Happy New Year!

新年快乐

Xin Nian Kuai Le

Happy Chinese New Year 

and

Welcome, Year of the Snake!

I had fun with our first official Chinese/Lunar New Year celebration this year with our daughter home for the past 8 months.

Normally I'm not a crafty person, but with home schooling, I need to get my boys to do creative, artistic things.  So on Friday and Saturday we made snakes to decorate the house.  We made toilet paper roll snakes and we made construction paper chain snakes (two-headed snakes, no less) and construction paper lanterns.
  

Of course, my love of cooking always plays a role and I planned my menu.  For my friends who love to cook, please check out this cookbook.  It was given to us by Jay's Godparents who lived in China on sabbatical and thought these recipes looked quite good and authentic.  We haven't found a recipe we dislike!  They are all great!

I knew I wanted to search for an Asian market in town to see if I could get some authentic decor for TheYear of the Snake and I found Tim's Oriental & Seafood Market here in San Antonio.  Much to my surprise, they didn't have much in the line of holiday decorations but their food selection was great.  What I also found out was that Tim's Market was planning a New Year Celebration for that Sunday afternoon.  I immediately knew I wanted to attend and we made our plans to go after church.

We dressed for church on Sunday, L in her chi pao, my boys in their China shirts and we took lots of pictures.  But the unexpected happened.  Our church had planned a pot luck that we didn't know about because we missed church the week before with a sick girl and a sick mommy.  We were still invited to attend even though we didn't bring a dish and Jay had the opportunity to connect with an old friend from his Student Ministry days at Willow Creek.  What was extra fun about that lunch was that we have a few Korean families attending our church and they brought some amazing Korean food.  Oh YUMMY!  What a treat.  

Watching the clock, I fully felt that we had missed our window to see the New Year celebration at my new found Asian market but we drove over there anyway just in case it was still going on.  We made it!  And WOW!  It didn't disappoint.  We watched the show and then I showed Jay around the store that I had visited with the kids that week prior.  I won't say much about the show because I'll let you see for yourself in a quick 5 minute video.  It was awesome!

We came home and enjoyed our meal of Hot and Sour Soup, Cashew Beef over Noodles, Chicken & Pork Fried Rice, and Dumplings.  L gobbled it all up.  Later we opened our Red Envelopes which I filled with chocolate coins instead of traditional cash and we ate some coconut jellies and oranges (the kids ate the oranges, Jay and I were stuffed!).  The only thing I wish I would have done was to pick up some of those floating red lantern things that you can buy at the fireworks stands.  It would have been fun to send 5 (or maybe a luckier number like 8) lanterns off into the sky before bedtime.

It was a full, fun day and it was simply a privilege to celebrate my daughter's culture.  I'd by lying if I said I didn't tear up every now and then.  That's why for me and the passion God gave me for other cultures, international adoption was simply right for our family.

Wishing you a healthy and prosperous Year of the Snake!

House Photos (Finally)

I've been having issues with Blogger when it comes to uploading pictures, so I decided to create a movie with house pictures instead.  But because I set it to music the movie isn't viewable on mobile devices on YouTube, which I know many of my friends use.  So, back to Blogger.  Here are some pictures of our home, furnished and clean (yeah, it's never clean).

All the rooms are a standard builder beige, even the ceilings.  I'd love to roll a little Benjamin Moore Ceiling White up there to brighten things up a little.  Yet I have no intention of painting anytime soon, much to the surprise of all my friends who know how much I love color.  Missing a dear friend, the late, great Carmen L who helped us with the paint colors in our first house in Illinois.  All the windows have white wood blinds, but eventually some hardware and curtains will be nice to bring in some colors and patterns.

Photo from the listing.  I'd like a cute bench on the front porch.

Living room.  Taken from the front door.

Living room taken from the front corner.  Still need to get a bracket and hang the TV on the wall.  

Living room taken from the garage entry door.  The living room was pre-wired with Sony speakers for surround sound, but we can't get it to work.  Not a necessity at this time.

Dining room.  I'd really like a buffet along that wall for my china and serving dishes.  Salvation Army had a really cute one when we first moved here but it wasn't priced well for a resale shop.

Room enough to expand my Ikea table when we entertain but we keep it small for day-to-day.  We do most of our home school at the dining room table.

Living and dining rooms as seen from the stairs.

Kitchen.

Enough space to eat in.  Doors lead to deck out back.

A small, narrow island would be really nice eventually.

Stairs, powder room and guest room down the small hall.

Powder room.  I could see myself painting this room eventually.

1st floor master bedroom is our guest room.  This room was my storage room for the longest time, holding all the items I couldn't find a place for.  Thus, the long wait for photos.

Door leads to the 1st floor master bath.  I put our ancient desktop computer down here so guests can watch something online since we're not doing cable right now.  Having the computer desk down here really opens up the loft too.

1st floor master bath.  Still builder beige, just photographed yellow with the flash.

Jetted tub is nice.  I regret getting rid of my old shower curtain and set from our first house in Chicago because now I need something here.

Opposite the tub/shower is a HUGE walk-in closet that stores all my china and serving dishes for now.

Upstairs master bedroom is at the top of the stairs to the left.  This is a dark picture but I still like it.

A brighter picture.  Door in the back leads to the 2nd floor master bath.

Another view.  Yes, I'll have my daughter's picture above the bed soon.  Door in the back leads to the closet.

Still need to re-string the mirror wire and get that on my wall.  I would have loved to hang my grandmother's mirror above my dresser like in Nebraska but it broke during the move.  :(

Huge upstairs master closet.  It's U-shaped.

2nd floor master bath.

Standard tub/shower up here.

And a little window overlooking the back yard.

Pretty upstairs hallway.  Master bedroom is behind me to my right.  Loft is next to me on my left.

Loft is our boy's playroom.

And Russell our guinea pig calls the loft his home.

One more view.

Jay's office.  Barely anything in there right now.

Jay's office.  Just a make-shift desk, a file cabinet (thanks Freecycle) and our printer.

Jay's office facing out.

L's room from the doorway.  My mom and I will paint my old doll cradle when she visits in a couple months.

Still have the zebra theme going on like in our house in Nebraska.

Upstairs laundry room.  Feels slightly wider than my Nebraska laundry room which is a blessing.

Kid's bathroom.

Same fish theme as we had in Nebraska.

Huge linen closet across from the kid's bathroom.

The boy's room at the very end of the hall.

Big enough for their old train table filled with Legos.

Boy's room looking out.

The deck.  Photo from listing.

The second level of the deck.  Photo from listing.  I have my black table where their picnic table was.

Back of the house.  Photo from listing.

From the far corner of the lot.

We are blessed and after not having a home for a year and living with different host families, I don't take it for granted.  It's a blessing and we hope to share it with all who come to visit!

So, How's the House?

Many have been asking how we like the new house and how things are going.  Now that I have the holiday decor down, the house is looking a bit more "normal."

We are very blessed and just so thrilled to be in a home of our own again after a year of living like nomads.  I am a home-body, so our year in California living with 3 host families was just really painfully hard on me and my boys to not have our own space.  Admittedly, I do have my homesick days as is the case when one moves someplace new, but when I think about "home" I don't even know where the heck "home" is anymore.  In my mind it will always be Chicago where I grew up or maybe even Minnesota where I was born and have family and many awesome friends.  But for now it's Texas.

For the most part, our furniture works really well in the house!  I desperately need a buffet for my dining room.  Right now, all my china, my grandmother's china and ALL my serving dishes are still in boxes in my guest room closet.  I'm really hoping to find a great deal at a Goodwill or Salvation Army Thrift Store, even Freecycle.  Jay's home office also needs furniture.  I've responded to numerous ads on Craig's List for really nice looking desks and of course, no one replies.  Bummer.    The loft isn't as big as I thought, so we don't have a home school area up there.  We just do all of our work throughout the house and that works just fine.

The pool is great!  Surprisingly, it gets cool here at night (even below freezing right after Christmas) and the pool isn't heated, so it's way too cold to go in it now despite a number of 80 degree days this winter.  As a matter of fact, I have it covered and have the filter pump unplugged and I service it myself once a month.  [I had it covered when I wrote this post a number of weeks ago.  A nice windy day blew it off and I've taken time to clear all the leaves from the bottom.]  This spring we'll pick up a solar cover and see when we can heat it enough to enjoy it.  For now, it's really easy to maintain and not expensive with the chemicals at all!  I'd like to invest in some sort of a pool vacuum this spring because we have a big oak tree in the backyard that loves to dump leaves in the pool.  The tree is great for shade, but if we have a windy day, the pool gets all the leaves.  Thankfully I haven't fallen in when trying to clean them out.  The dog on the other hand... yeah, he fell in.  Sigh.

What we love about the house:

• The pool!  Can't wait 'til summer!
• The 5 bedrooms.  Jay has his office, we have a guest room, the boys share a room, L has her own, and we have a master.  Lots of space!  The guest room is particularly big (it's a downstairs master) and could easily sleep one couple on the queen bed and multiple kids on air mattresses on the floor (hint, hint to all my friends with kids - come visit!!!)
• Love the 2 living spaces - main floor living room is small but nice.  Loft upstairs is our playroom for the boys.
• Eat-in kitchen and dining room.  Our house in Nebraska didn't have a dining room and the eating space was rather small when entertaining large crowds like I enjoy.  This house has both an eat-in kitchen and a small dining room with enough space to extend our table with leaves if needed.
• Jetted tub.  The downstairs master (we use it as our guest room) has a nice big tub.  The boys particularly enjoy it.
• Walk-in closets!  Both master bedrooms have HUGE walk-in closets.  Good for storage!  I only wish the kids' rooms had walk-ins.  The boys have the bigger bedroom since they share, but their closet is pretty tiny.  We'll have to resort to plastic, under-the-bed storage bins for extra clothing storage.

What I don't love about the house:

• Upstairs laundry.  I knew I wouldn't like this.  I still prefer a mudroom - a place to kennel the dogs at night and when we leave the house.  I feel like I have no "dumping ground" when I walk into the house after running errands.
• 2 car garage.  Man, it's tight out there.  Our camper is on one side and Jay gets the other side because our Escape is narrower than the minivan.  So, I park outside.  Not a big deal since we don't get snow.  Summer may be rough with the van really heating up out in the driveway.  But compared to all our neighbors who have 2 or 3 cars in their driveways, we're doing really well.  Most of our neighbors have both garage stalls filled with junk storage items and can't get a single vehicle inside!  But I miss my big 3 car garage that we had in Nebraska!
• Basement.  Texas ground is rock solid, so they don't dig basements here.  Gosh, I miss that extra storage space.  They definitely didn't create enough storage space in this house.  I'm guessing people here use their attics, but we haven't had the need to go up there yet.

As with any new house, we have our wish list for items that would really suit us well in this house.  The first things we are saving up for are ceiling fans for the living room, guest room and office.  We'll really need some extra air circulation once summer hits.  I also need to figure out some artwork or decor for my big kitchen wall that is completely bare.  I think I may try some fabric stretched over canvas or something to help muffle the sounds that currently echo off the tile floor and bare walls (don't want to put my rug in there now with a messy toddler eating at the table).

I'm working on photos to share, but with 3 kids (3 is so different than 2!!!!) and 2 dogs, I can never seem to get the entire house cleaned at one time, so I'm going from room to room as they are cleaned and snapping pictures.  But we're settled and ready for visitors, so start planning your vacations and please stop by and see us!