Briefly...
We are so close to having Joseph with us now. We still have a few things we hope to have done before he comes, but we are putting the finishing touches on Jay's class, he should turn his grades in tomorrow. We have to give the school back a little more than $100 for the visas for Audriana and Vikki - we ended up taking out a loan from the school, rather than pay for it up front. It wasn't until recently that we found out that we could take money out of our U.S. funds directly. Although our budget is not functioning as we would like, we have not yet had to take money out of U.S. funds - which is nice. We will have to do that for the baby! Good news is that it will be very cheap comparatively. Only 5,000rmb is expected (barring no complications). That is not even $1,000 U.S.
Christmas was great! It was such a blessing to have Grammy with us. Still hope to get pictures up, but it is looking more bleak! You should e-mail us if you'd like pictures to put some pressure on Vikki. =)
Blessings!
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Ma Luttrell is here!
Vikki's mom arrived last night around 9:40. She had some trouble on the flight over - had to run to make her flight in Beijing, but was early coming to Hangzhou. We got home around midnight last night and everyone slept in this morning. Vikki said that she hasn't slept in that late since Audriana was an infant! We went shopping today to pick up some things for Ma as well. We are glad to have her for the next two almost three months!
Sunday, December 7, 2008
update on the periphary
We are now planning on visiting friends in Shanghai on the 13th (This coming weekend).
Vikki has been feeling more pressure lately with the baby, and last night remarked that he felt like he was sitting lower. She considered not going to Shanghai this weekend, and based on how she feels now, is thinking that a trip to Suzhou for Christmas (rather than Putuo Shan) is not going to work - which is what Jay thought originally, though he got excited about possibly visiting somewhere...
We've made contact with the first school we had contracted positions for this school year, again - this is the very school that declined our contracts once we found out we were expecting, and that I thought (while in America) that we probably wouldn't want to work for because of that. However, another friend was considering the same school and Jay is going to go visit (probably on the 23rd) to make a personal visit and to collect information for ourselves and our friend. We hope to make many more contacts with other schools in the coming semester, and this was a convenient way to finally do something about it this semester - albeit just barely!
We went in to look at our pictures at the photography studio, but are still waiting for them to complete the finished product and give us a call so we can come view it. At this rate, Vikki's birthday present will serve as a Christmas present too!
We are going to be very busy this month - trying to also place importance on our Heavenly Father (which we have sorely neglected), our marriage, and Christmas. Jay has never before felt like a humbug around Christmas until this year! There is just something ironic about taking time to put up a small plastic tree in the corner of your room, with blue Christmas balls hung on it, when seemingly there are a ton of other 'much more important' things to do. We are going to try to put up our tree on Wednesday - if we have time to go to the bookstore on Monday and are getting ready for our trip to Shanghai this weekend.
We stayed up late last night trying to think about what things we really want to see happen, and are willing to sacrifice to see them accomplished, versus what things are good and probably should be done, but may not be completed. We actually were able to have quite a bit of fun doing so, not having laughed together as hard in quite a while. We make a three column sheet to help us prioritize when we do this, putting 'must', 'want', and 'could' on one column each. This time, I thought even things on our 'want' column will not be done...we later put hanging decorations on the first column, only to put 'buy Christmas decorations' on the second - when I didn't think those would be completed...talk about putting the cart before the horse. Maybe you had to be there. =)
Hopefully we'll be able to put some more effort into getting more pictures up After Vikki's mom gets here and before the baby comes.
The baby's name, unless we put a lot more thought into it (unlikely), is going to be Joseph Micaiah.
Happy Holiday Season!
Vikki has been feeling more pressure lately with the baby, and last night remarked that he felt like he was sitting lower. She considered not going to Shanghai this weekend, and based on how she feels now, is thinking that a trip to Suzhou for Christmas (rather than Putuo Shan) is not going to work - which is what Jay thought originally, though he got excited about possibly visiting somewhere...
We've made contact with the first school we had contracted positions for this school year, again - this is the very school that declined our contracts once we found out we were expecting, and that I thought (while in America) that we probably wouldn't want to work for because of that. However, another friend was considering the same school and Jay is going to go visit (probably on the 23rd) to make a personal visit and to collect information for ourselves and our friend. We hope to make many more contacts with other schools in the coming semester, and this was a convenient way to finally do something about it this semester - albeit just barely!
We went in to look at our pictures at the photography studio, but are still waiting for them to complete the finished product and give us a call so we can come view it. At this rate, Vikki's birthday present will serve as a Christmas present too!
We are going to be very busy this month - trying to also place importance on our Heavenly Father (which we have sorely neglected), our marriage, and Christmas. Jay has never before felt like a humbug around Christmas until this year! There is just something ironic about taking time to put up a small plastic tree in the corner of your room, with blue Christmas balls hung on it, when seemingly there are a ton of other 'much more important' things to do. We are going to try to put up our tree on Wednesday - if we have time to go to the bookstore on Monday and are getting ready for our trip to Shanghai this weekend.
We stayed up late last night trying to think about what things we really want to see happen, and are willing to sacrifice to see them accomplished, versus what things are good and probably should be done, but may not be completed. We actually were able to have quite a bit of fun doing so, not having laughed together as hard in quite a while. We make a three column sheet to help us prioritize when we do this, putting 'must', 'want', and 'could' on one column each. This time, I thought even things on our 'want' column will not be done...we later put hanging decorations on the first column, only to put 'buy Christmas decorations' on the second - when I didn't think those would be completed...talk about putting the cart before the horse. Maybe you had to be there. =)
Hopefully we'll be able to put some more effort into getting more pictures up After Vikki's mom gets here and before the baby comes.
The baby's name, unless we put a lot more thought into it (unlikely), is going to be Joseph Micaiah.
Happy Holiday Season!
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
The Peanut Butter dance and song
The last few times Audriana has had a peanut butter sandwich when Daddy was around, she has done this 'peanut butter' dance and mantra....we really like our peanut butter!
Currently, she's dancing around wearing a santa hat that her mother recently bought to help us bring in the holiday season.
Currently, she's dancing around wearing a santa hat that her mother recently bought to help us bring in the holiday season.
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