The last two days we had freezing rain and snow, so no school. Jay has been trying to catch up on missed work for having gone on a three week vacation during the Christmas holiday, and had been picking up sub jobs at pretty much every opportunity.

Today we finished some resumes for China and customized a wall map of China detailing where several of our friends are located. Mostly we know people in Changsha (where we spent our first three years), Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Qingdao, Shenzhen, and Changde.

Click the links below if you'd like to view our resumes:

Jay - Vikki

Finally...

Wow - technology has not been my friend lately. Blogger had this new enticing ability to add a slideshow to your blog...I thought that would be easier than using Webshots as I had been doing to import pictures. I was wrong!

We recently won a laptop off eBay. We may have saved $100 off the retail price by doing so, but it still remains to be seen whether it was a good deal for us. We think the laptop was formerly a store model. Everything seems to be good except the period key sticks. The original retail price was $869 and we ended up paying about $475 with a three-year warranty included. But...technology has not been my friend. The laptop is another preparation for China, but we thought we'd go ahead and get it now so that we could both use a computer at the same time, especially for lesson planning for our ESL classes. I was hastily preparing a lesson plan prior to Monday night's class only to find that it is extremely difficult to transfer files from my unregistered trial version of Word to our desktop.

...

Audriana had her first shots last Thursday (Feb. 8th), and she handled it like a pro. She wimpered only a little, which was much better than how her mother felt! Vikki has been very careful and studious in researching shots and the potential harmful effects of immunizations. While it seems that the medical community has made advances with avoiding harmful side-effects, it was still nerve-wracking for Vikki to go through with it. The reality is that we fear diseases in China more than we do the side-effects of the immunizations. She had a combinations shot of dTap, polio, and Hep B - which we didn't know they did that prior to going in. The nurse at the Health Dept. was a little concerned about our aversion to immunizations, but after she realized that we had researched our position and that we were relatively firm, was pleasant enough. We are still delaying some shots that she was eligible for on the 8th. She'll go back at 12 and a half months (April 3rd) to get her next round.

in progress...

I'm in the works of trying to get some pictures on here, but it's taking some time as I try to figure out a system that I like. I just uploaded about 18 photos of Audriana from October or November when we did a passport photo shoot of her - however, I haven't figured out how to get them onto the blog yet. Hopefully that will be done soon. If you're impatient and want access sooner than later, e-mail or comment on this post and I can invite you to view them at flickr.

Tuesday morning at 6a.m. saw the passing of Vikki's grandmother, Mildred Luttrell. The funeral will be held on Friday.

Grandma Luttrell always appreciated time with her great grandchildren. She had vivid memories of time spent with her first great grandchild, Tyler. She also loved seeing Audriana. Though in her later life she had trouble remembering people and events, she would always perk up when Audriana came for a visit. We'll miss our time set aside to visit her on Wednesdays at the assisted living facility at Westminster-Cantebury.

Christmas season is upon us...in fact, we've already celebrated three times and will have another gift exchange (this time with Jay's immediate family) today!

Jay's sister, Jael, drove up this morning from Little Rock for the weekend to be able to spend a little more time with us before we head back to Winchester on the 2nd. Jael was able to be with us on Christmas day, but flew from Little Rock to Dallas and couldn't bring her presents with her on the plane. For that matter, I don't know if we could have taken our gifts after we loaded up the parent's van with all our gear...we really didn't have that much, but with a baby so much changes...for as little as she is, you wouldn't think she would increase our 'necessary' trip items threefold, but pretty much she does. =)

Vikki has said that our New's Year resolutions will be to execerise four times a week - which might be ambitious, but will be good for us. We have been very apathetic to excersise as a general rule since we have been married...I've been holding off on making major changes in lifestyle until I hit 200 lbs., but since I've been sitting at 193 for quite a while, it looks like our New Year's resolutions will come first...the only other 'resolution' we have is to make a more focused effort at returning to China. We will try to spend about two to three mornings a week getting things in order for a return. We are excited, but at least Jay is a bit nervous as well. The new and different will usually be somewhat scary, and even though we've been to China before - we'll be returning under different circumstances, not the least of which is that we plan to stay indefinitely this time! I'm thinking we'll need to clear our minds of expectations and go with an open heart and be ready to face new challenges in a new chapter in our journey. One of Jay's second cousins told him a couple of days ago that this fall will be here in 'a week.' It will come quickly...

Today is Audriana's 9 month old birthday!

We drove about twelve hours today on our way to Missouri for the holidays. We'll leave Saturday with Jay's parents to go to Audriana's Great-grandmother's in Texas. =) That's some birthday present for our little girl...she hates riding in her carseat! It's cool that we arrived today, because it is also my (Jay's) mother's birthday today! We didn't get in until about 7:30 p.m. (Central), and found out on the road while traveling that my brother, Shelby, had been just within 5 minutes of us on the way to the folks on the same road. That was before we had a mini-crisis on the road where Audriana thought she had to have dinner...can you imagine. She was none too happy when she realized we weren't stopping for her because we were in podunk Missouri...we finally had to stop in this little community called Low Wassie, which was on county road [W] and over a one lane 'bridge' (highspot over the 'wassie') before state maintenence ended on the road and we pulled off to the side of the dirt road to feed her. This was after we travelled perhaps 20 minutes with Audriana screaming and hating on her toys and drink because it was something other than her mother. She would be consoled by a pacifier for two seconds before resuming the screaming, which was sorta nice...so that was somewhat stressful and by the time we did stop, Vikki and I were both a little tired of each other I think -- aren't those character building sessions just wonderful. =) One thing I do love about our marriage is that we have gotten very proficient about sitting down and talking through the times when one or both of us aren't following the principles that God has laid out for us.

Happy Birthday Audriana! Happy Birthday Mom!

...so Audriana is clapping now. =) She started on Monday night. It's inexplicable really...we didn't really teach her! We're continually amazed at her...if we didn't mention before, she's completely mobile. She pulls up on furniture and walks around the house by pushing a chair in front of her along the tile. She doesn't know it yet, but she's getting a walker for Christmas, which will be a huge upgrade over the chair. =) Still no teeth. She will have her first doctor's appointment next Thursday...we're looking at what shots we should get for her as we prepare for a return to China.