Baby's First Picture with... um... Santa?

At our annual Christmas banquet for foreign workers in our province we had the opportunity to take our little girl's picture with Santa, the Chinese version. This "Teenage Chinese Santa" was super excited to have his photo taken with our family. He is also proudly displaying our little girl's Christmas gift, a stuffed dragon in honor of the Chinese New Year on January 23, 2012. Happy Year of the Dragon!

Christmas in China

Christmas is always a very busy time for us. We keep our schedules full of parties with students, the annual provincial banquet and final exams. Below are some photos from this very exciting time.

One of the traditional Hui People dancers at our annual banquet. Our province is the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, a special province for the Hui ethnicity. They are descendants of the Middle Eastern traders along the Silk Road, so Middle Eastern styles influence their traditions. Click here to watch a short video of this performance.

Ladies performing a traditional Chinese dance at the provincial banquet honoring "foreign experts" who work in Ningxia.

One of 45 students who came to our apartment for one of four Christmas parties. One activity was helping us decorate our Christmas tree. Students made some very creative ornaments. One even made an ornament with a special message for Brian, "Dear Teacher, I want to pass my exam."

We also had visits from some of our former students. These three were Annie's students last year. They were very excited to visit and meet our little girl for the first time.

Of course, this was also our little girl's first Christmas. We think we were more excited about it than she was. We excitedly helped her open some presents. We want to thank everyone who sent us care packages and gifts for our little one this semester. We feel very loved by your kindness and generosity.

4 Month Milestone

We admit that being new parents we are super excited by every small thing our little girl does. So, to share this excitement, here's another video. This was taken this morning. She is 4 months old today! As you will see and hear, we are quite excited! Click here to see our newest video of our little girl.

New Parents

As we are learning so many new things about our little girl we are often amazed at what she can do. Click here to see some of her first giggles. On some of our more difficult days we can just watch this and it makes us smile.

West Coast meets the Far East

This is some graffiti art that we found near our school. For those of you who can read the Chinese, please forgive us if it says anything inappropriate. We cut out the bad stuff in English. :)

This is just another influence from the U.S. that we find in our city. Being that our city is considered smaller we are amazed at how Western influences have made it this far out in China. Other things we see are a lot of Western products like Oreo cookies, Lay's potato chips, Johnson & Johnson baby products and, of course, Coca-Cola. Recently the second Dairy Queen and Pizza Hut opened in our city. (We still have no McDonald's.) We also see Western influences in clothing and lifestyle. Sadly, some of our bad habits from the West are making it here to China, like smoking and promiscuity. Something we were surprised by is that now more Chinese are putting their babies to sleep in cribs. This is very recent. The tradition is to have the baby sleep in the bed with the parents.

So, should you like to come to China and visit us, you might be surprised by what familiar things you find!

3 Months Old!

Our little girl is three months old today. It's hard to believe that she has been in our lives only this short time. We've learned a lot from her and about her. The biggest lesson is that we can see how great a parent's love is for their child. We realize how great a sacrifice the Father made for all of us by sending His Son to die for us.

Smiling for the camera!

I love it when she wakes up happy like this.


Play time!

Her new crib! And she's exactly three months old here!

Dressed by Dad

One day while Annie was out at the supermarket our little girl had a huge diaper blow-out. So, Dad was in charge of the clean-up. Afterward this is the outfit he put her in. When Annie asked, "Did you just put her in the first things you grabbed?" Brian answered confidently, "Yes. Yes I did."

Look closely and you'll see the socks for mittens. That was Annie's favorite part. :)

Fun faces from our little girl

She is so expressive and makes us laugh often...

Content. She must have just finished eating.

Happy morning awake time!


I think we caught her by surprise here.

Life in China Means...

Sometimes you can't access the internet and/or websites like you'd want to. Wonder why we haven't updated our personal webpage lately? Currently we are unable to access our webpage and our facebook pages. Yes, this is just one of the adventures of living abroad.

After four weeks back in China we are finally feeling like we've settled in to life again. Brian is teaching freshman and sophomore oral English classes while Annie spends her time with the cutest girl in China. :) We have reconnected with friends, both Chinese and other foreigners. We've also been able to meet two other baby girls in our foreign community who were born within a month of ours. Our apartment is set up nicely now and is feeling like a home. We are grateful for our new apartment with the extra space, especially in the kitchen.

Thank you for all the ways you've supported us with your thoughts and kind notes. We're happy to report that six of our former students worked this summer with a program for orphan children. A student sent us a message today saying that one of these children was just adopted by an American family. Our little girl is doing very well. She is healthy and continues to both amaze and challenge us in many ways. Brian is greatly enjoying meeting his new students who come from many different places in China.

Below is a photo of the freshman students at our university doing their military training, a requirement for all university freshmen. When training, the students are excused from all their classes, hence Brian only teaching two classes per week so far. Starting November 1 he will be teaching seven classes per week.

Back in the Saddle Again

After a long hiatus we are back to posting photos online. The reason of our hiatus is the topic of this set of photos, our sweet little girl. Below are some highlights from her first two months.

Fascinated by the ceiling fan in Annie's mom's house, where we lived for 3 months this summer.

Raise your hand if you were a super good baby on 4 different flights for our return to China!

Playtime! This "bouncy chair" is her favorite place to play and sleep both in the USA and in our China home.

Technical Difficulties!

Sorry that it's been a while since we've posted a picture. We've had technical difficulties which are just because of the country where we live. C'est la vie!

Below are three pictures.

This is from our trip to Vietnam. Annie is conquering her fear of riding motorbikes with our friend who lives in Vietnam with his Vietnamese wife.

Brian helping make dumplings while visiting one of our students in the countryside.

This is a panorama view of the countryside where we live. The people here are quite impoverished because of the growing desert that is overtaking their family farms.

This is why we are English teachers in Asia.

Recently, we visited a local tourist spot and enjoyed taking photos of the informational signs. Here are a few for your enjoyment. Also, you can see the terrain here, very desert-y and dry.

Four Legged Friends in Thailand

While in Thailand we visited the local zoo. We had a wonderful time, but one of the highlights was meeting this baby elephant. We got to pet the elephant and feed it cucumbers.

Back in China

After a wonderful month spent in Thailand and Vietnam we are happy to be back in China and to start teaching for the spring semester. This also means that we are starting the picture of the week again!

The two pictures below are from a Thai traditional dinner and performance we attended for our 3rd wedding anniversary. We had a wonderful night and enjoyed seeing so much Thai culture and eating some fantastic food.

Picture of the Week Postponement

Thank you to all of you who regularly check our picture of the week. We are going to be leaving for classes and a conference outside of China. We will be gone for one month and will not be able to consistently post a picture of the week.

Check back around March 1 for our newest posts.

Banquet Time

Sorry for the delay in our postings. With the end of the calendar year and the end of our teaching semester we got behind. But, below are some fun photos from our provincial annual banquet for all of the "foreign experts" in our province.

This woman played a traditional Chinese musical instrument called a "zither."

No banquet is complete without a hostess in a pretty princess dress.

This girl performed a magic show. It was a lot of fun!

These girls performed a traditional-style dance.