Congrats Linds & Baz!!

I would like to congratulate my friend Lindsey and her now-fiance Barrie ("Baz") on their recent engagement!  Linds and I have been friends since grade 8, and we all met Baz when our friends Tanessa and Denise met him randomly while traveling in England about 10 years ago.  After striking up a friendship, Baz came out to Canada at least once a year to visit them and to snowboard.  That's when we all met him and became friends with him.  A couple years ago, Lindsey and Tanessa were traveling in Europe, met up with Baz again, and that's when things started happening with the Lindsey-and-Baz saga.  Baz (who is an engineer), then decided to come to Canada for a year (this past year), mainly to snowboard and be with Linds.  

Dec. 24th was Lindsey's 27th birthday, and Baz completely surprised her with an early morning proposal on the snowy shores of Spanish Banks beach in Vancouver.  A treasure map and shovel were involved, I'm told.  

Linds and Baz are both super excited, and a June wedding is being planned.  Congrats guys!

It Arrived!

Hi Everybody,

You might remember (or look back to) a few posts ago when I said that my mom, sisters, and Oma had sent us a sweet Christmas parcel as a surprise.  Well, Andrew's mum did too!  It was on it's way over on a boat so it took a wee bit longer to arrive, but that it did today, just 3 days after Christmas, which was perfect timing as we were still on our 4-day "Christmas holidays"... we opened it right after church and found SO much stuff inside... again, I couldn't believe how one box could hold so much stuff.  All of it was individually wrapped in little pieces of Christmas wrapping paper, so we had lots of fun ripping it all open.

Here's me modeling the nice turquoise silk scarf and underwear... woot woot!

Andrew unwrapping a little Santa ornament.

Andrew holding his gift bag, which was full of wrapped pressies.

This is me, looking like I'm high on drugs (I wasn't!) cutting the box open.  Sorry these pics are a little backwards in order... it takes like a year to move them around on this program, so I'll just let you use your backwards imagination!  

Altogether, the package contained: socks & underwear, some chocolate bars, soap, hot chocolate powder, mittens, photos, a Christmas CD, little ornaments, Christmas napkins, etc.  Aunty Margaret and Uncle Charlie were also very kind to send Andrew a really nice collared shirt (which I'm sure will look ever so dashing on him) and a really nice set of PJs for me, which I can totally use here as it's SOOOOO freezing!  I've been sleeping in sweats for the past week b/c of the temp, but that just feels like I'm camping in our tent all over again, so real PJs will be a nice change tonight.

Thanks SOOOO much to the Nairns for this wonderful present of "Christmas in a Box"... we really appreciated it and felt the love.

This last pic is of ALL the cards peeps have sent us here.  If you sent us a card, look closely to see if you can spot yours... I promise they're all up there, but some might be hidden.  They are standing atop our oh-so-massive oven... that's what I baked the C-mas cookies in... I forgot to mention there's only room to bake 6 cookies at a time, so it's an enormous undertaking to do any baking b/c you have to sit there and wait and wait and wait... it's a 3-hour commitment!  

All right, thanks again Nairns, and Merry Christmas again everyone!

Round Yon Virgin

Well, needless to say, this has probably been our most "different" Christmas yet!  While we've both been away from our families several times over Christmas in past years, living in China definitely tops them all for being completely different to a Western Christmas.

Most Chinese don't celebrate Christmas; instead they're super big on Chinese New Years which will be starting in about 4 weeks from now.  However, they still decorate the malls with lights and pictures of Santa and play Christmas music, although I don't think they understand the background as to why Christmas is celebrated in the first place.  In any case, it's nice to be around a bit of "Christmasy stuff".  

At our school, our program being Canadian, us 4 teachers decided we'd totally celebrate Christmas, just like we went big with Halloween a couple months ago.  We encouraged our kids to decorate their classrooms, which they did with huge initiative... the classes looked GREAT!  Some of our kids even managed to get fake Christmas trees from somewhere... one for each classroom.  There were sparkly garlands, snowflakes, ornaments, lights, and artwork hanging from every wall, bulletin board, ceiling, and fan... so nice!  

On Dec 23rd we had a big C-mas party at school.  There were games like "Pin the nose on Rudolph" and the "Rudolph Dash", a big gift exchange, a visit from Santa Clause (our principal, Ron), skits and presentations, and lots of caroling that Andrew led on his guitar.  The kids were so enthusiastic... they're just fantastic to plan stuff for b/c they love whatever we do.  There are no bad-attitude-kids sulking in the back saying "this sucks"... which is so refreshing for us!

In the week leading up to the Christmas party, I took some time during my classes to teach the kids some C-mas carols so they'd be primed for the carols during the party.  I did this by looking up the carols online in the classroom, putting the lyrics on the overhead, and having them sing along with the computer.  Of course they'd heard of songs like Rudolph and Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and Frosty, but when we'd gone thru all those "kid-friendly" songs, one kid requested Silent Night.  So I looked it up online and put the words up for them.  Being the obedient little Chinese kids that they are, they sang along as best they could, but I noticed some very puzzled looks on their faces when we got to parts in the song like "Round yon virgin, mother and child".  I'm sure they were wondering "what the heck is a round yon virgin?".  Now remember that most of these kids have grown up with zero religion, China being a communist country.  In fact, we're not supposed to be saying anything about religion while teaching these kids, least of all Christianity I'm sure, but given the circumstances I couldn't really skip over it.

  Terry, the English teacher, had already told them the Christmas story during her ESL lesson earlier that week, so they knew about baby Jesus, but I guess she hadn't gone into detail about how Mary had gotten pregnant with Jesus.  Anyways, back to the song, the kids were very curious about this line, so we started talking about it.  I tried to explain it to them by saying "well, you all know what a virgin is right?  We talked about it during sex ed last month".  Yes, they all remembered.  "Well, Mary was a virgin when she was pregnant with Jesus".  "But Mrs. Nairn, you told us you have to have sex to get pregnant".  Shoot!  "Yes, but Mary got pregnant because God made her pregnant without having sex".  This was met with looks of disbelief from the kids, and was only exacerbated by me going on to tell about the angels in the sky singing to the shepherds below.  I'm sure they were thinking "ya right, teacher" in their heads, but again, being Chinese, they would never challenge a teacher out loud like that (they believe this shows disrespect).  So I said to them "Hmm, this might sound a little strange and far-fetched to you right now, eh?", to which one of our more mature kids responded, "Yes, but I'm sure you have a hard time believing all our old Chinese legends too."  Touche!   I really couldn't argue with him on this one.  

Jay the Santa Clause in "Twas' the Night Before Christmas" presentation

Siare & Monica in a Starbucks skit

Jay, Monica, and Siare in the Starbucks skit

More Decorations... this one took 2 boys about 2 hours to tape to the wall- dedication!

Special Feature: Shane & Bonnie Mowery

While living in Shanghai we've had the opportunity to meet loads of other expats, which has been great.  The couple in the picture above are Shane and Bonnie from Alabama.  Shane is a pilot and Bonnie's a flight attendant (that's how they met in the States).  After they got married, Shane's airline went under, and he was then hired by a Chinese airline and arrived in China around the same time as us (we met them at our cell group).  Here's the crazy thing: the Chinese airline hasn't had the time to train him on their planes yet, so they're paying him full-time wages and he's just hanging out here in Shanghai, waiting for their call!  This is super nice for him and Bonnie b/c they have LOADS of time to do whatever they want.  It's also really nice for us b/c they have become our "most available" friends.  There's always a 100% guarantee that if we call them to see if they want to hang out, they'll say yes and be there within 20 minutes!  We love it!  Shane and Bonnie are great for playing games with, and are quite similar to us in a lot of ways, so we get on great.  Bonnie and I are like two peas in a pod, and Shane is really intelligent and plays guitar, so Andrew loves being around him too... it's a good mix and is something we have been praying for (to meet a couple where both of us really like both of them, and live nearby enough to hang out with).  We're looking forward to their "after-Christmas Christmas-party" on Sat night... Italian theme!

Goodness from Home!

Let me begin this post by explaining that a couple months ago when our families asked what we wanted for Christmas this year we said "NOTHING!"  Reason being that a)we have everything we could ever want, b)shipping is super expensive, c)almost everything is made in China anyways, so why send it back to the motherland from Canada?, and d)it would be hard for us to reciprocate and send pressies back for everyone in our families as we'd be a bit embarrassed to do that b/c the quality of many things here is a bit on the junky side.  That being said, we all agreed that we'd just send each other cards this year and that would be it.  
But dear Carmen (my Mom) couldn't help herself!  She decided to surprise us and send us a box of Christmas goodies... mainly baking and the good old German treats I can't seem to live without at Christmas-time.  She actually told me about the parcel once it was in the mail and said it was "just small"... but it sure didn't look all that small when we received it.  
Moreover, it was PACKED full of amazing stuff... it must have been like putting a puzzle together b/c every square inch was stuffed full of stuff... nuts, chocolates, cookies, marzipan, German honeycake... even some Life cereal on the very top (for those of you who don't know, that's Andrew's favorite cereal in the world but it's super duper expensive here in China... for only a tiny box too, so we almost never buy it).  My mom told me that she was at the post office filling Life cereal into little Ziploc bags, trying to stay within a certain weight limit... I think she must have been getting some amused looks!  Also, there was a super nice card from my parents inside, plus cards from Emily, an Archie comic for Andrew from my sister Sylvia, and a box of baking and a card from my Oma Bohl... everyone was in on this!  Woo hoo!
This last picture is of me first attempting to break into the parcel.  My mom always wraps these Houdini-proof packages.  I'm pretty sure that the delivery plane could get shot out of the sky, sink to the bottom of the ocean, sit there for 30 years, and the contents of my mom's packages would be warm, dry, and in one piece upon discovery!  I'm not kidding... it took me about 10 minutes just to get into the box itself, using various cutting tools...
It's been so nice having all these wonderful Christmas treats in the house, and we are SO thankful to everyone who contributed... thanks guys!  It was really unexpected!

I wasn't planning on doing any C-mas baking myself this year, mainly b/c our kitchen counter space here in China is no bigger than 2ft x 2ft.  I'm not kidding... it's smaller than the top of an elementary school kid's desk, if that helps you visualize it.  It's so frustrating trying to make anything, including meals b/c there's no place to put anything... I end up standing things on the gas stove, inside the sink, and in the tiny little dish-drying basket.  Sometimes I even have to balance things on the top of the fridge.  I won't complain any further here b/c I know we still have a lot more than most people in the world do.  It's just a lot less space than I'm used to in a kitchen.  

Anyways, all that being said, our cell group is have an outreach-type Christmas party this Friday night, and I was asked to coordinate all the food.  It's just finger-food and desserts (not a big meal), so that's fine, but I figured I should bake something Christmasy instead of copping out and buying gross Chinese-y fried things in bags... that's like bringing chips and pop instead of nice stuff for C-mas.  So I got a recipe for sugar cookies online and have been working on them the past 2 nights.  They turned out okay, but taste a little funny b/c I had to use Chinese dumpling-flour to make them... that's the only kind of flour they have here... unless you want to pay around $10 for a little bag of the imported Rogers flour, which is crazy!  Anyways, the point is, our apartment is warm and cozy and smells like Christmas cookies.  While I was doing this, Andrew was practicing C-mas carols on the guitar as he's playing for the cell-group party's caroling part, and for our students' C-mas party next week.  The music sounds great!  

While I was writing this post, Andrew was just watching CNN and we caught the part about the Whistler gondola-post snapping in half... freaky!!  You gotta think that those kinds of things are always on peoples' minds as they ride up the lifts on ski mountains... at least I always think of that "what if" scenario whenever I'm riding up.  I always end up convincing myself that these things never happen in developed countries like Canada, and that they would only ever happen in new little ski-countries like Latvia or Slovenia or whatever... guess not!  The snow at Whistler looked nice on TV though... kind of wish I were there (just not on that gondola!).

K, gotta go... hope you're all having a great time getting ready for C-mas.  To those of you in our immediate family: watch for your C-mas cards in the mail... they should arrive soon!

The Latest...

Hi Guys,

Well, we're coming up to Christmas and are as busy as ever. Last week our school was inspected by some Ministry of Education inspectors from Victoria, BC... thankfully we passed the inspection, but it was a lot of work and stress.

Although Chinese people don't traditionally celebrate Christmas, they have definitely hopped on the bandwagon of decorating their main mall/shopping areas really nicely with lights, Santa Clauses, and Rudolphs. There's even some fake snow (white pebbles) for Santa to drive his sleigh over!

As we are teaching at a Chinese school (as opposed to an international school), we don't get the traditional 2-week Christmas holidays off (but we do get Dec 25-26 off). Instead of that 2-week C-mas holiday, we get 3 weeks off for Chinese New Year from Jan 17-Feb8. The great part about this is that we can go on a really nice holiday, which we booked flights for a few weeks ago and are now booking accomodations for. We were originally hoping to go to Thailand and Vietnam, but as it turns out, they are on the same "lunar calendar" as China, meaning that they also have holidays during Chinese New Year. This means that prices to fly and stay there are higher, and the areas will be crazier than usual... not our bag! Our travel agent here did manage to snag us some good prices to Bali (in Indonesia) though, so that's where we're headed! The cool thing is that on the way there we'll get to spend 4 days in Singapore, and on the way back we're gonna spend some time in Hong Kong. So really, we get to see 3 places.

Not only that, but once we're in Bali, we're gonna go island-hopping around the area. I've been doing a bunch of research and there are a few tiny tropical islands nearby (that you have to take a ferry to from Bali). These islands are so small that there are no cars, motorbikes, etc allowed on them... the only transportation is bikes or horses! Isn't that cool? We're gonna be staying in little huts right on the beach... cheap & cheerful! Because these little islands are very close together, we'll spend a few days on each, taking a little boat between them whenever we've had enough of one and need a change of scenery. These islands boast white sandy beaches, blue waters, and amazing diving and snorkling. When we're in Bali we hope to do some surfing, check out the monkey forest, and see some little villages which manufacture silver and wooden things. We are super excited for all of this!


The 3 tiny Tropical Islands (called the "Gili Islands")

Map of Bali (in Indonesia). We'll be staying in the south (town of Kuta).

Beach huts on one of the Gili Islands... I think this is the deluxe model though... we'll be roughing it!

On a sour note, our computer has gone belly-up... strange b/c it's a Mac and I thought they were supposed to be unbreakable... I guess not. What happened is that when I tried to turn it on this past weekend, the screen lit up with the Apple sign (like normal), but it didn't load beyond that to the normal user screen, even after many hours. Andrew got up early this morning to call the Mac store in Vancouver to see what the problem might be, and it seems that it's either a "corrupt operating system" or a failed hard drive. Anyways, they advised him to insert the "start-up disk" that came with the computer... guess where that is? It's in Gill & Tony's basement (Andrew's parents) somewhere in the depths of one of our many boxes that are all unmarked (b/c we didn't have time to organize all our junk while moving). There's no way I'm gonna ask Gill or Tony to go digging thru all our stuff, so we're just gonna have to figure this one out. If any of you computer experts have any bright ideas, please let us know! I'm pretty worried about it b/c ALL our stuff is on that computer, including all our photos from the past 3.5 years and a ton of coursework that I've prepared. We're gonna try to get it fixed this weekend here in Shanghai, but I'm concerned about losing all our files.

Anyways, that's all of our latest and greatest... hope you're all doing well!