We have been living in China for 2 ½ weeks. And as crazy as it seems, it is already feeling like home. Our apartment, now that it is cleaned up and has some dishes and pots and pans, seems like our place. We even put up a picture of Christ and the LA temple (where we were married), along with the Family: A Proclamation and some family pictures. We also finally got a water dispenser and water to go with it today so now we don’t have to rely on running down to the community store to buy bottles of water or boiling our tap water. Yay! I still haven’t gotten my rice cooker pot completely clean from my scorched attempt at cake baking the other day (hint: don’t jab a toothpick into the rice cooker cook/warm button to keep it on cook…not a good idea…), but besides that, things are smooth and settling into normal. And we have yummy cake to eat. :)
To add to feeling more at home here, I, almost all by myself, bought fruit today at the market. The little ladies selling the fruit seemed quite amused at my attempts and kept saying ‘Ok, ok, ok’ to mock my foreignness. But they understood me! And the peach we just ate was amazing- yup, that was me who bought it.
***Here are some older entries that we weren’t able to post while Blogspot was blocked. We will add pictures as soon as we can. A friend of ours figured out how to do it so we are working on getting that info from him. So, those will be coming soon…
Washington!!
(August 17, 2009)
Eric and I just got back a couple of days ago from spending a few days in Washington with his grandparents there. We had just quit our jobs so what better thing to do than go on a road trip. So we took off. I had never been to Washington before and was amazed as we drove through Washington at how beautiful it was. Being from Southern California, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anywhere so green!
We went to see all the places on the Grandma and Grandpa Matthews tour of Seattle- Pike’s Place Market, the Locks, Deception Pass, and of course, the Flight Museum with Grandpa Matthews. It was all so much fun! When Eric asked me the first day what my favorite part was- I told him it was probably watching the salmon swim upstream. There is a place near the locks called the fish ladder where the salmon are able to go in order to pass through where the dam is so they can continue swimming upstream to wherever they are headed. There are glass windows so you can watch them. Maybe it is weird but I thought it was so amazing. Those poor fish looked so tired and seemed to hardly move. Yet they are so determined and keep going.
I got to meet a lot of Eric’s relatives who live up there. They were all so much fun. There was definitely no dull moment with them! From a game of Balderdash spiced up by Aunt Janet’s responses to crouching over the tidal pools with Grandma we had a blast.
August 21
It’s August 21, and we are sitting in the airport waiting for our plane to come. This day has only been on our calendar for the past few months, but the moment we would pack our bags and board a plane to China has been a conversation in our relationship from the very onset.
Both of us still remember the night spent together before we left for Christmas last December. Up until then, we tossed ideas back and forth of activities we would love to do during the summer, but that is where our plans stopped. Hardly anything was mentioned of life after August, when I had already committed to board a plane to China to continue my studies. For me, it was a topic I tried to avoid, fearing the time when Kiersten and I would not be together.
But that December night, as Kiersten and I sat and listened to Neil Diamond singing Christmas songs, I couldn’t hold my question any longer. “Kiersten, would you be willing to go to China?” The response was a yes, and from then on we both knew that our relationship would not end in August. I must admit, that was perhaps one of the most relieving and comforting pieces of knowledge that I’ve ever known.
The past eight months have been hectic with finishing school, getting married and preparing for China, but it has all been allayed by the knowledge that neither of us would be doing it alone.
And so, to rephrase one of the Who’s classic lyrics,
'Got a feeling ’21 is going to be a good [day],
That is, if you and me see it in together!'
3 comments:
We're so glad y'all are back in the blog! Hoorah! Sounds like this is going to be a fun journey! I look forward to all your future posts.
It's great that you guys can blog again. It's fun reading what all is happening, especially this China thing will be quite the adventure. We're glad all is going well for you.
That was very cool.
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