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Happy Holidays All

I hope everyone is having a great holiday.  Its the eve of my return to work and Amy beginning to take down the tree and decorations.  We had an awesome holiday.  This is the first year where the kids really got it.  It is still a little odd to be here and away from family at a time of year where you most expect to see everybody.  Its also strange because work doesn't slow down like it does in the states (i had to take a vacation day for christmas day).  Christmas eve was me cooking (we had friends over for christmas dinner, but more on that later).  I was able to know off work a little early to swing by the french butcher on my bike ride home.  My plan was to do some roast chicken (ham, turkey and roasts are tough to come by here).  When I arrived at the butcher, they were mobbed and out of chicken...but there was a beautiful 9lb standing rib roast that i snapped up.  After arriving home, we spent some time with the kids and then I made some pies and some other preparatory things for dinner.  We ordered Indian take-out for our meals and after the kids went to bed, we put the presents out. 

The next morning the kids made it until 6:50am!  When they came to wake us up, I went out to the living room by myself to turn on the lights, start the ipod loaded with the christmas classics, start the coffee, and put the homemade cinnamon rolls i made the prior evening in the oven.  The we unleashed the hounds! They had fun...here is a little video (also some stuff from sanya on the front end that we want to share)

Watch christmas 2009 in Family  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

For dinner in the afternoon, we had two couples come by for dinner.  I made the following menu:

• carrot and ginger soup
• horseradish and garlic crushed rib roast
• artisinal macaroni and cheese
• boulangerie potatoes
• brussels sprouts roasted craft style
• home made red onion focaccia
• fresh salad with homeade red wine and honey viniagrette
• apple pie
• chocolate pie

It was a nice time...good conversation, the beef was really, really good (even for china) and we had the hangovers to prove it.  

All in all, a great holiday.  The kids just loved every minute of it.  I hope everyone had a similar outcome.

View from the South China Sea

We just returned last night from our first beach vacation in China.  We went to the Hainan Province with is a large island and the southernmost tip of China (close to Vietnam).  We visited the resort city of Sanya situated on the southern tip of Hainan.  We stayed 5 nights and had two adjoining rooms at the Marriott Sanya. 

We had an awesome time.  It was the best family vacation ever. 

Because we were in China, we could bring one of our Ayis, Ivy, on the trip to help us out.  It was good for us because we could get some alone time and even go out at night, and it was good for her, as she had never been to the ocean.  If we wanted to go to Vietnam or Thailand like most of the expats, we wouldn't be able to take Ivy because she would not be given a visa.

Its about a 3.5 hour direct flight from Beijing to Sanya.  We were greeted at the airport in Sanya by the hotel minivan to take us to the hotel.  They had water, fruit and the cool scented towels...it was 28 degrees (sorry

elizabeth's third bday video

sorry this didn't get up yesterday...vimeo took literally 12 hours to process this thing

Untitled from Manning Field on Vimeo.

some interesting reading about us misperceptions of china

three of my goto sources do a great job...

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2009/12/top-ten-china-myths-of-2009.html#entry-more

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/forty_four_percent_of_americans.php

http://mpettis.com/

yes, i still have this thing

so Its been a really, really long time since I've put anything here.  we have just been so busy with so many things over the last 6 weeks that this just slipped off my radar.  lots happened so I will cover it by topic and not chronologically, so here it goes

1) Guests, guests, more guests...over the last 6 weeks, we've had amy's cousins, amy's mom and our nephew, our friends kristin and udai, and my parents and my sister stay with us here in Beijing.  Each visit was unique and we tried to show them a slice of our life in Beijing.  I think each trip went well, and we would love for more people to visit.  We have room, we know where to go...make reservations now!

2)  Turkey Day: the sequel in Beijing.  Once again, my parents and sister were here, and once again we had take out for Chef Too.  I supplemented the food with some homemade gravby and rolls.   We had some friends join us as well for a really nice dinner.  We also bought our first fake tree ever and trimmed it with the family.  Its really cool to see the kids get into the Christmas spirit.  We payed songs on the stereo and the kids danced to all the classic tunes

3) This past week I saw the most disturbing thing on the bike ride to work - a dead body.  I guess someone got hit by a car a few minutes before I passed by.  Traffic was stopped, a crowd of people around, and then I saw it...a body on the ground, a coat over the head, and a gigantic puddle of blood...no one was paying attention the the body, and everyone was around the car...I kept going, in shock, but man that image still sticks with me...the next day it was all cleaned up, but there were two guys close to the spot having a fistfight?!?  very strange and disturbing

4)  In a prior post I told the story of this poor family we were helping.  things got really weird...the really short version is they went to school and dropped out after 1 day...they then sent the boy to the expensive school and the girls were trying to find work to pay for the boys school.  we pulled our financial backing.  through amy's help, we were able to get some scholarships at a local school for the girls and they went to school.  unbeknown to us they were shaking down others for money for school, supplies and food, but we later found out they had it all covered with the scholarships.  All this fund-raising was not going to the girls as they didn't need it, but it was going to pay for the brothers school...net, net they weren't good actors.  We have stepped away and are focusing other kids in need.  

5)  On a lighter note, we are going on vacation next week to Sanya.  Now that i feel a little caught up and I don't feel like there is too much to update this blog (and making me procrastinate), I'll keep it more frequent.

happy december...its really cold here right now.