Merry Christmas from China

Well, what can I say. It is not home. But we are making the most of it. I always thought we were alone at Christmas because we chose to stay in Houston so the girls could get up Christmas morning in their own home but we always had our Church family to fill in the gaps when family was not there but this year it is just us. Not a sole insight (that we know anyway). So, in the spirit of "The Christmas Story" we ate chinese food on Christmas eve and it was really good. Here is the Christmas tree outside the Green Leasure Center where I spend most of my time becaue mostly westerners shop here and it just seems comfortable. I'll venture out to more local places later when I can speak the language. Then we got home and the girls opened one gift and off to bed they went. I was so full and sleepy that Mark took over the Santa duties and low and behold at 1:00 AM Ava came to get us up, telling us that Santa had been there. We told her we needed to sleep a while longer as it was the middle of the night but let her go back to sleep in the living room near the tree and as soon as light broke she was back in our room telling us to get up. I believe they were very pleased with their gifts. And I was very excited about my super duper foot massaging soaking machine. So me and the girls had "Tai Tai" time with our new lotions and potions of Christmas. (That translates to wife in chinese but most of us use it as a way of saying girl time). We ate blueberry pancakes and bacon for breakfast and I am getting ready to make Chinese spaghetti and meatballs. We'll see how it turns out. It is a Rachel Ray recipe so it can't be that bad, right? I'll let you know how it turns out. So overall we feel pretty blessed but nothing takes the place of family and friends at the holidays. All our love to ya'll.