Our Hometown, Boston

We are devastated from this past week's events. We are thankful for the safety of our son and the rest of our family members and friends. Rick's mom lives in Newton just a few streets over from where everything took place in Watertown. Thank you to the Boston police, FBI and all of the Boston citizens that stepped up in helping to capture the 2 men responsible for the bombings.  Although we have not lived in the Boston area for 10 years and lived in the land of the Lakers for 7 of them, there isn't anyone that doesn't feel slightly nauseated from our constant passion for Boston and Boston sports. Even living half way around the world people know about our hometown passion. As you can see in the photos Matthew has already begun to love Boston. Our hearts are broken for the people who lost loved ones, for those who are injured, and for the people who witnessed the horror. Our family has been praying for you.

China Earthquake

We had a relaxing Saturday morning planned. Rick got up early with Matthew to go for a bike ride and I went back to bed to try and catch up on some much needed sleep. As I lay in bed for a couple of minutes, I started to feel strange. My heart was beating funny and I felt dizzy. Then I heard a creaking noise. Confused, I lifted my head off of my pillow and realized the building was swaying! Immediately recognizing that we were having an earthquake! Jumping out of bed, I could hear Rick calling to our daughters to get dressed and get ready to go outside. After waiting to see if it would stop soon, and when it didn't, we knew it was time to grab the kids and passports and make our way outside. We live on the 16th floor of an apartment building and our CA earthquake experience told us we should not take the elevator.  Half an hour later realizing it was safe to come back in, we checked the internet to see if an earthquake had been reported and where. It was an earthquake in southwest Sichuan province, very close to where the devastating earthquake happened in 2008, killing nearly 90,000 people.
Please pray for the people of southwest Sichuan province. There are now 181 reported dead, 24 missing and 11,200 injured. Also please pray for all of the rescue workers and volunteers.


                                                                                                            Cheryl

Bike Riding On The City Wall

Abby and Emma are on spring break, so today went to ride bikes on the Xi'an city wall.

The city wall is eight miles around and pretty much flat, in terms of elevation, but really bumpy. There are many other city walls in China, but the Xi'an City Wall is the most complete and one of the strongest fortifications in all of China. (For more information, see this).

It took us an hour and forty minutes to go all the way around, though it did take Cheryl and Emma a little longer. Jenna, Abby, and I (Rick) went ahead so that we would be finished before our time (100 minutes) was up. As such, we did not want to have to pay extra.

Funny story, we left Cheryl and Emma behind because Emma was getting tired. We figured it was better to separate and only pay for two late bikes instead of five. When they finally finished Cheryl was laughing pretty hard. "What's up?" we asked.

She said they got lost/turned around. There is no way to get "lost" as the wall goes in a complete square. Emma turned to Cheryl and says "How can someone get lost on a four-sided wall?"

Only my wife can; she needed a map.
(Cheryl: In my defense, there are smaller squares at each corner of the wall and I thought we started heading back in the direction we had just come. I got turned around, so I thought, not lost.)

The weather today was really windy and and sandy. When we looked up the weather, the forecast read current conditions "sandy", not partly cloudy, but sandy - you can see how bad it was from some of our pictures. That's Cheryl wearing a mask.

We had a very fun family day on the city wall!

Jenna & Abby looking good.

Emma taking a break! Good thing we looked back , she didn't tell us.

Cheryl braving the sand.

This is a daytime picture of the sun.

Bubble Day!

Matthew had a fun day chasing and shooting bubbles. Our weather here in Xi'an has been wonderful. Today was sunny and 86 degrees, we are getting ready for the hot and humid days that are coming.

Matthew loves to play video games with his sisters.

Matthew was making a phone call to Mickey Mouse, one of his favorites.

The Big Goose Pagoda

Matthew and I were out for our daily bike ride. Matthew has this infatuation with water fountains or waterfalls. So we stopped by the Big Goose Pagoda to check out the water show but we were too early.We were then able to walk out into the water fountain, so we had a couple of pictures taken.

~Rick

Great News!

Friday (the fifth), we received the approval from USCIS to adopt Matthew . This was really exciting news for our family - if they were to say "no" we would not be able to adopt Matthew. Thank you to everyone who has been praying for our family and the adoption of Matthew. Now, our agency will translate all of our paperwork and send it to Beijing. The Chinese government will match Matthew to our family and we will travel to Matthew's hometown of Changsa to do more paperwork and hopefully be able to visit the orphanage he came from. After further steps are completed in Changsha, we will go to Guangzhou to get him a visa. From there he can legally travel to America. Please continue to praythat these next steps will go smoothly.

God is so great and has been so faithful to our family!

S.H.A.P.E. Training

Yesterday, I was asked by another team here if I would like to help do some SHAPE training. If you do not know what SHAPE is, it is a study from Saddleback Church and this is what it stands for:
S = spiritual  gifts
H = heart
A = abilities
P = personality
E = experience .
We trained twenty college students, most of who are new believers. The training went very well. I was asked to train on the letter "E". I think I was chosen for this because I was the oldest. After I shared many young people came up to me. After hearing me speak, one girl said that she now knew that she can move on from her embarrassing past mistakes and use her past experiences to help others. Another girl also came up to me saying pretty much the same thing. She tried to commit suicide last year and now she knows that she can use her experience to help others. It was really a great experience for me. Thank God for using me.

[Belated] Easter wishes

I meant to post yesterday but I didn't get an opportunity to. I didn't the day before yesterday, either. Or the day before yesterday's yesterday.

So... this is either lack of opportunity/time or procrastination.

ME? PROCRASTINATING? No! I never postpone events for a later time. NEVER. (I hope you detect the heavy sarcasm in those last lines.)

Yesterday was Easter, although I ask myself as I write this why I am telling you. You certainly know the days of the week and you certainly keep track of time and you certainly have a calendar somewhere with those little subscripts near the date numbers telling you it is going to be Easter. So why, I ask myself, do I find it my personal duty to tell a perfectly-responsible person like yourself of yesterday's date. I believe it is solely due to the fact that I, although wanting to write something, have nothing to write, and thus decide to fill a post with stuff (<-- I need a thesaurus...) you already know.

Coloring eggs with our homemade dye. 

I sincerely apologize for not posting a proper HAPPY EASTER yesterday.

For Easter dinner, we had lasagna. :) And cupcakes.
Why did I put that there?
That doesn't belong there.
Gah, I'm already too far into this to go back and delete it now.

So, I was thinking of searching thoroughly through the Bible for passages on Easter or fervently searching the web, but I guess that's not what I'm here for. I am here to fill your day with stuff about China that you may or may not particularly care about. Not to give sermons. Contact your local church for that. :D

Along with a Happy Easter, may I also say, Happy April Fools' Day!
April Fools is such an odd holiday. What's the point of it anyhow? What's the joy of going, "Your shoes untied..." then yelling, "April Fools!" when the victim looks down to see their shoes are certainly not untied. It's doubly confusing when someone claims that your laces are slack and you say, "Yeah, right!" when they actually are untied. So, as you can see, on April Fools you can't be entirely certain whether or not your shoes are or are not untied for real.
That's why I wore Converse slip-ons. I could just say, "I don't have shoelaces!" and laugh at that person's face.

The "April Fools" so far today have included the cancelling of today's school (Dad/Baba; my reaction: I really only half-heard him) and a fifteen-pages report due tomorrow (Mom; my reaction: YAY! ...What on?) As you can see, our family is not very skilled in the art of tricking.

Let's see, is there anything of importance to still note...?

Well, then, I'll discuss Matthew.
I always discuss Matthew when I don't know what to talk about.

Conversation example:
Friend of Mom or Baba (Adult): Hi, I'm [fill in name]. What's your name?
Me: Abby.
Adult: Well, hello, Abby. How old are you?
Me: Thirteen.
Adult: Oh, really? Nice to meet you. How are you?
Me: Good. Can't complain.
Adult: Yeah, I'm good too.
Silence...
Matthew: *runs past*
Me: Matthew, where're you going?

And then I slip away from the adult to get Matthew. Such is the situation here. Sort of.
New favorite word(s): Cum on/here!
He especially enjoys using this phrase while I am at the table. At dinner. Eating. However, when I am completely bored out of my mind to the point where I am thoroughly amused by a "wiggly" pencil, he doesn't bother saying, "Come 'ere!" Ironic.

~Abby