What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger.

We have had a trying time here in China recently.  But hopefully, that is all behind us and we can now move forward with our life here as we settle into our new apartment.

About a month ago, we were informed by my husband's company that we needed to move to Fuyang. We didn't want to move, we had been in our apartment for 2 years and were very comfortable.  I find that it takes a year to settle in to a comfortable routine whenever we move, so was very disappointed to have to begin again. The company insisted that we move, and then informed Dave that there wasn't really any apartments available in Fuyang and we would be much happier in the Villa. The Villa is used to house high ranking expats who are here in China without there partners, while they work in China.  David informed his company that he wasn't interested in living in a boarding house and he received assurances that it would be our home and they wouldn't have anyone stay there without our permission.  Dave figured that would work because he wasn't going to give anyone permission.  The other problem with the Villa was the housekeeper, she had a known record of treating any woman living there badly. David received the promise that if this occurred she wouldn't be there it was our call.

Well, we moved in, the Villa is a large concrete building. 6 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, large living room, large foyer, large kitchen, moderate dining room, three seasons room off the living room and a laundry room off the foyer. Because it hadn't been used as a home in the past, David purchased 9000 rmb worth of furniture so that it wouldn't seem like such a mausoleum. W moved in, and David went happily back to work, traveling and leaving me there.

Then the difficulties began, the villa is isolated, so there aren't any stores for purchasing food or water.  When we ran low on the water that Dave had purchased before he left, I asked the housekeeper for more and she said mayo (which means not available). Further, the only food she would make available was a fried squash dish, she used my chicken and then served it only partially cooked.  I ended up very sick from her cooking and had to refuse to eat any other offerings.  I watched her one day and discovered she didn't wash her vegetables before cooking and washed the dishes in cold water with no soap. There was a sterilizer there, but she never used it for the dishes, that explained why I was so sick.  When I refused to eat her food, she became very angry. She would do all kinds of things to make me miserable. Like remove all the cookware and dishes so I couldn't cook for myself or eat.  I did my best to ignore her but it became very difficult to do, she would scream at me in Chinese and slam doors, (I have the bruises to prove it) unfortunately my 10 month old grand daughter was visiting at the time. Ceci was so scared of this woman, I have to admit that I was as well, no one should have to live in fear.  She had keys to all the rooms and wouldn't hesitate to to use them even knowing we were in there and didn't want to be disturbed. When David returned he requested that we be allowed to move. The company agreed but now we are responsible for the expenses of living in China.

I put out a call to the Relief Society to help me find an apartment quickly and we were able to move the following weekend.

We had to pay the movers ourselves. We were required to pay our rent 1 year in advance, and we now need to purchase a car so that David can get back and forth to work. But it was worth it, we live in a beautiful apartment overlooking the river, one of my good friends lives just a few floors below so once again all is well. Of course, now begins all the work of making the apartment work for us.  We had a washer delivered but it won't drain etc... I am exhausted but at least I don't have to head off for work like David does every day. He is traveling today and he started out so tired.  Moral of the story is, if you have a good employee and you want him to be able to concentrate on he work, don't make him move twice in one month. Also, for me, never have a live in housekeeper.

I came a across a beautiful song that I had to share It's called Beautiful Heartbreak by Hilary Weeks. The video is beautiful. It captures exactly how I feel about the trials I have had in my life.

Dreams Really Do Come True.

This past April, (April 4-8, 2014) I had the opportunity of a life time. I was able to fly to Alaska. I have always wanted to see Alaska. I kept suggesting it as a vacation destination but my husband wasn't interested. It took the marriage of my son David Michael Saylor Jr. to Kimberly Dianne Martin for us to be able to vacation there!  Thanks Kimber!  And a special thanks to Kimber's family, Alaska is a truly amazing place and I am so grateful to have been able to see it!  We went on a whale watching tour, and saw so much wildlife I lost count.  The Whales and otters swam right up to boat.  It was incredible.  My son was like a little boy, he ran from one end of the boat to the other there was so much to see.  It was a time I will always cherish!

The night before I was leaving for Dallas, Texas, we went out to dinner with Mike, Bonny, Dave, Kimber and my husband, to our favorite restaurant Splash.  While at dinner, David was telling the kids about his grandfather's opinion of engagement rings.  Grandpa Saylor always said, "If a girl loves you she will take a beer can tab as an engagement ring." As soon as David finished the story, Dave said, "speaking of engagements, Kimber and I are getting married in two weeks in Alaska!" We were thrilled!  Kimber is an amazing woman and we feel privileged to have her as part of our family.

Kimber's family is equally amazing!  Her father is a true Renaissance man, he built his own with lumber he milled in his own saw mill, I can't even begin to tell all this man has accomplished, but I am not often impressed, and I was very impressed. Her mother, is one of the kindest and sweetest people, grateful to have them as a part of my life. 

 It all came about because I attended a Relief Society Luncheon, here in Hangzhou. It was the first time I met Kimber.  We went for manicures and became fast friends. Kimber would come and stay with use on Sunday nights until Tuesday. We went on many wonderful shopping trips together and share a love of all things yarn.  

They met when Dave came to visit us.  We spent many happy hours playing board games, League of Legends and exploring Hangzhou. 

Below are some of the pictures from our dream trip to Alaska. sorry it took so long to publish but some people wanted to keep it a secret, nothing is harder for me than to keep a secret about something I am so happy about.  

  

Sunshine in every bite!

 27, No, it can’t be!

My son, pictured at left, recently turned 27.  When did I get to be so old? Wait, I am only …. and that’s not all that old.  He is visiting us in China so we were able to spend his birthday with him. We have tradition in our family of requesting your birthday dinner.  For his dinner, he requested Lasagna and for his “cake” he requested Lemon Meringue Pie.

Lasagna and Lemon Meringue Pie, are they even possible to make here in China? Well, it’s more difficult but they are possible.  We were able to purchase some hamburger, 500 g for 96 rmb. Metro, a local store here (think small Walmart Superstore) carries Lasagna noodles, tomato paste, cottage cheese and canned tomatoes. The noodles and tomatoes could have been made if absolutely necessary but fortunately it wasn’t.  My recipe for Lasagna, has been a part of my life as far back as I can remember.  My mom made wonderful Lasagna, so it’s not surprising that her grandson would request it for his birthday. The recipe is simple:

12 Lasagna noodles cooked

1/4 # sharp cheddar

1# Mozzarella

Meat Sauce:

1 1/2 to 2 # ground beef

1 T basil

2 1/2 c cooked or canned tomatoes

1 clove or garlic, minced

1 T parsley

1 1/2 t salt

12 ounces of tomato paste.

Cottage Cheese Mixture:

6 c cottage cheese

2 large eggs beaten

1/2 t pepper

1/2 c parmesan cheese

2 t salt

2 T Parsley Flakes

I was all set to begin making dinner.  Not only do you have to gather all the ingredients but then you have to make it. Turns out I don’t have a pan large enough to boil pasta in. The noodles glued together and became one with each other, there was no separating them.  I ended up having to boil each of the 12 noodles individually. It worked, just took a long time.  While waiting for the noodles to cook, I made the meat sauce, and combined the cheese mixture.  One mistake I think many people make in creating lasagna is not enough cheese. I love lots of cheese in my lasagna. The bite of the sharp cheddar combined with mozzarella is a wonderful combination.  So, I hand grated the mozzarella, the parmesan and sharp cheddar. All was ready to assemble into a yummy dish for the coming birthday party.  Now for the lemon pie!

We don't have a lot of prepared foods here in China, so I sent my son to purchase 4 lemons for me.  There is something about fresh squeezed lemon juice and grated lemon rind that remind me of sunshine.  My kitchen smelled delightful. The pie was amazing.  Usually, when I make the pie I use Real Lemon, lemon juice and let me just say, there is a big difference, convenience just isn't worth it.  From now on I will always use fresh squeezed juice, unless lemons just aren't available.

Another difference cooking here are the eggs.  The yolks are so yellow, a deep yellow orange. They provided a wonderful color to the lemon pudding.  Nothing artificial added.  And the little oven did a great job of browning the meringue for me.

The best part was everyone's reactions as they ate the pie. It was tart and sweet, a wonderful combination.  Sunshine in every bite!

Lemon Meringue Pie:

1 1/2 c of sugar

1/3 c of cornstarch

1 1/2 c water

Place the sugar and the cornstarch in a saucepan and slowly add the water so that the mixture is smooth. Cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens and boils.  Boil one minute. Remove from heat. 

Separate 3 eggs and save the egg whites for making the meringue. ( I prepare this before I even begin cooking)  Using a folk, mix up the yolks. I begin to add some of the hot sugar mixture a quarter cup at a time, meanwhile beating with a folk constantly, (so the egg doesn’t cook solid), when I have a good sized cereal bowl full, I stir it into the rest of the hot mixture. I boil for an additional minute then blend in 3 T butter. 4 T lemon juice and 1 1/2 T grated lemon rind.

I pour it into a baked pie shell cover with the meringue, make sure to seal the meringue to the crust so it doesn’t shrink away from the sides of the pie. bake at 400 degrees for about 8 minutes until the meringue is a nice golden color.

Meringue:

3 egg whites (saved from the 3 eggs you separated earlier)

1/4 t cream of tartar

6 T of sugar

1/2 t vanilla

Beat the eggs and the cream of tartar until frothy (foamy), gradually add sugar about a tablespoon at a time. Continue beating until stiff and glossy. 

( I always beat until the tracks of the beaters stay in the meringue)

As you can see even in China, it's possible to make a lovely pie.

Sabbath Day

"if thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then salt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 

Isaiah 58:13-14

Hot Chocolate from the Ryma Cafe in Hangzhou, China

     An important day for me to rest from the cares of the world, study the word of the Lord and renew my covenants by attending church. By keeping the sabbath day holy, my life is refreshed and it gives me the strength to endure. Endure what you might ask? The daily events in my life that causes me to reach to the very depths of my soul to see the events though to their completion.  It can be as simple as finding the courage to move to a new land and learning how to function in a foreign society to watching your beautiful, brave daughter struggle to breathe and to live.

     I enjoy the beautiful hymns sung in church. They lift my soul to Heaven and instill in me a belief that this struggle is worth the effort. They also bring me peace and joy. I find a life without peace and joy a very depressing thought.

     I love watching the children at church. I wish I had,been more appreciative of my children's joy and innocence at church when my own children were young.  I was so overburdened with callings, responsibilities, trying to learn the gospel and "fit" the mold of a good LDS woman.  If I had it to do over again I wouldn't have allowed myself to be burdened down with the expectations of others. I would have cherished the moments in my life with my children at church.  I write this so my beautiful daughters may learn from me, cherish and rejoice with your children as you enjoy the great blessing of the sabbath.  I love the gospel, I love the things of the Spirit and so often I wasn't able to convey that to my children

    How I miss sitting with my beautiful babies! I loved our family nights when we would sing song after song. We would each choose a song for singing time, that meant we would sing at least 9 songs during singing time for family home evening.  "Nephi's Courage", "Follow the Prophet", "Book of Mormon Stories"were some of my very favorite songs. The children would sing these so enthusiastically, using hand gestures, they would pump their arm into the air with "I will go, I will do, the things the Lord commands" (in fact, one time during sacrament meeting, for some reason we sang "Nephi's Courage" and there was Dave, up on the stand with the bishopric, singing along, pumping his arm in the air!). 

    One particular family home evening, when Tricia was twelve years old, she taught the lesson. I still remember sitting on our king size bed, all the children gathered around, KC had just had surgery, so she was snuggled up against her mom and the Spirit filled the room surrounding us with all the warmth and joy associated with it.  These are such excellent memories and ones I hope will be recreated for my grandchildren.   

    

Frustrating Day in China

my Tomato over

      Today, as I watched The Pioneer Woman,  Ree Drummond, on rootstech.org, I was frustrated.  I love her blog, I love watching her with her family but when I try to recreate anything I find on the internet,  I find it is meiyo (not available). I have a large toaster oven that sits on my dryer for baking.  I use, said oven, to make my family's bread, cookies, casseroles. It is a great blessing in my life but by it's very nature is limiting in what it allows me to do.  I have a Phillips hand mixer which I use for mixing up frosting. I only it use it for frosting because it won't handle cookie dough or quick bread doughs etc.  I have the great joy of having the beaters pop off in the middle of whatever I am making, no matter how well I seat them before I begin. I brought my measuring cups, measuring spoons and spatulas from America when I moved here.  Every trip I take home I bring back a suitcase full of things to make my life just a little easier in the kitchen. You know the little things, like real vanilla, the imitation stuff just isn't the same. Not that I have found it for sale here in Hangzhou either but I have found a surprising amount of things available and it does grow more each month. A fact for which I am very grateful. It's almost as if the buyers for the stores here, get to peek into the suitcases of the incoming expat's and then stock it on the shelves at usually double or triple what I would have to pay at home.  A very small box of Post Cereal sells for $10 USD, So, it's always a game to me, how much can I cram into a suitcase, and have it only weight 50 pounds! This time I brought my Lodge cast iron, dutch oven.  It didn't leave a lot of weight for other things but is such a blessing to me.  I have two gas burners in the kitchen, there is a high flame setting and higher flame setting. Simmer really isn't a good option. It's great for stir fry and wok cooking but not for much else.  The pans here are usually thin as well, so having a cast iron pot is a large step up for me.

My best tool for cooking here is my electric pressure cooker, it's my crock pot that tenderizes meat!  I love it for making beans and soups, in 30 minutes my meat is tender and we could eat or it will "simmer" for hours like a crock pot. It isn't a good option though for cooking chicken and dumplings!  You really can't boil without building pressure and the pressure ruins the dumplings.  So for those I start in the pressure cooker and finish up carefully on the gas burner with my dutch oven.

As you can see from the picture, my oven sits atop my wonderful Bosch dryer.  The dryer is in my kitchen and washing machine sits on my balcony.  The dryer collects the water in a tank that must be emptied with every load.  It is surprising to me how much water each load of laundry has.  I am very grateful to Bosch for developing a dryer that doesn't have to have a vent to the outside.  There is no way that I could do that here in China conveniently. The dryer was 6500 rmb or about $1100 USD.  Expensive but so helpful, when it rains here there is no drying the clothes.

Today, we have a high of 45 degrees, with a low of 32. Over the past week and a half we have averaged a high of 39 degrees, during this time our heater has only worked sporadically. When it first began to fail, we found out about it from our downstairs neighbors.  I guess it was making quite a bit of noise and they wanted us to turn it off because the noise bothered them. (This China where it is never quiet, horns are always beeping, people talk very loudly, fireworks go off day and night, and did I mention this was the week of Chinese New Year where fireworks go off more than normal?) They came to demand that we turn our heat off at 10 pm. We told them sorry, we weren't going to go without heat overnight but that we would do our best to have it fixed first thing in the morning. First thing in the morning, David goes down with our friend Kimber to see about getting the heater fixed. Our neighbor is there ahead of him, demanding that management cut the heat to our apartment (good thing Kimber speaks Chinese or of course we wouldn't know any of this). Dave requests management send up their maintenance man to repair our heater.  Turns out the maintenance man has been given 3 weeks off for Chinese New Year and won't be returning until the 15 of February.  Oh Joy! Manager promises Dave that he will find someone else to repair it and not to leave our apartment so they can get in to fix it.  We miss church to stay home a wait for the repair man to show.  During one of trips to walk my dog (my 26 and 24 year old sons were waiting in the apartment for repair man). We come back to find said manager and downstairs neighbor turning off the power to our apartment! That did not go well, we spent the next three hours arguing with our neighbors and the apartment manager about "living the Chinese way" in other words, having no heat in a concrete box with high winds and thin panes of glass.  Because after all, better that we freeze than they have to listen to noise.

Suddenly, the neighbor remembers that he knows a man who can repair our furnace. 100 rmb later, the noise stops, oh joy, neighbor leaves, they are happy, the noise has stop, we are freezing and do so for the next four days, while my husband's company tries to track down a repair man for our heater.  Yesterday, a repairman does show up, 350 rmb later one of the heaters is working, the house actually begins to warm up, but I am realizing I may be cold for the rest of my life... Once you get that chilled it's very difficult to get rid of, only to wake up this morning to find that our heater has once again stopped working.  What I have learned from this experience.

1. Don't trust your Chinese neighbor to find a repair man for you, he only cares about getting his needs met. It doesn't bother him at all that you are freezing.
2. Repair men here will only do the bare minimum to repair said problem, they won't bring proper tools and their response to everything is meiyo. (I am so hating that word)
3. Live on the ground floor, that way you won't panic when sons and husband try to fix the problem.

My life is definitely an adventure.  I am so grateful for heating blankets, the only source of heat I have had for the last week.

      

Hot Weather

Not really envying two of my daughters right now.  They are pregnant.  The heat has to be hard on them and on the babies.  It's been so hot.  And it's staying that way.  It's hard for me to imagine that the temperatures in Idaho are hoovering around 100 degrees.  I expect that type of weather here in Asia but must admit I was usually cold when I lived in Idaho.  I did purchase an air conditioning unit for the month of August but it didn't get this hot.  It's been 100 degrees+ here in Hangzhou.  Fortunately we live on the river and have a nice breeze most of the time.  Today, we were blessed with clear skies.  I could see to the mountains in both directions.  Hangzhou is a beautiful place.  I am told that Macro Polo stated that "Hangzhou was heaven on earth."

One of the great paths in our garden

The gates to our apartment

Playground 

exercise area

 I love the flowers, the streets here are lined with rose bushes.  Every day, Chloe and I, walk in the gardens here at our complex.  It has lovely brick lined paths.  They don't mow here, they use a weed whip to keep the grass short.  There are all types of flowers that line the walk ways.  It's a beautiful place to walk.  The flowers on the left remind me of KC's wedding.  Almost the same color.  I have been chatting with a nice woman from India, she has two wonderful children, a girl and a boy.  The little girl seems quite taken with Chloe.

 We were also greeted today by two golden retrievers.  They were beautiful dogs, very clean and well groomed.  Typical golden retrievers, very curious and full of energy.  I thought one of them was going to pull it's owner right off the ground. Fortunately, they were on leashes not a usual occurrence here. I am constantly afraid that Chloe will get free and run off.  With the traffic here I doubt

she could avoid being hit by a car.  There are a lot of dogs here that roam free so I also worry about her being attacked by them, something that happens when she is with me, when it does occur, I reach down and pick her up!  She loves to smell all the different areas of our daily walk, I like to imagine her thinking "Hmm, Harry must have been by here earlier today" I am not sure why I wonder what my dog is thinking but she sure is amusing.  She makes life so fun!  And she waits patiently every day for her two walks with me.  I am very grateful to have such a good dog!

The skies here are sunny and bright.  I can even see blue in the sky today.  The smog here is usually so great that I usually can't see that far out of my windows.  Although it is still hazy you can see the bridge not far from our apartment building.

And this wonderful picture of our apartment building shows the beautiful blue sky. Our building flows across the sky.  We have 3 balconies and since we are on the 26th floor we have quite the view on beautiful days like today.

We found a Papa John's pizza recently.  finally pizza that tastes like home!  We have already eaten there twice this week.  There is a Pizza Hut here in Hangzhou but it tastes like China.  Papa John's really tastes like American pizza.  McDonald's is just like home expect for their shakes, very thin, watery and artificial tasting. The ice cream is go though.  Kentucky Fried Chicken is better here in China then it was in Rexburg and they recently have begun to serve mashed potatoes!  Such a treat.  Buying groceries is expensive here.  We spend about $500 U.S. on meat, flour, sugar.  Vegetables can be cheap depends on what it is.  We have fruit and vegetable markets right outside the gates of our apartment so it makes it very convenient to purchase fresh fruit and vegetables every day. (A little bit of a pain, to have to do it so often but very fresh) If you go in the morning right after they get their deliveries you have a great selection.

I knit another pair of booties, this time green with peach flower centers and white daises. I have downloaded Saartje's bootees as well as Christine's baby booties to try next.  I am currently working on the Divine Ms M for Elizabeth. I plan to watch some more Call the Midwife and knit for the rest of the day.

Mandy Cowl

The Mandy Cowl up close

Modeled by my friend Sarah

This weekend I cast on "The Mandy Cowl" found here:, it is a free download on Ravelry.  I love the stitch and the yarn. The yarn is from Knitpicks.com, the colour is lollipop. They are so vibrant and bold.  It's 70 percent wool and 30 percent nylon. The pattern was easy and fun to knit and I love the results!

I will definitely be making more of these and want more of this yarn.  If only knitpicks would ship to China.  I did bring a suitcase full of yarn when I returned and am now enjoying using it here in Hangzhou.

I also made oatmeal cookies today.  The recipe turned out amazing.  I was looking for a recipe that didn't need butter.  Try them I think you will like them!  Baking here is expensive. I pay the equivalent of $5 US for 1 pound of sugar.  I have to bring my shortening from the USA so I am very particular about what I bake.  These cookies were worth it and I think Dave will think so too.

We also had a beauty parlour in the apartment today.  Sarah came and spent the day, what a wonderful way to spend the day, talking to a great friend while she gets pampered by Elizabeth.  Her hair came out amazing but then, Sarah is so beautiful it's to be expected.  I flew Lizzy in from the states to do my hair in November and decided to keep her here.  She now teaches English during the week and on her days off she does hair, with many compromises.

On Regret

“The more we devote ourselves to the pursuit of holiness and happiness, the less likely we will be on a path to regrets.”

~

·      Resolve to spend more time with those we love

·      Resolve to strive more earnestly to become the person God wants us to be

·      Resolve to find happiness, regardless of our circumstances.

Today in my scripture study I read a conference talk by President  Dieter F Uchtdorf.  What an inspirational talk.  The entire talk can be found here

How simple it is!  Want to avoid regret? Yes! Pursue holiness.  So simple. In fact why didn't I think of that before??  

Resolve to strive more earnestly to become the person God wants us to be!  I can do that!  And it doesn't have to be overwhelming, just one day at a time try harder to be who the Lord wants me to be.

When you have amazing friends that encourage you to be the best you can be it makes it so much easier and I have always been blessed with the very best of friends.  They help me to remember that I am a daughter of God and he loves me.  One of my friends, mentioned today that we have to remember the incredible blessings we have received, "exceptional things happen to me!".  Isn't that the truth, when we remember that incredible things that happen to us, we realize more wonderful blessings that have been in our lives but we missed because we were to busy to recognize them in our life! 

I have been so blessed these past couple of weeks by a visit from my daughter Elizabeth.  She arrived in China on November 19th and has been spreading joy ever since!  She did a service day for our branch here in Hangzhou where she gave scalp treatments to the ladies of the Relief Society. 

 She has really been excited about everything Chinese which spreads the excitement to those around her, helping me to realize how blessed I am to be in China. Yesterday we traveled to West Lake and just enjoyed the beautiful scenery.  By the lake there was a clothes line with 10 ducks skinned, drying in the sun in preparation for the Chinese New Year!  Amazing.  Not something you would typically see in the USA!

We went with this incredible family to help them take their family picture for their Christmas card.  As we were taking the pictures, groups were taking pictures of their adorable children. So fun! The Chinese people love to see American children.

Liz made some great cookies today, she modified the Crisco Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe found here: instead of ¾ cups butter flavored Crisco, she used ½ cup regular Crisco and ¼ cup butter, dark brown sugar instead of light brown sugar, 1 ½ cups of all purpose unbleached flour, ¼ cup of coco powder.  They taste amazing.  It was necessary to substitute with butter, as we didn’t have butter flavored Crisco.  The results are a chewy chocolate cookie. I wish I had some Crasins to put in them, maybe next time.  It’s even more amazing how wonderful this taste when you consider we don’t have a mixer so they were mixed by hand.

My new address! Hangzhou, China

 The view from my office window is the this track from the middle school across the street.  All this past week it has been a hive of activity as the students prepared for a big presentation that began on Wednesday and ended on Friday.  I have so enjoyed the quiet since they completed their activities, it was daily blaring of a loud speaker, drums and music.  Every day, they play different music depending on the time of day.  It's a nice way to keep track of the time and they play wonderful selections of classical music, just wish they would change the tunes occasionally.

We live on the 26th floor and have a wonderful view of the river, the apartment is about 1400 sq feet.  We have 3 bedrooms and two baths.  The living room is a nice size although we hardly ever use it.  When Dave is home he tends to be in the office working on the computer, he has enjoyed reading the news about the upcoming election in the USA.  I, on the other hand, am often taken aback at how rude and cruel his cousin and sister are.  It's ok to have different views (that's one of the great things about America, is we can agree to disagree) but to post lies, to belittle someone for their beliefs is just wrong.  My daughter tells me to just let it go, but I think the words were never truer, you can't unring a bell, I will always look at them differently for how cruel they were to their brother and cousin. I will be very glad to have this election behind us!

This the view from one of our balconies, to the park at the complex, it's a wonderful park with walking paths, a place for the nightly dancing that the women here participate in, and a great play ground for the children.  Even if it is an apartment it's a very nice nice environment to live in. At the entrance to our complex are various stores and a brand new Subway!

Yes, sad but true, it was a great day for our family when the subway opened!  It's definitely a taste of home and very convenient  when you just don't feel like cooking! We are now eagerly anticipating the opening of an Italian restaurant next door to the subway! We also like LA Cafe when we are hungry for a nice salad and Splash when we want Mexican! (Can you tell that Hangzhou has a little bit of everything?)

Not to be negative, but I don't like the hot water heater, each morning you get about 1 min of hot water, so you get to soap up quickly and then freeze while you rinse off. Really makes you consider whether you really want to take a shower or not! The benefit of the hot water heater here though is, I can wash my dishes in hot water unlike India where I had to boil my water to wash the dishes.

On the washing front, our washing machine is on one of our balconies.  Every morning begins with a load of laundry.  As you can see from the picture the clothesline is also there.  Very convenient to be able to hang up the clothes right out of the washer.  The weather is getting colder though and the clothes aren't drying so I fear we will have to break down and purchase a dryer.  But, good news!  They have dryers here! So very many things to be grateful here!  Of Course the most important of which is David really enjoys his job.  He likes making a difference and sharing his knowledge with those who work for him.

We attend a wonderful branch of our church here in Hangzhou, the people are so warm and welcoming.  We are so blessed to be able to have the opportunity to meet such fine people.  To attend our branch you must have a visa to visit China. So our members are from all over the world.  Such a blessing from Tim to be able to interact with so many wonderful people.

Tim attends the Hangzhou International School.  He has really enjoyed the transition.  Tomorrow he will travel to Shanghi where he will have the opportunity to hear Jane Goodall speak.  How amazing is that?  When I told my children my children in the states they had a serious case of envy!

I finished a baby blanket that I started before the move.  The pattern was cast on 121 stitches, knit the first 5 rows, knit first and last 6 stitches of every row.  Then the pattern stitch for the blanket was:
row 1: Knit
row 2: P
row 3: K1, yo, p1, p3 tog, p1, yo, k1; repeat across
row 4: P
Rep 1-4 until desired length.

I used Lion Brand Babysoft Solid, it's soft and lays nicely.  I am considering taking apart and making it bigger.  It is rather small but it would be great for covering a baby or maybe adding a crocheted edging to the blanket to make it wider.

I am casting on today, http://digitalnabi.com/blog/2010/10/the-prettiest-hot-pad-ever/
I will be using prima cotton by knitpicks, sure wished they shipped overseas.  I purchased a great pattern for a jacket that I will have to wait until I return to the states to purchase yarn for...