Story of RIBS

last week we were invited to a friends house for dinner. They were making ribs and potatoes. Matthew was so excited he could hardly stand it. It was all he could talk about. Well Sunday night we got a call saying that one of their daughters was sick and they needed to reschedule. Not a problem we could do that. Well when I told Matthew he lost it. Tears were coming down and he was so upset. We had to talk him through it. He kept saying that he has been waiting SO long for ribs and it was not fair. Doug and I got a good laugh out of this. We both said well at least he is not crying because we do not give him McDonalds.

The next day my girlfriend came in with some left over ribs for Matthew. I told her the story and she almost cried too. I did not tell the boys that she brought leftovers until dinner. It was a great surprise.

Well today Doug and Matthew were on a mission at the market. They were going to find ribs that we could make for dinner. Sure enough they were successful. It looked a bit like the Flintstones buying ribs but that part of the fun. I wish I took pictures of Doug cutting the meat. It was so funny. You do what you can with what you have :)

I took pictures of the boys at dinner and I will post pictures tomorrow :)

Spring???

Laughing is good medicine. This last weekend I went shopping with some friends. It was a day of laughing and OIC (Only in China) moments. We had a great day. At the end of a busy shopping adventure we met up with all the guys and had a great dinner at Brooklyn’s restaurant in downtown Dalian. The next morning I got up and ran 8 miles with my friend Sarah. It was the longest I have ran and I did it J. Then after church Doug and I went out to dinner to celebrate 13 years of marriage. It was nice to get away and talk.

Spring is starting to show itself. The weather is getting warmer and we are enjoying every minute. Today we hit the baseballs and enjoyed the weather. We are starting the cleaning process or weeding out process. Two more months and we will be heading home. First we get to enjoy spring break with my mom and brother, Chris. We are so so excited. We will be traveling to Shanghai and to Guilin China. The other great thing about this trip is that the boys DO NOT KNOW that ALL my brothers will be joining us for our trip and my sister n law. We can’t wait to surprise them. It will be fun. So if you read this and talk to us do not tell the boys!!!

Crazy

International Day




Book Week



So brave


Doug's classroom door.. The WINNER


Sorry we have not been keeping up with the blog. We have been blocked a bunch this last month. Frustrating trying to get on the Internet and it is blocked.

All is well with us. We had book week last week and the boys had fun. Doug's advisory class won a pizza party for their door. It turned out great. Isaac was a mystery reader for a 4Th grade class and was proud of himself for reading to the class. They could not guess that it was a 1st grader. Matthew loved seeing how much he could read in a day.

My Mom and brother Chris are coming back to China. YEAH!!! They will be here Spring break which is at the END of April. WOW that feels so far away. We are excited to see them again.

quote of the week

So this week Matthew had us both laughing so hard. It was a China Moment.


He was getting dressed the other morning and normally he goes through several pairs of pants because they are all too short for him. He put on a pair and said "I need to find long socks for these pants." We laughed so hard. I guess if he has long socks on then the pants can be short.

Yes our boys are growing like weeds and it is hard to keep up with the pants. I think capri pants in for boys. Well I hope they are. :)

Visitors for HOME

We are lucky!! We had more visitors. Our friends Meg and Erik came to visit us. They first went to Beijing to see some sites and then to Dalian. We were so excited to have them. They arrived on Thursday; sadly Matthew had an infection and was sick that day. I took the morning off and was with him. I was able to greet Meg and Erik and off to parent-teacher conferences I went. The next day Doug and I had teacher conferences so Meg and Erik hung out with the boys. It was nice to have them here. We went to dinner and showed them around our area. We played lots of games and visited. It was nice to see China through other people’s eyes. We get use to it here so it was fun to see how they reacted.
On Sunday we woke up to SNOW. It was beautiful. It snowed most of the day but that did not stop us from walking to the beach. I really wanted to show them our beach. We bundled up and off we went. It was cold but we had a nice visit. We all were sad to see them leave (many tears) but we know we will meet up again soon.

You have a few more months to come see us if you are interested.

Ancestry doll

Matthew’s class did an ancestry project. They had to fill out a family tree and choose a relative to create a doll from. Matthew loved finding out more about our families. He was excited to get emails from Grandma’s and Grandpa’s and even Uncles. Everyone helped him fill in the information. Then he decided to make a doll from Austria. Doug’s great grandma, Olga Schultz, was who Matthew focused on. They had to show the traditional dress from that country and write a paragraph about it. Matthew made an Austrian male. It was fun to research and learn more about our heritage.

Borneo

Just outside our hotel



My monkeys








Last year for Chinese New Year we stayed in China to get a feel for the holiday. We had a great time and loved it. This year we decided to go and see more of this amazing world we live in. As you all know we have animal lovers in our house so we headed off to Borneo. Never in a million years would I have said that I would be going to Borneo. God is good.

We had to leave work a bit early because it started to snow in Dalian. Off we went to the airport. We knew we would be staying in Seoul overnight because we had a long layover. When we got to Seoul we found the airport to be empty. No big deal. We asked at the information counter where we could stay and within 5 minutes we were off to a near by hotel. It was not the fanciest place but it did the trick. (It did help that there was a Dunkin Donut just around the corner and a mini mart). After a bit of sleep we were off and running again. We headed to Kota Kinabalu, it was a 5 1/2 hour plane flight. Then we had a several hour layover again before taking a little plane to Sanakan. The adventure started when it took the pilot three times to land the plane. We should have know then that it was going to be a Smith Family Adventure.

We were greeted at the airport by a taxi driver (we had arranged this with our hotel) telling us that we could not go to the hotel because it was flooding. It had been raining nonstop for 5 days and did not look like it was going to let up. So as we have learned being here in China that you take one step at a time and God will work out the rest. We went to another hotel that was owned by the same guy. They took very good care of us. The next morning we got up and waited to hear from the owner. He called and said it was still not safe to come out to his place in the rain forest. Instead we headed out for a 4 hour river trip.


the river trip was a blast. It was pouring but we did not care. We put on our poncho and off we went. We saw pygmy elephants, proboscis monkeys, other monkeys, snakes, lizards and much more. We were going to spend the night on the river but the lodge was flooded so we headed back in to town.

When we passed the roads that went to see the orangutans and the hotel we were suppose to stay at we knew why we could not get there. SO SO much water on the roads.


The next morning we woke up and were told we could go to the hotel in the rain forest. HOW?? there was so much water the night before. It was crazy. We got there and the roads were clear of the water. God was looking out for us. We spent the day at the Orangutan rehabilitation center and hung out with them. It was amazing to say the least. We actually got locked into the orangutan area. OOPS ;) heheh we had to jump the fence to get back.

We finally made it to the hotel and it was beautiful. It was out in the rain forest and we loved it. We got to sleep with the animals. We spent the day resting and playing games. Then that afternoon we headed to the rain forest discovery center. We saw so much.

We ended our trip in Kota Kinabalu, where we swam and hung out in the city. We loved it. Every night we ate at the street venders. The food was amazing and so so cheap. It was a faboulus vacation and truly a Smith Family Adventure that we will NEVER forget.