Spring in My Step

I know it's been awhile and now that I've finally gotten to it, hopefully it won't seem as daunting and I'll write again much sooner!

So... back in China (as you can guess, I always do a *much* better job at writing here), and it's chilly! As I mentioned in my post before, I had two gorgeous coats made, and left the white one at home, and then after reading Ashley's comment, I decided to gift the charcoal gray one to her for her birthday! It was hard (I love you, Ashley, and I think it will look so great on you, I can't wait to see it), but ultimately I was reminded of a Bible verse that says something to the effect of "if you have two of something, you should give one away, or better yet, give them both away." So... being a little selfish, I gave one away, and she couldn't be more deserving.

But problem - I didn't pack NEARLY enough warm clothes for this trip back to China. On the last trip home, I pretty much took everything as we weren't sure if I'd be coming back or not, but I did, so I just packed two weeks worth of warm clothes... why you ask? Because I remember that this time LAST year in China, I was wearing short dresses and shorts, with maybe jeans in the evenings. Yep... nope, it's cold here still. So far I've been supplementing my wardrobe with Curt's sweaters and coats, which he seems to find cute, haha, but I had to go and buy myself another coat. Sigh... This one's black, but basically the same as the charcoal one, but I'm guessing it's going to get a fair amount of use out of it if the weather keeps up! This is the last one!!!

I also finally picked up my finished dress from wedding street - now I just need a place to wear it - and next week am hoping to take my sea pearl and old gold I brought back with me to the jeweler to make a custom ring. So that's the China update!



Now for looking back... My family and I went on a GREAT ski trip while I was home to Steamboat. Every year we talk about when we're going to finally break down and buy a property up there since we've been going there for 26 years, and I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, next year might be the year we start to seriously look which is so exciting! Mom always talks to realtors, and in past years has even taken off some ski time to go look at some bargains, but we're going to hold out a little longer and see what the market does.



Weather wise, it was a weird spring skiing week though. We had some great sunshine days (normal), and then we had some crazy, creepy fog, too! On that day, you couldn't see more than 12 feet in front of you, and what was weird is that it wasn't snowing, or anything, and no one was on the mountain at ALL. It was just me and Dad that afternoon, and I had him skiing in front of me as he wears red and black (and I wear off white and black, so was nervous about blending in too much), and I was practically on top of him to keep him in my sights.



There were runs that we've skiied literally thousands of times and could almost do with our eyes closed that looked SO different under this blanket of fog. We stopped frequently, and at one point Dad said, "I don't think we're on Tomahawk anymore." I scoffed, thinking where else could we be, but a small shiver of fear ran up my spine as I remembered one of my favorite shows, "I shouldn't be alive," and an episode where two skiers get lost in similar conditions for 10 days! Yikes!

It was just eerie. You could hear the lift somewhere in the distance, but couldn't see it until you were right up on it, and on the lifts, you could hardly see the outline of the chair in front of you, and only then because you KNEW it had to be there. When the chairs coming towards you would suddenly roll through towards you, it was like I was waiting for a dead body to be on one or something because it looked too much like a scary movie! So needless to say, we didn't stay out too long on this day, LOL. My imagination can get a little too wild (and I watch too many - and love - scary movies). All in all, though, the trip was amazing and I can't wait for next March!



While home I also hung out with Maverick, whose scars are healing so well - what a relief that that's all over with! He's back to his normal self and hopefully cancer free. When I would do whatever on the computer, he'd usually come and lay at my feet and acted as a pretty solid (and warm) footrest, and I have to say I'm missing him a lot over here.... Curt and I were talking last night that probably our whole China experience would have been different if we didn't have him as I wouldn't be traveling back and forth so much, and worrying about his situation and having to depend on my family (thank you again Mom, Dad, and Kendyl - lifesavers you are) and feel so indebted, but he's worth it we both decided, and he's ours til the end, so there's no sense in what-iffing anyway. If only Suzhou allowed Great Danes... :-(



We also celebrated Kendyl's birthday early since I was leaving on the 31st, which was nice of her. I hated to miss it, but we had an amazing family dinner out at Benihana, one of her favorite restaurants, with some GREAT cookie cake after (her favorite, which between the four of us, or really three of us with Dad, Ken, and me, we devoured in less than 2 days.... we love cookies)! Happy Birthday, sweetie... sorry I missed it but thanks for letting us celebrate early :-(



On a cheerier note, Curt and I get to go to Singapore later this month, which I'm so excited about! Curt has a meeting there, and for the first time, I'll be tagging along as the lucky wife who gets to go with her husband on a business trip! What luck! We're also looking into a weekend in Japan, and if we can pull both of these off in the next month-ish, I would wipe out all of my top-priority destinations that I had in my mind of visiting during this experience for us! So blessed...

And speaking of blessed, we spent our second Easter here last weekend. It started out a little crazy as we had found out the church service time, but weren't exactly sure where we were going as they built a new church and were holding it's very first service that Sunday morning. We should have scouted it out beforehand, but like I said, it's been really cold and our only weekend transportation is Curt's motorcyle (with sidecar).

We left in what we thought was good time to get there, knowing the general area, but 45 minutes later, with me freezing on Curt's back because the side car was too cold (picture Dumb and Dumber here, people), and almost 20 minutes LATE (so yes, I was annoyed - I mean, it's Easter, come on, lol), we pull up to church. My hair was a rat's nest, but all of that simply floated away as we walked up to a beautiful church... a REAL church! And it was PACKED! As we bustled inside, we saw rooms that were brimming with people, standing room only, to view the monitors. An American saw us and we asked what was going on and he said the sanctuary was too full, so these were the overflow rooms. Turns out that since the service was almost 2 hours, we didn't miss too much either... whew!

Since I'm not much of an overflow room kind of girl, we went to the sanctuary (we came to church and I wanted to SEE church), but lucked out when some people we were standing near left for whatever reason! As we were standing there, though, I was totally shocked to see a sanctuary that probably seats 1500-2000 people again, at standing room only. I have to say I was also a little confused because it just blew my expectations away. Number 1, we're in China, remember? And Number 2, over half of the people in there were local Chinese people. The Westerners had an amazing showing, have no doubt, but I guess I was expecting less Chinese people in general because last I checked, religion is frowned upon pretty heavily (to say the least).

I whispered such a thought to Curt (I mean, we're only allowed one Bible here!), and he whispered back a quote that one of his Chinese workers told him at some point... "In China, anything is possible, and in China, anything is impossible." Basically meaning that the government can do whatever it wants, and anything can be achieved for a price... so who knows? I'm not going to ask questions, but I did find it interesting that at one point in the service the Reverend did thank the government for their generosity in allowing "this" to come to be...



The service was held in Chinese and English - alternating in which one was said first to then be translated. There was also hymn singing in Chinese, and even the Lord's Prayer, also said in Chinese (and the Chinese knew it?!), while we and other westerners muddied up the synchronization with the English version. We just tried to soak it all in, to be honest... and though we were shocked by how bizarre it was, we could also see how miraculous it was that Jesus is here, and not in hiding?



It was amazing... afterwards we made our way to the Renaissance for a lovely brunch - thank goodness the Western hotels try to bring a piece of home to us, it makes such a difference. After we ate I got to hold baby bunnies, and watch the little kids hunt around the lobby for Easter eggs with the Easter bunny, and it was a good Easter.



Later that weekend I cut Curt's hair, and if I do say so myself, I did a rockin' job compared to last time which ended in a buzz cut :-), and then sadly Curt got food poisoning and was down for the count for about 3-4 days. It was rough... I've never seen the poor guy sick as often as he has been here... living in China is *definitely* hazardous to your health!



Other than that, nothing too exciting! I find myself missing the movie theater... here all that's playing is Alice in Wonderland, and that one's always been a little too trippy for my tastes. What about some "How to Train your Dragon" or "Last Song" here (I'm obsessed with that song, by the way) Anyway, hope everyone is well and I promise to write again soon so it won't be as long next time, haha!