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11/19/2011 - Guys Morning

This morning, the boys and I went to Jenny's workplace to get some breakfast. She was so happy to see us and the boys enjoyed going as well because they have a little play area with toys and a chalkboard.


When the boys and I got home, we listened to some music and then watched a movie.


We were planning on going to Linder's for their grand opening night, but the snow was too much. We were slipping around while driving so we just stopped for some dinner then went home.


When we got back in the car to get home, one of our headlights was out, so Ron and I were working on fixing that while the boys, Aaron, and Jenny had a little snowball fight in the dark on the driveway. They had a great time and Liam kept coming up to me in the garage to throw a little pinch of snow at me.


We had our popcorn and movie night tonight so the movie tonight was Home Alone. We had a great day!

11/17/2011 - Date Night

I got up today and spent a lot of time making a to-do list. This list will keep me motivated to achieve my goals and will keep me from wasting my time on things that don't matter. This to-do list was a part of the Chalene 30 Day Challenge - I'm enjoying it so far!


It was a good day at work. We are almost done finishing up a project we are working on which is going on down in Iowa. After that, we have another big window project we are starting up.


When I got back from work, we spent some time working on our budget and then went downstairs to get dinner for the boys.


Jenny and I then left the boys at home with my mom while Jenny and I went on a date to Chili's. We had a lot of laughs and smiles. She's wonderful and a lot of fun to be around. For the record, I got free chips and salsa by installing Foursquare and checking in at Chili's. I recommend doing this next time you go.


Got home, hung out a bit with Levi, showered, then went to bed. It was a good day!

11/14/2011

Today I got up at 5:00am to do my morning routine i.e. eat, read, read more, get ready. It's really good to give yourself tons of time before work. It's no good running jumping out of bed, slamming your alarm, and booking it out to your car where you begin speeding to work before you are even fully awake.


After I went to work, Jenny took the kids to run some errands while I stayed home and worked on two self-improvement courses I'm doing, which are Chalene Johnson's 30 Day Challenge and The Art of Manliness's 30 Days to a Better Man course. I highly recommend the former for those that want to get more organized on tackling their goals and the latter for those guys out there that want to be a... well... better man.


We had some Taco Bell for dinner and then went upstairs to hang out with the family then watch the Vikings play the Packers. After a sad first half, I went to bed.

Yes, I'd like to borrow 100 children's books, please.

After eating some Rhodes Caramel Rolls and watching some Word World, I hopped on Gmail Chat to talk to my brother (who is still in China). After that, we went to Plymouth Covenant Church to get our worship on.


The sermon was on King Uzziah and how his life was squandered by pride. Two phrases that may be a sign of pride are "I got this" and "I'm above the law". Pride can be so destructive; for the person and for those around him or her. 


After church we went home and watched some football while enjoying Solo's Pizza leftovers.


Jenny and Levi went to the library and got tons of books for the boys. Apparently you can rent 100 books at a time. Who has time for that, really? I also rented The Like Ability Factor by Tim Sanders, which I'm looking forward to. Tim Sanders is a really good author - I highly recommend his books to anyone out there reading this. My quote of the day from the book is:

"All in all, it became clear that unlikeable characteristics are a primary reason for failure, whereas improvements in likeability offer excellent explanations for breakthrough successes."

Also, did you know? (From the same book)

"A 2000 study by Yale University and the Center for Socialization and Development-Berlin concluded that 'people, unlike animals, gain success not by being aggressive but by being nice.'" 

Last, but not least... (From the same book)

"Easygoing, likeable people have one-half the divorce rate of the general population."

More football...


I played some Modern Warfare 3 with Aaron and his buddy, Josh.


After that, we had some dinner then the boys and I played some Super Mario Sluggers on the Wii. 


Levi cleaned up his room then the boys went to bed!


Jenny and I spent our time learning about Dumping Debt from Financial Peace University/Dave Ramsey. My truth from the day from Dave Ramsey is:

"When you use plastic instead of cash, you spend 12-18% more because spending cash hurts."

After that, Jenny and I watched a King of Queens marathon, which is a family favorite.


It was a good day. Tomorrow Jenny is working at 4am (at Caribou Coffee) and I'm heading to work at 6:30am.

How Some of Us Are Perceived

In the local kindergarten I teach at, I have some flashcards that go with the content I’m teaching so the students can get a visual idea of the content being taught. This week, I was teaching about different countries. Each flashcard had a country’s flag and a person from that country on the card. Here are the cards:

The disturbing part, I think, is that some people were probably asked, “Hey, who can draw up the American guy?” And some guy probably raised his hand and said something like, “I have tons of American friends; I know exactly what to do.”

Apparently most Americans wear sweatpants with collared shirts along with white shoes while donning a scraggly beard and a bandana. We’re a huge fan of gum as well, I guess (or maybe chewing tobacco).

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

You Can’t Leave

One thing I noticed while teaching kindergarteners here is that sometimes, when the children aren’t listening or participating, the teachers threaten them by saying, “If you don’t __________, you won’t be able to go home. You’ll have to sleep here at school and you won’t eat dinner.”

I’ve heard this many times from a few different teachers.

This is one example of how stressed out Chinese students can be, from 3 years old and on until they graduate. (The course we’re going to be teaching tackles this issue head on.)

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

A Whole Big Cake

Yesterday I was teaching 6 year olds how to say “I can _____.” I can speak English, I can dance, I can sing, etc.

I asked the question, “What can you do?” This one kid raises his hand and says, “I can a whole big cake.” I was super confused and I didn’t hear him very well and asked him to repeat it. He repeated the same sentence. “I can a whole big cake.” Clearly, he wasn’t grasping the concept of “can”.

Later, I was also teaching some vocabulary. Words like “ball”, “doll”, “bicycle”, etc. I showed a flashcard of a doll and asked what it was. The same kid raised his hand and said, “A whole big cake.”

I think that boy must have learned that new phrase and was just DYING to use it, so he did… As much as possible. It was pretty funny, but I had to go back and re-clarify a few things to make sure that mistake wasn’t made again.

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

Jenny’s 24th birthday

So because we were busy making Levi’s birthday video, we didn’t get a chance to talk about Jenny’s birthday! We’ll rewind a few days and tell you about it now.

 

We have a helper that comes and watches our kids and teaches them Chinese. We’ve had a helper that has come for almost half a year now, and we really trust her with our kids so we let her watch them while we went out to have a nice breakfast at Starbucks. Luckily for me, it’s next-door to a McDonald’s, so I snagged some breakfast there and we sat in Starbucks enjoying each other’s company.

 

We came home and spent time with our kids and then in when dinner time came around, we went on a double-date with our friends and got some nice Italian food. (Pizza)

 

Tomorrow is a big day for us because Levi is going to be starting his FIRST day of preschool! We can’t wait and we’ll tell you all how that went when we get a chance.

 

In other news, the school semester has started up once again! I started today off teaching 3rd grade students. I had only two classes. I will return there tomorrow and next week I start teaching at the kindergarten. Can’t wait! So many kids, so much craziness, so little time.

 

Until next time,

Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

Nerf Guns

Levi and I took on the Failla Boys (father & son) on at some Nerf Gun wars.

It was awesome. Levi and I had a little fort on one side of the Failla’s apartment while the Failla boys took the other side and it was an all-out battle to the bitter end! Most of the time, Levi didn’t take cover, and took a lot of free shots from our enemies since he didn’t quite catch the concept of hiding and avoiding gunfire. He would just stand up (way out in the open) and load his gun, slowly but surely. As soon and he got them loaded up, he’d immediately fire one off in some random direction, then start the process over again. He would get nailed in the head and just keep loading as if he was all alone in this world; just him and his gun. Fun times!

 

Our summer is coming to a close soon. I will be starting up work again and once we figure out my work schedule, Jenny is really hoping to volunteer her time on a weekly basis at a nearby center for foster children. While there, she will be around to hold the little babies and play with them and help in any other way she can.

 

Until next time!

Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

Today, the weather will be…

A couple weeks ago, I was teaching at a local kindergarten, when all of a sudden some random guy just just walked in and asked me if I wanted to read the weather for a local news station. I agreed, so after class we went outside. He hands me this sheet full of Chinese Characters which I had to quickly translate into pinyin so I could read it more fluidly. I was very thankful that I could read almost all of it (thank you, Skritter!).

 

Another Chinese teacher was going to read the more difficult stuff and then I was going to read the more simple part (which was still around two or three paragraphs of weather information). I watch her read the weather first and she… just… dominates. I mean, she’s doing hand motions and exaggerating her voice and sounding so excited about the upcoming (extremely hot) weather. Dumbfounded, I was just staring at her, jaw dropped, thinking to myself, “Oh… Em… Gee… They want ME to read like HER!”

 

They turn the camera to me and I read the weather, stumbling through a few parts, and probably seeming incredibly boring. I felt pretty happy with how well I did, but as soon as I finished, the cameraman kinda slowly lowered the camera and said that I had to do more actions. I was thinking to myself, “This is going to be rough.”

 

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to do all they needed me to do. I had to go home to meet up with the family, and ran out of time. We don’t have cable so I never saw if I actually made it to the big time, but now every time I go down the street, everyone is like, “There’s the weatherman!” (I’m totally lying, they don’t say that.) I don’t think I actually made it on TV but I know that I read a report to a self-satisfactory degree and I was proud of that. I was being recorded by microphone and camera with around 10 Chinese people around me watching me do it. I was happy with myself hanging in there. (I don’t usually put myself out there like that, believe it or not!)

 

That was super stressful though!

 

Things in Xi’an are going really well! The weather is currently standing strong at around 29 degrees Celsius (84 degrees Fahrenheit). The humidity is around 55% and we have a nice breeze coming in from the southwest at around 14km per hour. We have some scattered clouds which I expect to hang around until sometime 3 years from now. Tonight we might see some scattered showers and the wind will die down a bit, bringing us a nice, sunny day tomorrow. ;)

 

Until next time,

Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

800 and some other updates

Yesterday marked the day where I passed 800 Chinese characters learned. It's been a difficult attempt at 2400 by 2011, but I'm going to press on! (Due to falling behind by our trip to Hong Kong and other factors, I'm behind my goal by 400!!!!!! (I know, I know!) I'm going to continue on, though! Really, four hundred spanned out among six months means I only have to learn an extra 60-70 per week. Not too bad compared to the overall goal.

Levi has been so active! We have gone swimming at a local indoor pool a couple times now. It's really fun! The water is heated (almost to a fault), so it feels like a warm bath. We bought some floaties for the boys here for about $2-$5, so they really enjoy feeling safe and independent in the pool. Even Liam :) Levi also really enjoys helping vacuum, which is ironic because it's actually much more difficult when he's "helping", haha.

Liam has been SO attached to his mommy lately. No matter who plays with him, he will always cry if Jenny walks past him and he remembers she's not holding or playing with him. On the plus side, he's been sleeping and eating a lot! We're thinking he might be hitting a growth spurt.

The Dragon Boat Festival is coming up, so I have a couple days off of work this coming week. It's been great teaching those kids. My largest class is 62 first graders... Can you believe it?! It can get out of hand really easily, haha!

That's all for now... Have a great day!

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

The Small Goose Pagoda

Yesterday, we went to the Small Goose Pagoda with our landlords from the last time we were in China. We have a good relationship with them now - we are very happy about that. They were also the people who took us to a village a while back. (I tutor their daughter every week, for those of you who may not remember.)

We had a great time! Levi had a little rough time because this "park" was more like an outdoor museum - you just go there to look, not touch! :) He enjoyed sitting on some horse statues and checking out some other ones as well. Afterwards we went to a restaurant and had some great food. They said they have a lot more places to take us to, so we are excited about that!

This coming Saturday we are going to be off to Hong Kong! We have to get my visa switched over to a working visa, so I can get paid while in China. I will be working at an Elementary School and a Kindergarden school as well. I'm so excited about all this! We'll be there for seven days total. We should have internet at the hotel, so I'm sure we'll be updating you guys while we are there!

Please check out our pictures from our time at the Small Goose Pagoda by clicking here.

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

Old Friends and an English Tutor

We had a great meal with some friends we made from our last trip here to China.

They took us out to a nice restaurant which serves strictly local dishes. It was pretty good! We had a spicy fish soup as well as some garlic cucumber, some pumpkin strips with a sweet breading (Levi ate a TON of those) and some shrimp and octopus soup. We caught up and discussed what's been going on with our families since we've been away.

Their daughter is in her teens and has been learning English since she was five or six years old. She has been doing especially well on her written tests, but not so well on her speaking tests. It just so happens that I specialize in speaking English! :) I offered to tutor her, to which they were wondering how much I charge. Thinking back on our relationship, Jenny and I thought it'd be best to tutor her for one hour per week, free of charge. The father said 我非常感谢 which means, "I'm so incredibly grateful." I was so happy that by helping out some friends for one hour of my week, I was able to bless them in that way.

They'll be stopping by starting this Saturday the 6th, which also happens to be my (Jeremy) birthday :) We'll be keeping you posted on her progress and how that all goes. I'd like to tutor a few more people if I can, but we'll just see which opportunities present themselves.

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

Workin' Man

Jeremy got a job!

He's working at a nearby English school and will be teaching first to sixth graders along with just a few hours per week of Kinder-gardeners. He can't officially get paid to work a job until he gets the proper work visa, so he can start that as soon as he gets back from a trip to Hong Kong with the family which we'll be taking sometime soon. That will allow us to get this job solidified. :)

He'll be working nine and a half hours per week, which is quite a bit for now. It's either that or full-time, and with studying and the family and all the transition it's most likely not the wisest decision at this point. We'll see how this part-time deal goes, and if we think increasing hours is a good idea, we'll do that. :)

You'll all be kept up to speed on all this: Don't worry :)

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

Newest Developments

Hello again!

Well we are "officially" unpacked and settled into our new apartment! We LOVE it here at this apartment, so that's a great transitional aspect of this whole trip. Our place is on the 18th floor, it has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, and a dining room/living room area as well. It's probably not as big as it sounds haha. It is furnished with everything we need minus a dryer, which we went out to buy a week ago. We are very grateful we can buy dryers here :)

We have two new pieces of information!

Levi is out of his pack-and-play and into a big boy bed! The change was surprisingly easy! He's been great staying in his bed at night and even during his nap-time. We are so proud of our boy! I even think he might sleep better in the bigger bed. (Maybe it's more comfortable?) Anyways the first morning he slept in the new bed I heard a squeaking sound coming from his room. I went in, and I didn't see him in his bed, so I quickly followed the noise to behind the curtains where he was sitting, looking out over the city from our 18th story window. It was really cute. (The squeaking sound was because he was twisting the metal rod that is a part of our fence that keeps him or other children from playing with and/or opening the windows. Baby-proofed 18th story windows... Glad to have those!)

Liam has his first teeth! The two front bottom ones. It explains a lot because he has been really uncomfortable and hasn't been eating as much, but by the posting of this blog, he is back to normal, so that's really good. Glad we brought Baby Orajel and Baby Tylenol!

I've got a job offer so they are working on my visa stuff. I'm not sure how long it'll take before we're all set up, but I'm excited! I hope it doesn't take long.

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