Warm Spring Week

Well March came in like a chilly lamb and went out like a warm lamb this year. It's been pretty quiet weatherwise this month around here. The flowers are really starting to blossom. On Monday we went to a park and played ourtside. It was warm enough today for us to put the new Katie sticker on the van. We could not even find a sticker to perfectly match the old ones, but I think it fits in OK. I've heard that some people think that this is some sort of showoffy act but we waited a long time to get this sticker into place.

Palm Sunday weekend

Yesterday, Karen took Katie to a nearby church for an Easter egg hunt. She really enjoyed that and the associated puppet show. Last night, Kris, her friend Lydia, and I, went to Bloomington, IL, to attend Winter Jam 2010, a Christian rock festival. We were there from about 5:30 to 10 pm, and saw such groups as the Newsboys and Third Day (this is the third time I have seen that group). We were pretty tired, but enjoyed the show quite a lot. This morning, Katie and I went to Sunday school with Karen and Kris. Tonight, Karen and Kris went to one of Karen's college friend's recital.

Semi-random Friday blog entry

Kris played dress-up with Katie a couple days ago, so here are some cute pictures. Our frog eggs hatched a couple days ago; the tadpoles were only about 3/16 of an inch long. We think they might be chorus frogs. Today Karen took Katie to an (indoor) swimming pool. She enjoyed it; what a pleasant contrast to our attempt to take her swimming in China. Tonight I took Katie to the local mall to walk around. She had the opportunity to meet the Easter Bunny, but he was gone for the night by the time I got down to see him - I'm not sure how she would have responded to him anyway. I found some dancing plants at the Hallmark store. These plastic plants are solar powered and bob up and down when light hits them and they remind me of China because our drivers there had them on their van dashboards. The lady at the Hallmark store commented that they relatively recent imported product. Here are examples of what I am talking about: http://blazingzone.com/flowers.html?gclid=CKyPoeGP2KACFQshDQodclyMEw

I should probably get to bed soon: I'm done grading exams for tonight and blogging while I listen to 80s music on YouTube.

Periods to commas

Some of our frog eggs appear to be changing.

Flowers, China, and looking back: Coming home!

Since this is the last evening of "spring break" for me, I think I will try to reach the end of our China trip pictures with an extra blog entry for today (January 27-28, 2010, is covered in a different entry from today), though I will probably bring up stories and pictures in the future as they come to mind. Today the snow from yesterday melted. We taught Katie the word "flower" and she learned how to do the Chicken Dance. Katie did OK in church today; despite that I forgot to bring her toys and she wanted me to pick her up, but I couldn't. After lunch, we went to friends' church where they have been having Mandarin lessons; we enjoyed the lesson. After we got home I saw a Nova episode where they were talking about fossils of the earliest flower, some of which have been found in northern China. I would love to go fossil hunting in China some time and be successful (I kept my eyes peeled while I was out there). Katie is fascinated with our stuffed bunny toy that sings "Here Comes Peter Cottontail". So today she and Kris watched the old Rankin&Bass video.

Looking back in the blog entries I see that we did not have much about our trip home, because of course we were (more) tired then. Looking back at my little black notebook that my sister gave me for the trip, I can put together a description. We were up at 3 am to go to the airport. The airport was OK, except to get to the airplane we had to ride on a really crowded bus - none of us, especially Katie, appreciated that. The 2 hour flight to Shanghai arrived at 10:20 am. We had a REALLY long layover, and with a delay as well, we did not leave until 7:30 pm. By the way, did I mention that China is all under one time zone? The 7000 mile flight to Chicago flew east over Japan this time, then turned north past Tokyo. We did not pass as far north this time, just over southern Alaska and down through North Dakota and over Beloit, WI. Katie loved to touch the buttons on her seat TV, but she wound up sleeping better than the rest of us. Again we were well fed. Our 12 hour and 45 minute flight arrived an 1 hour and 15 minutes before the time when we left China. Crossing through US customs was fairly uneventful considering we were all tired and a little cranky. The hardboiled eggs I brought from China as a snack had to get tossed (for fear they could carry the swine flu). Katie and I hung out at the Children's Museum exhibit at the airport for a while. Our half hour flight to Peoria landed at 10:08 pm. Our good friends the Bosmas met us at the airport with signs that said "Welcome Home Katie" and "Happy Birthday Kristine". Katie did not mind the car seat like we thought she would. When we got home we found that they and others left food for us. Katie liked our house, and her room, from the outset. If I recall correctly, the "Welcome to your new home sign" is actually one that my brother made for us when we went to Seattle for the summer of 2007. We ate a meal, gave Katie a bath, and went to bed for a while. Jet lag was brutal, but I have already blogged about that. I don't have any brilliant summary thoughts about that trip, when I think back too hard about it my brain overwhelms - I guess "trip of a lifetime" might work. Thank God we all made it back safely and sanely. We just realized that our first meeting with our adoption agency was in the Chicago area 4 years ago today. Thanks for reading my blogging.

Looking back: January 27-28

We have already blogged a bit about January 27-28, 2010 (red couch pictures, trips to the consulate, etc.). I should probably add that on January 28, Kris, Katie, and I went back to the Qingping market area to look around. We found all sorts of strange things for sale (to eat I presume): seahorses, bugs, snakes, turtle parts, big fungi. We also saw a little dredging operation. Other pix include a carrying a new piece of extra luggage and the island police practicing hand to hand combat. The pic of the tug-like boat is a trash-scooping boat.