The Business???

If you haven't already seen this video from the Maryland v NC State football game this past Saturday, the referee makes an interesting personal foul call, see the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TTGZJlZpyc

Just in case you were wondering, the business is when one man hits another man in the private area.

Get Some Sleep Already

Last night we were trying to get Maddie to sleep. At the time she was playing doctor with her fake stethascope and ear examiner. We asked her if she wanted to go to sleep and her reply was, "Doctors don't sleep." Very true, very true.

Memorization Maddie

We meet with our small group from church on Friday evenings. Two Fridays ago, Renee led the children's portion of the small group and we did motions to learn the memory Bible verse. The kids not only loved the motions, but it really did help them learn the verse.

So I was in charge of the children's portion of small group this past Friday and was trying to figure out what motions to do for this week's verse. Renee and I were reviewing the prior week's verse and forgot the end. So we said the beginning and Maddie looked at us and finished the verse for us. This is pretty cool considering that she is not even 3 ½ and it also confirms to us that the method in teaching the memory verse actually worked or that our daughter is already smarter then her parents.

Not so Black Friday

In a new tradition that we started last year, Renee and I did all of our Christmas shopping for the kids the day after Thanksgiving. Now in the States, this day is known for the hordes of people getting up early to find all the deals for their Christmas shopping. Over here, neither Thanksgiving nor Christmas are huge holidays so the Friday after Thanksgiving means absolutely nothing, thus we were able to go to the Toys R Us in the mall, without having to worry about crowds, take our time picking out the toys and still be the first and only people in line when we were checking out.

It's fun that we were able to say that we finished our Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving, but it’s a tradition that we will definitely not continue when we go back to the States.

Thanksgiving Celebration

While we are on the other side of the world, we decided that we would host a Thanksgiving Dinner for some friends. What was going to be a very small get together of some close friends ended up being a pretty big party of a mish mash of 25 people (most we knew, some we didn't). It was a fun time getting to know the new people and talking with our friends and I know that everyone left very full.

Turkey runs around $6USD a pound here, so we decided against getting a turkey and decided on having some chicken and beef, which is significantly cheaper then turkey. I made homemade stuffing (note that it is actually dressing since it was not stuffed into anything, there are just a lot of people that associate dressing with salad), and for my first time making it, it was very good.

Besides the turkey, we missed out on spending time with family and of course watching football, but even though those things were missed, we still had a good time.

Renee vs The Motorbike

Can you guess who won???? The other day, Renee and I were riding our bikes (with the kids connected to my bike via our trailer). There was a guy on a motorbike who was clearly not paying attention to his driving coming towards us and when we alerted him of us approaching it was too late. Renee came to a stop and the guy just panicked and rammed right into her, now who do you think won???? Turns out that the guys pregnant wife was also on the motorbike with her and she came tumbling off along with him.

So to tell you who won the battle, Renee had an alignment issue that we took to the bike shop and was fixed for 5RMB or about .75 US cents. The guy who ran into her, well his front wheel came completely off and his whole front end was mashed up. If you told me that a guy on a motorbike ran into someone with a regular bike, I would ask you how beat up was the regular bike, in this case I am not sure how it happened, but Renee's bike was fine and that guys motorbike took the beating.

The guy told us to just go after the accident (knowing that it was his fault) and Renee was able to ride off before getting her bike fixed, the pregnant lady was fine I think, I think she was faking some of her pain, but we didn't stick around to see. Oh well, Renee 1, Motorbike 0.

Happy B-Lated

All, Happy Thanksgiving, even though this is a couple of days late. We didn't end up having turkey over here in China (try it is a minimum of $6USD a pound, a little pricey), but we had fun getting together with friends.

Enjoy the next couple of weeks leading up to Christmas and the end of 2007!!!