'll save the rest of  the Spring Festival, and some pics of an awesome lunar market for another post.

So the long and short of it? Time flies whether you are having fun or not! I am sorry I haven't been diligent with my blog. Consider yourself  updated, and know we love you all!