Thanksgiving Road Trip: Part 2

We arrived and instantly started enjoying time with our friends and their three children. We have known this family for over ten years and are always challenged by them in so many ways.
But more than that, they know our ugly, they see our struggles, they come alongside our joys, and love us so well. Even if we haven't talked in a while, when we get together we 'let our hair down', relax and seem as if we see each other every day.They are vulnerable with us as well, and that makes this friendship solid, safe, and actually restful.

Though our weekend was NOT restful, because we had some catching up to do, and a VERY fussy one-year-old.

On Thanksgiving Day, the dads were in charge of crafts! Excellent job David and David.

what Tobin is thankful for: Race Cars, Fighter jets, God and Jesus.

Bella wrote hers...

And Sophia put hers all together as well.

 This was super cute and fun to watch.

EP is two years younger than Sophia (but about the same height), they got along well.

One craft our kids loved was making an Indian head dress and giving themselves Indian names.

 This fam has great toys!

There was Tons of this going on, holding babies and taking every moment to talk about anything and everything.

 For Thanksgiving dinner we went to the house of another ex-pat family that we know. They smoked a real turkey! It was some kind of yum. There were eleven kids between the three fams which equals chaos fun.

 Erica had brought back this craft from the States: making your own place mat, the kids all enjoyed this.

The spread. Oh my goodie goodness. I did not bake a thing. We brought these two families pineapples, avocados, and cornmeal from the subtropics, but we did not contribute in any way to this meal, except to partake.

 Casseroles, stuffing, rolls, turkey....are we still in China?

 TWO kinds of Sweet Potato Souffle.

 The smoked Turkey, did I mention yum?

 And....Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving....

 And Dessert. I don't want to make you stumble, but this chocolate mousse pie and apple crumble with homemade vanilla bean ice cream and salted caramel sauce was indescribable. So, there you go. Worth every calorie eaten, and the second and third time too. Guilt free! We were meant to enjoy and give glory to God in eating. So we did.

 The kiddos exchanged gifts our last night there. The babies are sleeping.

 Act goofy:

On black Friday Erica took me shopping at Wal Mart. Sandra joined us and was a huge help with my three carts of stuff. We also went to the 'Cheese' shop so I could by cheese, bacon, and other specialty things that we don't get.

We went for a great meal that night and then got up and left on Saturday, after borrowing our friends' car topper for all of our stuff.
Even though Gabrielle cut two molars and had to be rocked for four hours one night, we had an incredibly blessed Thanksgiving trip reconnecting with our friends and watching our kiddos enjoy/make new friends. Thanks P family for welcoming us and blessing us so!

Thanksgiving Road Trip: part 1

We hit the road for Thanksgiving and traveled to visit some of our closest friends in a city about 5 hours north of us. The first hour of the drive the road is horrible and after that smooth sailing...and BEAUTIFUL. I never tire of these valley views. And then when you drive up. And up. And through the mountains, And down. His splendor is here.

David was an excellent driver. We borrowed a GPS from a friend that told us where traffic cameras were, hmm...helpful.

Still in the valley

The new road that will help the horrific first hour of huge trucks, blind curves and not much space.

Look at how high those mountains are!We are already pretty high, our city starts about 3,000ft, and ended up in a city at about 6,500ft.

Tobin and Bella sat in the back, played together some, colored and did great. The pic of Bella was blurry.

Soph was a huge help sitting next to Gabrielle who had a rough four days.

She is telling you why...my teeth mommy, my teeth!

We love tunnels! And there were many.

We did 30 minutes of CC review, listened to 'My Father's Dragon' for an hour, listened to our catechism songs and Story of the World. I tried to turn SOTW off, but got protests. Then we arrived after five hours and one less-than-ten minute stop for the restroom. The kids did great, and no one got car sick.

Sophia's Injury Update

I just have to say, we praise God that in our seven and a half years of having kids we have not had to visit the local hospital for a serious injury. We did take Bella once for IV antibiotics, but we have been blessed with miraculous protection so many times. And this time it certainly seemed miraculous as well.

As mentioned, she was punched in the mouth by a cement stair case. It pushed her gum up and covered her teeth, and at the time we had no idea what we were looking at inside her mouth. Were her two permanent teeth that had started coming in even there? How far were they pushed back? What kind of surgery would she need to fix this?

But lets back up....it was Friday, she and LuBingHua had capes on and were trudging up the stair case with another friend when she fell. As soon as we saw her mouth I froze. David woke me from my stupor and said "go get a wash cloth". Oh yeah, I am actually supposed to do something and not panic. Thankfully I did get myself together. And Sophia really did too. She actually did not cry all that much. Some of the words coming out of her mouth were dramatic like, "this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me...(moan)" but she really held herself together well.

We called an American doc friend who lives here (but moved back to America two days later), he had no advice for us except to really check on the permanent teeth. Then we called Wu YiSheng, Dr. Wu, his son is in Bella's class, he has been to America once, is very nice, has decent English, and has had a meal in our house. He also was our go-to guy when Gabrielle needed her lymph node drained. It was six o'clock Friday afternoon, the dental clinic at the main hospital was closed. But Dr. Wu called his friend, a dentist there, and she opened up the clinic for us and looked at Sophia. This was awesome for many reasons, but mainly because we didn't have to stand in any line (it is always a MESS), or register, or stand around people smoking. This was a huge blessing. She got a Q-tip and started moving things around Sophia's mouth while I cringed. And Sophia did not cry. Sophia spoke up when she heard the dentist say that 'it may need to be cut out', then the dentist said, "oh, you understand Chinese".

The dentist said we could cut away some of the gum but it was best to wait and see since she could still see the two permanent teeth that were coming in and they looked okay. So we did. That evening we took pictures and started consulting with others as well. She slept fine and the next day we got x-rays. All the dentists we consulted said, you will be amazed, it looks grotesque now but in a week or two you won't even know anything happened. And we are amazed.

The x-ray doc said there was a little movement in her permanent teeth but not enough to do anything about. So still we will wait and see. In February when we go to Thailand we will do some follow-up and see how her gums/teeth are doing.

Dentistry is something we try not to do here because of the easy ability of the mouth to bleed, the high rate of HIV, and the general uncleanliness of clinics, especially private ones. The main hospital has gotten so much better in this area, but we try not to risk it.

We are ever so thankful for all the help we received and prayers. God continues to teach us to press hard into him and trust, especially when it comes to our children. 

Hurricane Gabrielle: Homeschool Reality

 Though it sometimes may seem that things are 'all together' at the Coker house, lets remember the 14-month old. She is not walking yet, but she leaves messes in her wake, ones I actually ignore for parts of the day.

 Okay, I actually do have to kick some stuff out of the way to walk, but other than that our house has been known to stay like this for awhile these days.

 I also have to pull wads of paper out of her mouth or chunks of a rubber ball that she has used her ten teeth on.

She certainly 'interrupts' our smooth  homeschool (sarcasm folks) in various ways, mostly with her standing up near one of the girls and me trying to get them to focus. "Whats the problem? Its not like there is a REALLY cute baby at your knee smiling and begging you to play! Spell your next word!"

Yes, it is all fun and games here, and often, one big glorious mess.

My Panera

Sort of. 

A bakery in town recently renovated and has such a cozier feel to it. Then consider the fact that they added 'Sea Salt Coffee' and 'Mocha' to their menu, it is now my Panera. 

Except that I don't every actually sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee in it, because who has time for that?

But I do buy bread there weekly (they sell fresh whole wheat, french loaves, and other breads that are quite tasty). I was reluctant to try the coffee, especially sense the first few times I asked, they 'didn't have it' which meant whoever was working didn't know how to make it. 

And finally during our re-wire week, I bought David and myself hot Sea Salt coffees. De-lish. And just because it was a day (you know, one of those), when I took the kids back to school in the afternoon (the bakery is right near the school), I bought us two more, on ice. YUM again. These cost 10 yuan, or $1.63. This is not bad at all for a good cup-a-joe. But it is still a treat. I certainly need to try the mocha, what am I waiting for???

 The bakery's actual name is Gartime. Its slogan: Share the Happy Time!

 The set up is inspiring, you can watch them work all day long.

 They make a lot of cakes, which are not great, though they look amazing.

I love the huge bowl of whipped cream, and the two stand mixers, not to mention tall counter tops, tons of counter space and huge ovens!

And did I mention they have a huge built in AC unit? So refreshing! Only one or two places in town can boast that! Come 'Share the happy time' with us!

Re-Wire

David kept telling me that the electrical problem in our house was serious and dangerous, wires were 'leaking electricity' among other things. I nodded, said okay, and we kept on going. 

It all started who knows when? When we moved in to be sure, and then this summer while we were gone, there was lots of flooding and the power kept going out. Our greatest friends helped big time with this, getting the power back on, etc. But not before all of my frozen strawberries melted, leaked out of the freezer, and covered the floor. Of course by the time they arrived the floor wasn't pink/red. No, it was one black swarm of a million ants.  We received this email after being in the States less than a week.

But when we returned and David checked it all out, he was seriously concerned. And, since he is the engineer and knows how it all works, I heeded his warnings of cost, time, and trouble, and we decided to go ahead with re-wiring.

We discussed it all with our landlords and they were very helpful and concerned as well. The various electricians we had take a look, blamed all of our devices overheating a wire somewhere.  Possible.

 When I told my good friend/neighbor this situation, she said: "oh! Yes, before we refinished our place (same exact apartment just two doors down), our contractor told us the original wires were all bad quality so we spent a lot of money to switch them all out." Hmm....good to know.

 The breaker box, day of. What they did was quite incredible, it only took two days of no power, and we had it back at night in most places. We did have to move everything away from the walls and remove the entire cabinet that covers up the breaker box. That in and of itself made it look like we were moving for two days. I shuttled the kids to and from school in the morning and afternoon, and I held down the fort because David was away doing visa stuff and lots of other work stuff. He kept checking in on the progress and kept in contact with the electricians about what they were doing.

When they removed the cover I saw this. One hole burnt to a crisp indeed. This is in our laundry room. But this was not the problem. No, they discovered a wire they could not pull out between the office and our bedroom, it must have melted and was causing the problems.At least they found it! This was where they had to break through a wall to get it out.

Now our whole house is grounded, which is why we were shocked (HA HA) when I got literally shocked just one day later by our water machine. We called the guy back, our landlord came over. They tested the machine and sure enough 220 volts of electricity were 'leaking' out of it, talk about dangerous, it certainly hurt me up to my shoulder and gave me a headache. We all decided it was the actual water machine shorting out.  Our landlord even said, "you know all this stuff is made in China, it is supposed to be this way (he used his hands to show) but it is really put in that way."

Go figure.