Maggie Cam: January

When I used Maggie's camera the other day and needed to download the pictures I took, I realized that she took over 200 pictures last month, many of which I had no idea she had taken. It also made me realize we should have screened the contents before letting her take the camera for show and tell. 

Art Supplies

Graaaaama and Grumpa! Rush Visit

We received our third vistors this month. Brian's parents, Clive and Carol squeezed in a very quick trip -- 5 days! -- to come see us. We were all really excited to have them here. Click below to read about their visit.

Grandma and Grandpa arriving

Xin Nian Kuai Le or Happy (Chinese) New Year

2012 is the Year of the Dragon.

Red decorations -- lanterns, banners of Chinese characters, and diamond-shaped Chinese knots -- begin to adorn every door, street light and window. Shops post signs indicating their modified hours or return date as a new world record for largest human migration is again set. People from all over China return to their hometowns, and Beijing empties.

Here in Northern China there are few of the traditional Chinese New Year celebrations, although the girls' preschool did lots of crafts and cultural lessons around the topic. As part of the school celebration, they hosted a Lion and Dragon Dance. Make sure to click after the picture to see some videos and continue reading.

Chinese Kitchen: Vegetarian

My first day of Chinese New Year vacation I decided to take a day for myself -- my perfect day in Beijing. After enjoying getting Magnolia and Kaleia off to school, I spent an enjoyable hour connecting with my parents on skype. Then I headed to Starbucks for my favorite drink, a Black Tea Latte (the closest I can get to a Chai) and honey raisin muffin. I followed that up with a blissful 2 hour massage at a classy spa near us that gives teachers two hours for the price of one on Mondays -- one perk of my Tsinghua teacher id. 

Fully relaxed, I headed to what I thought was going to be my much anticipated Winter Comfort Foods cooking class at the Hutong. But I had done it again. My class wasn't until tomorrow. I realized this while waiting for the subway when I received a call saying it would be cancelled, again. I was the only one signed up. But I was welcome to come to today's call instead: Vegetarian. Since I was almost there, and I can hardly stomach the smell of the meat section and the sight of full carcasses hanging, I decided to give it a try. I'm so glad I did. It has been my favorite class so far. Click below to see why. 

Maggie Cam: Blake's visit

We're a little lonely for old friends here in Beijing, so we were very excited when Blake told us he was coming for a visit.  Brian asked the girls several times to "guess how many days till Blake comes!," before he realized most people were counting down till Christmas, which was a day earlier. 

We did a little sight-seeing and Blake, who lived in China several years ago, introduced us to some new  delicious Chinese dishes. After staying with us, he did some more traveling with a friend within China, then returned for a few days. We had our hands full with the girls most of the time. Pretty much our only pictures from his visit are Maggie's. You can read more about his visit and travels in China at his blog. Maybe he'll share some pictures soon too. Click below to see the whole post. 

Blake is here!

A Year in Unpublished Pictures - 2011: Part 3

Part 3 brings us to Beijing, China, where we are now. This season was probably packed with more fiascos than any other time of my life.  

July in China:

We flew to China on our 9th anniversary. Magnolia did pretty well but Kaleia struggled and therefore Mama was a wreck by the end of the 11 hour flight. We were met at the airport and dropped off at the school dormitory in the middle of the night with little direction. The next few weeks we found ourselves on a steep learning curve while we settled into an apartment and Shannon started the school year. There was much culture shock, especially on the part of Shannon. The girls got used to celebrity status. Brian realized just how tough it was going to be to set up an office in China. Make sure to click read more. 

Magnolia pretending to sleep with her new neck pillow.
Brian getting to know our new, and now good, friend Park. 

The Little Things: Static!

Beijing's air is DRY. As in no frost on car windshields and no crunchy frozen grass. As in constant chapped lips and bloody, cracked knuckles after washing a few dishes.  I was warned about this though and brought a Costco size tub of Cetaphil (if you're looking for a good lotion, it's amazing!)

What has shocked me is the static (pun intended). More than once I have felt like the embarrassed women in the Bounce commercials who can't keep her skirt from clinging to her legs as she walks down the street. Each night we are treated to an electrical show of sorts as we draw the covers over the girls and miniature bolts of lightning arc from the blanket to the bed, lighting up the dark room. I'm still surprised when I get that little prick when I test the temperature of the bath water.  And Brian exclaims almost every time he pushes his hands down hard enough to get out of bed and completes the circuit with the mattress springs. In order to turn each little prick into something that doesn't draw tears after any human contact, these little shocks, in our house, mean that the two people love each other a lot. We hope this doesn't cause too much confusion for the girls if they have a shocking encounter with a stranger.  Or think that we don't love them any more when the weather gets more humid...

Our First Beijing Snow

Walking home from school -- pretty exciting!

It was a two hat kind of day, one for your head and one for your stuffed animals.

They found these cute guys near our house.  When I got home, the first thing out of her mouth was "Forks and Spoons!!" Brian had to explain her excitement came from these snowman appendages. 

Lately...

This fall, Brian and I decided to start pursuing moving to an international school next year. So completing an online class, researching schools, updating our CVs, creating a web page, writing cover letters, and filling out applications on top of Brian finishing his last year of grad school and the normal things that go with parenting toddlers and working (Are we crazy?!) made it necessary to take a short hiatus from the less urgent, but enjoyable task of keeping Rushcapades up-to-date. Well, the load has eased some so we are going to do a catch up post for those of you that follow the happenings of our family through our blog. Then hopefully, we'll be more or less back to programming as usual.

Kaleia moved to a "Big Girl" car seat. She loves looking out the window, often shouting "bird!", to which Magnolia will passionately object if the said bird is not visible.

We celebrated Thanksgiving and Grandpapa Gracey's birthday with some good food and time to Kinect, Xbox style.

We had our first (and second) snow of the winter, that was supposed to the winter of record-breaking snow levels. So far it has mostly just been day after day of rain. I still have a little hope left.

Magnolia and I ran the Jingle Bell Run together. She actually did run 1 block of the race and earned a jingle bell bracelet from a passing runner that thought she was doing such a great job.  

We went to a tree farm to get our tree where they have some animals set up with a Nativity scene. Magnolia and Zebra really liked petting the goat.

 

Debeardification #2 happened (click here if you want to see #1). This time, Brian went from the most hair I've ever seen him with to the least. This is the end result. We'll post more pictures when we get them.

We celebrated Christmas with the Gracey Family and

with the Rush Family.

And we rang in the new year with some good friends and the best game of Telepictionary I've every been apart of.

Lately, things have been good, full and often frantic, but much to be thankful for.

Winter Getaway '09: Leavenworth

The necessary ingredients for a fabulous trip to Leavenworth:

Candy

Gnomes

(Root)beer and Bratwurst

Nutcrackers and Scared Penguins

A Visit to the Hat Shoppe

(on second thought...maybe not)

Games with friends

More Games with Friends

Wildlife Sightings

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow!

For those of you that don't know, I LOVE the snow. I check precipitation percentages hourly.

I was a little disappointed to miss the weekend dusting--oh those little granules of diamond dust floating like fairies to bless our world--in the middle of the night even if it did give us a 2 hour delay Monday morning.

Then we got another dusting last night. And I missed it again! Why do you spurn me, you frozen flakes of happiness?! But we got another 2 hour delay so I couldn't complain too much.

Then it started! Coming and coming, in its beautiful sparkly whiteness. Surely, they'll cancel school now, I thought. We live in a city that sold its snow plows(!) so the roads are always a wreck when there is even the slightest snow. It seems like no one knows how to drive in the powdery wonderfulness, especially not teenagers.

I waited until the very last minute to head to work. Alas, while every other school district in the area headed home early to bundle up and enjoy our wonderful winter wonderland of wonderfulness, our new superintendent (from Colorado, grumble grumble) made it clear we were going to make it through the day. Even the mayor sent his workers home! But we were strong...grumble grumble.

When I got home I begged Brian to bundle up and help me capture Magnolia's first experience with the pillowy crystals before dusk descended to whisper sweet-nothings to our newly enchanted fantasy land.

Enjoy the pics!

Baby, It's cold inside!

Last night--the coldest night of the year so far--we had a furnace scare. No heat + 9 month old baby + snow = uh-oh.

Don't worry though. We got it all figured out...it was just our capacitor (flux capacitor???). Who knew our furnace could take us back to the future?!