Bikes, Trikes, and a clever little joke that I'm sure you haven't heard before (is this title too long?)

It has been a while since the last post. Let me get you caught up to speed: Jenny and I have both been doing some college courses. Jenny has been doing Biology I, I have been doing College Writing I, and we have both been doing Psychology and Intro to Algebra (a.k.a. high school math) together. Three classes for the both of us.

Jenny has been working about twenty hours per week, watching the kids, and doing these classes all summer. Needless to say, she has been a busy little bee.

I have been doing those three classes and working my fitness consulting business full-time from home, which is going well. I'm waiting to hear back from the Minnetonka School District to see if I can get some more work there this coming school year. I'm also planning on getting a job for the weekends to get us back in the swing of things financially speaking.

The boys have been growing up quickly. Their favorite thing to do is ride their bikes/trikes outside. My favorite thing for them to do is play catch with me in the backyard, but they are not the biggest fans. (Why not?!)

Liam got a new tricycle today and he's been learning how to pedal (not peddle, which is to sell something that was stolen).

Yes, that is duct tape on his feet. He kept taking them off so I thought this was a clever way to help him figure it out. He did a pretty good job.

Allow me to share one of Liam's most recent jokes. I would categorize it as a classic "knock-knock" joke. If you choose not to allow me and are using a PC, feel free to hold ALT and press F4 or hold CTRL and press Q. If you are a Mac user, that's Command + W or Command + Q. For those of you who still have their internet open: Ahem... check check one two one two. Okay, here goes:

Liam: "Knock, knock"

Me: (or you, if that helps) "Who's there?"

Liam: "Levi"

Me/You: "Levi who?"

Liam: "Levi who?" (At this point Levi and Liam laugh uproariously.)

Feel free to share that one with as many people as you want as long as you give credit to my two year old.

Until next time!

Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

Summer Courses & Chimpanzees

When I came back from work, Jenny had the whole upstairs all cleaned up and tidy for me. She's an amazing wife. :)

We immediately went to our college to buy some of the textbooks we'll be needing for our classes. This coming summer, Jenny and I are taking classes at North Hennepin Community College. Jenny and I have two classes in common: Introduction to Algebra (we've forgotten it since high school, which is crazy because I use Algebra ALL the time. sarcasm) and Psychology. I have a class on my own which is the Freshman Writing class and Jenny will be taking a Biology class. We're very excited to learn and get one step closer to getting the degrees we need to pursue the jobs we are passionate about.

When we got home, our family pretended to be chimpanzees, fighting and climbing on each other. Then Levi started making zebra noises which was out of place, but funny.

We had some pizza for dinner and ended the night with a solid workout.

2/13/2012

I got up at about 6:45 and made sure pancakes were ready for the family when they woke up. Jenny, of course, was already awake, doing her study thing that she does. The boys were down at 7:00 sharp and we all had breakfast together.

Jenny has MOPS on Mondays, so she brought the boys to church with her while I studied Chinese and read. I'm reading Simply Jesus by N.T. Wright. I'm not far in the book yet, but I can tell it's going to be good.

After nap time, we played a little game where I hid under the comforter and attempted to consume all children and then regurgitate them. It was pretty intense. I feel like I won, though no official winner was determined.

Later, Levi and I did some of his homeschool/preschool work.

I got a call asking if I could come in and do some para sub work over at the Chinese immersion school. This will be my fourth day there since last week. I've loved working there and having a day filled with Chinese! Oh. I guess I never mentioned that I'm doing that kind of work. I've been helping out at Scenic Heights Elementary School in Minnetonka. I help out in their Chinese immersion classes. So far I've worked with Kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade, 4th grade, and 5th grade. It's been absolutely wonderful to work there. I'll share more as time goes on.

2/12/2012

It's been a while!

I made Jenny some eggs for breakfast. I thought they looked like they were dug out of the garbage can, but Jenny insisted they were good. I guess we'll never know the truth.

I went to see "Safe House" with Aaron and Ron. It was a pretty good movie! Denzel is quite the actor.

We had some Culver's for lunch and when I got back, I took over watching the boys so Jenny and my mom could go see "The Vow". Since I "vowed" to not see it (har har), my mom was gracious to take Jenny.

I studied a lot of Chinese today. I'm trying my best to speak it at home with the boys. Oh, on that note: We are getting Levi into a Chinese immersion kindergarten. We are very, VERY excited about it. It'll be the most familiar type of school to him, since he's spent most school time in China.

Levi and I did some homeschooling for a solid hour and a half or something like that. Today he was learning about liquids and gases and how to figure out which is which and also about police men i.e. what their role is in our society. It was hard explaining how police dogs chase people down yet aren't the ones that take the crooks to jail.

We finished up with some dinner and bed!

March 16, 2011 Video Blog

Hello everyone! We have another video blog! Enjoy!

If for some reason you are seeing this message on Facebook or in your email and you can not see the video, you can see it on our blog by clicking here.
Until next time,
Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

Homework

This is my homework for the weekend. Write up a paragraph with comparative grammar in it along with some of the new vocabulary from our newest lesson in my textbook.

In China, when a gift is given to someone, they don’t open it up until that person leaves. It’s cultural; they wait so that if they don’t like it, the gift-giver doesn’t feel bad. (In America, we typically rely on our acting skills to help the person not feel bad for a gift we already have or don’t like, right?) They feel that by doing it this way, they respect the person that gave the gift.

This short paragraph is about how I personally don’t like surprises. This probably has something to do with how I like to have everything planned out; I leave little room for unexpected scenarios. When it comes to opening gifts, I can get a bit nervous for that reason i.e. I don’t know what I’m about to get; the whole “surprise” factor. haha

Until next time,
Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

March 9th 2011 Video Blog!

Enjoy!

Until next time,
Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

Our New Semester

Wow! It’s been a long time since we last wrote anything. We’re in between semesters so we have a nice break to enjoy.

We are very much looking forward to next week. On March 1st, I will start attending classes at my Chinese language school I’m enrolled at. Jenny will resume her lessons with her tutor as well.

I will be beginning to go to an English corner on a weekly basis. Chinese people will come looking to practice their English with a native speaker, so we’ll just chat about whatever they want to; it should be fun!

Jenny will also resume volunteering her time at a local foster home.

Our family has been doing well! We’ll have to get some more updated pictures and videos for you soon.

Until next time,
Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

Aaaaannnnd we’re back!

Hello everyone!

First off, we are glad to be back in Xi’an! Our time in Thailand was incredibly refreshing for us and we are so grateful that we were able to go. We would like to share all about it with you guys in person this fall when we come back for a bit!

One of the things we did in Thailand was switch our visas to allow me to return to school and pursue Chinese further. There is still much for me to learn, and I am very excited about it. This semester will start up in about a month. I’m also returning to my Chinese character studies; I will hope to progress much further than last year.

We’ll keep you all updated with everything in between!

Until next time,
Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

First day of school!

Today was Levi’s first day of school!

 

Jenny put up decorations and made him a cute crown and gave us all name plates at our spots for breakfast.

We had some pancakes, some eggs, and Levi got some pink milk (one of his favorites). After breakfast, we brought him outside for some pictures and then sent him off to school!

After two hours, Jenny picked him up and I stayed back with little Liam who was still sleeping.

 

Levi had such a blast! They taught him how to do arts and crafts, they read him a story, and Levi played a little soccer as well! He was super tuckered out and asked to go down for a nap after his lunch. The teacher said he did great (no tears, no problems) and that he learned fast. We are so grateful for this little school and we are very glad he’s such a good little guy.

 

Until next time,

Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

One K

I’m super happy because today I hit my 1000 characters learned mark!

 

It’s a huge milestone, but I still have a long way to go. This puts me at a mere 42% of the way towards my goal.

 

Here are some stats so you can get a better idea of what it takes to learn 1000 characters…

 

Characters Learned: 1000

Time lapsed: 9 months, 22 days / 298 days

Hours Studied: 92

Minutes per day: 28+

Characters/Words Reviewed: 29,644

Retention Rate: 89.3%

Characters able to write: 1000

Characters able to define: 789

Words (Character Combinations) able to write: 857

Words (Character Combinations) able to define: 718

 

Looking back, it does make me happy (and a bit sick) of the time and effort I’ve put into this goal of mine. Only 1400 more to go!

 

Until next time,

Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

900

Hello everyone!

 

I finally hit 900 Chinese characters learned. The past 100 have been very difficult to get through; it feels like it took forever!

 

In other news, we have a close friend here who is moving back to America. We are sad to see her go, but we are very happy to have been able to spend all this time together. We are getting together around noon for some lunch and we’re seeing her off shortly after.

700 Characters!

Well, I have officially learned to read and write over 700 Chinese Characters! My goal is 2400 by the year 2011. At this point I'm 100 characters behind schedule, but I'll focus on reaching my benchmark of 1200 by the end of June and will hopefully get back on track! If you are interested in learning Chinese Characters for whatever reason, I highly recommend www.skritter.com.

Until next time,
Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

600 Character Mark Completed!

Well, Jeremy has officially learned to read and write over 600 Chinese Characters! His goal is 2400 by the year 2011, and as of right now, he's about two weeks ahead of schedule! He studies characters for just about 30 minutes per day, but sometimes it goes up to about an hour or so. If you are interested in learning Chinese Characters for whatever reason, I highly recommend www.skritter.com.

Until next time,
Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

Learning 汉语

Jenny and I have our tutoring schedules set up!

At this point, Jenny is going to be tutored four times per week with two hours per session. (Don't get a calculator, that's eight hours!) Jeremy will be tutored one day per week with three hours for that session. He's still waiting on another tutor to get back from being out of town. As soon as he gets back, we'll get that all solidified. The other tutor speaks no English whatsoever and Jeremy wants to be tutored by him two days per week with two hours per session. (Again, let me do the math for you....... (checking calculator...) Seven hours!

We are very excited! Our Chinese has surprisingly stayed with us for the most part. We need to once again get used to speaking Chinese all the time and hearing it all the time! It's quite a transition, but we are thriving on it! :)

Coming up this week: We have a large carpet to put in our living room for our boys to play on. (Tile isn't as fun!) That should be delivered within two to three days. Jeremy's birthday is this coming Saturday the 6th, and our tutoring begins.

Until next time,
Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

Our Latelys

Here's what's been going on lately:

Lately, Jenny started up running again! She feels completely healed up and she was exhilarated by getting back into the swing of things and exercising. She has been running within our gated neighborhood area. She loves it!

Lately, I, Jeremy, passed my 500 Chinese Characters learned mark! I'm really excited about it, and I have to continue to learn 16 more characters each week to stay on track with my goal of 2400 characters learned by the end of 2010! This goal is going to be VERY difficult, but lofty goals are good goals in my mind.

Lately, we have some new photos up! You can check them out at our photo site by clicking here. The albums are from our goodbye party we had and a recent visit to a nearby park with the "other" Petersons. Check them out!

Lately, Levi has been playing with his friends a lot! We have two videos from one day, including a dance party and a video of Levi singing the "Bob the Builder" theme song. Come to our site to watch them!





If you are reading this through Facebook or email, come to our site at theglobalpetersons.blogspot.com to see the videos!

Until next time,
Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

中国！！！

We've arrived in Xi'an!

Sorry it's been a couple days to write this, but it's been incredibly hectic, as I'm sure you'll all understand. Since this will be a hefty post, I'll separate the paragraphs by topic. Enjoy!

How did all that travelling go? Our flights were as awesome as they could be! Levi and Liam were CHAMPS! Levi happily got on plane after plane, despite the incredible length of time we spent on them. We flew from Minneapolis to Tokyo to Beijing (spent the night) to Xi'an. What was it like seeing your friends and brother's family again? It was amazing! We saw them when we were coming down to the baggage claim and everyone involved was beaming with happiness. Levi was pulling his little luggage along and I showed him Sydney and he ran to her with happiness and was not shy of anyone! In fact, we immediately left him with them while we went and "claimed" our luggage. He was completely okay with it! Seeing everyone again was such a great experience.

Where are you living now? We have taken over a place that our friend had while she was here. She moved back to America for now, so we just moved right in! Jenny and I LOVE it!!! We had the landlord over today and after some bartering and discussion we reached a great deal! We have signed a TWO YEAR lease on this apartment, which we are both very excited about. We can now "officially" move in! Can we see pictures? Definitely! Just please give us some time and we'll get you all the pictures you need! :) Since we didn't officially rent the apartment until today, we haven't focused on unpacking yet. We'll start all that tomorrow, and I'll take some pictures as soon as we get the place looking pretty nice. :)

What is next for you guys? We are going to focus on getting settled in and making our apartment a home. After that, the next task will be Jeremy getting his job teaching English and we'll both get set up with a Chinese tutor/school so we can get our learning going. Things move slowly here though, so we need to be patient and move forward with the progress we are allowed here in China.

How is the family feeling? All the boys are sick with a cold. I blame myself (Jeremy) because I got it in Minnesota and I was not being careful around the boys. Levi has a rough cough going on and Liam has coughs as well. Other than all that, we are really really happy to be here!

I hope that caught most of you up to date on us here in China! We'll be posting more as things progress around here!

Until next time,
Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

Animal Sounds

Levi has been getting quite hyper these days! It's definitely fun watching him grow exponentially with his personality and interests. A couple things to mention that we think are pretty cute and/or exciting: One, when Jenny makes cat and dog noises, Levi repeats them, which is really cute. She'll say, "Levi, what does a cat say? Meow!" Levi will then quickly repeat, "maaaooow!" Then, when she says, "Levi, what does a dog say? Ruff Ruff!" Levi will respond, "Ruh Ruh!" It's pretty cute. He can also point to his nose when we ask him where it is, and just today, we caught him actually running around the house. Up until today, he's been just really quickly walking, but we caught both feet off the ground at once. We think he learned this from his friends, Joshua and Sydney. Also, we really don't watch TV around Levi at all. However, on weekends we might put in a movie or two. This is good because now we can just relax with him, and he'll (for the most part) enjoy watching them with us. Last week, Jenny made some home-made popcorn, we put Levi in between us, bowl in his lap, and we all had a cute family moment. It was wonderful. These days he's living on the brink of disaster every day, since he's learned how to crawl on the couch, then stand up and run across it. Not cool Levi, not cool at all!!!

Jenny has been really encouraged with her schooling. Her teacher has been complimenting her language a lot, her grammar has been really good, and her vocabulary is growing very quickly. We are all so proud of her!

Our friend Lisa moved just yesterday. For those of you who are interested, the process is easier in some ways and more difficult in others. For one, it's easier because apartments are commonly furnished. This means that you only have to move the furniture you purchased. (In her case, it was a dryer and a small desk.) I guess it's not MORE difficult, per se, it's just not as convenient, but when is moving convenient? Unless you can hire help, which we didn't.

Contrary to common belief, Chinese New Year is not a single day of celebration. The holiday really last fifteen days. The first day is the biggest celebration, and fifteen days later is also very popular. We are coming up on the last day tonight, so we are expecting the same (or a little bit less) fireworks as the first day. We are looking forward to it! It should be a lot of fun again.

Until next time,
Jeremy

Animal Sounds

Levi has been getting quite hyper these days! It's definitely fun watching him grow exponentially with his personality and interests. A couple things to mention that we think are pretty cute and/or exciting: One, when Jenny makes cat and dog noises, Levi repeats them, which is really cute. She'll say, "Levi, what does a cat say? Meow!" Levi will then quickly repeat, "maaaooow!" Then, when she says, "Levi, what does a dog say? Ruff Ruff!" Levi will respond, "Ruh Ruh!" It's pretty cute. He can also point to his nose when we ask him where it is, and just today, we caught him actually running around the house. Up until today, he's been just really quickly walking, but we caught both feet off the ground at once. We think he learned this from his friends, Joshua and Sydney. Also, we really don't watch TV around Levi at all. However, on weekends we might put in a movie or two. This is good because now we can just relax with him, and he'll (for the most part) enjoy watching them with us. Last week, Jenny made some home-made popcorn, we put Levi in between us, bowl in his lap, and we all had a cute family moment. It was wonderful. These days he's living on the brink of disaster every day, since he's learned how to crawl on the couch, then stand up and run across it. Not cool Levi, not cool at all!!!

Jenny has been really encouraged with her schooling. Her teacher has been complimenting her language a lot, her grammar has been really good, and her vocabulary is growing very quickly. We are all so proud of her!

Our friend Lisa moved just yesterday. For those of you who are interested, the process is easier in some ways and more difficult in others. For one, it's easier because apartments are commonly furnished. This means that you only have to move the furniture you purchased. (In her case, it was a dryer and a small desk.) I guess it's not MORE difficult, per se, it's just not as convenient, but when is moving convenient? Unless you can hire help, which we didn't.

Contrary to common belief, Chinese New Year is not a single day of celebration. The holiday really last fifteen days. The first day is the biggest celebration, and fifteen days later is also very popular. We are coming up on the last day tonight, so we are expecting the same (or a little bit less) fireworks as the first day. We are looking forward to it! It should be a lot of fun again.

Until next time,
Jeremy

the past 192 hours

This week was a great week, even though we didn't blog about it :D

I am continuing my Chinese studies, as we are moving away from tones and pronunciation lessons and going into conversational lessons. So we have learned about conversation regarding introducing yourself, and some things you might say in a classroom setting. This weekend is a Chinese holiday, so we are getting Monday off. Starting Tuesday, we'll be learning about Post Office conversation.

Jenny is continuing her tutoring as well, and her teacher is very impressed with her speaking abilities!

And as I'm writing this, Jenny is just finishing our dinner, sloppy joes, so I'm going to wrap this up!

Until next time,
Jeremy