Chris's Family Letter

Dear Family,

Once again, I’m writing this letter on an airplane on a return flight
from China. This is time I visited Yantai, which is near Qingdao
(famous for its beer) on the Shandong peninsula. Yantai is actually
closer to Korea than Beijing or Shanghai. The purpose of the trip was
the same as in August, to support a very large project in China, but the
project has now been moved from Nanjing to Yantai. When I return, we
will have Chinese visitors in Texas next week for a plant tour and
discussions on a different, smaller project in Shanghai. I also have
another potential project in Malaysia that I’ve been working on since
June.

When I have time this week, I need to book our tickets for North
Carolina for Christmas. We hope to stay to the week after Christmas
through New Year’s Day. We promised the kids this past summer that we
would go back to the Kings Mountain Battleground to hike the trail. I
think the kids will enjoy Christmas break, especially Emily who is
working her way through the Singapore math textbook that Michelle is
using for Emily’s 2nd grade math. We promised Emily we would take her
to the Cheesecake factory when she is done (her favorite dessert).
Emily is also taking sacramental classes this year in preparation for
1st communion. This is on top of the faith formation classes she is
required to attend and the religion instruction that Michelle gives her.
Emily has already read all of the Little House on the Prairie books, the
Fairy books, and the original Nancy Drew books. Michelle has been
reading Beverly Cleary books to David (Mouse and the Motorcycle, Henry
Huggins, Ramona, Ribsy, etc.). Since he just turned 5, he is still in
pre-school. David continues to improve his reading and letter writing.

We had David’s birthday party recently. We held it at a local park with
chocolate cake and presents. We gave David a football, which David has
shown interest in lately. The kids next door like to play football in
the front yard, and during the last game, David was the hiker on the
team.

I had to miss Halloween this year (since I flew out the morning of the
31st to China) but I got to go a family Halloween party the day before
(Saturday). It is hosted by a family who lives on a farm outside of
Conroe. The weather was great and we had a great time. We bought our
bocce ball set that Bill and Kristen gave us years ago as a Christmas
present.

Michelle has been doing a great job home-schooling. I’m quite impressed
her organization and with the quality work they do each day (I get to
see the results after work before dinner). It appeared to me that it
took about 2 months for both Michelle and the kids to get into a good
daily routine.

That’s it for now. I may be back in China in mid-December, so until
then or we see you at Christmas.

Love,

Chris and Michelle

Halloween Crafts

Thank you Aunt Stacey and Uncle TeTee for the fun Halloween craft materials. We put them to good use and have lots to spare for next year. The best part was putting the pumpkin ribbon on the cat's tail and the pumpkin's stem. Very fun! The magical growing pumpkin... well... we put it in water and it hasn't done much. Do you think we have to wait 24 hrs for it to increase six times in size? Hmmmm.... We haven't given up on it yet... the dinosaur egg we did last year took some time so we'll keep you posted. Love you!!!!

And updated on 11/2/10: The pumpkin did increase in size! It took over 24hrs... but it worked!

Happy Halloween!

David and Lia kept their costumes for trick or treating. Emily made this Fairy of the Forest costume out of stuff we had in the costume box. They had a great time tonight and loved having some candy before bed... and then getting crazy before bed... and are certainly looking forward to having candy for dessert all this week.

All Saints Party

We spent the early part of Saturday carving pumpkins and doing some Halloween crafts. Thank you Steven and Stacey for the fun Halloween stickers! I need to get a picture of Lia's Spooky Halloween Cats she made. We had fun putting the pumpkin ribbon on their tails.

We arrived a little late to the farm this year for a multitude of reasons... one involving a broken toilet... so we missed the Saint Parade but we had plenty of time to play the games. Each family is asked to host a game with a theme that ties in with the Saints and then we all share a potluck meal. This year Chris and I hosted bocci ball. Wanda came up with the name, St. Charles Borremeo Bocci Ball and it was really fun. I think Tim and Wanda have the perfect lawn for playing bocci ball and many of the kids really enjoyed it.

Daddy's little angel wanted to be held quite a bit. Daddy didn't mind.

Here is David knocking down the Wall of Jericho. He had a lot of fun playing the games this year.

And Emily having a ball on the tire swing. Farm living must be great for letting the kids run. There is a lot of land to explore and lots of animals. What's not to like? Emily found some friends and we really didn't see much of her till it was time to go. I'm glad she had fun.

And David served himself a plate of pasta with grapes and apples. Then he had blackberry pie and then he had pumpkin pie. It think he had a cookie too.

Service Project - St. Dominic Center

Yesterday, we visited the retired Sisters (or Nuns) at St. Dominic Center with our homeschooling group. St. Dominic Center is a huge, and beautiful campus for retired Priests and Sisters. These men and women spend the greater part of their lives serving God, by serving others, and it is comforting to know they are so well taken care of in their retirement. It is obvious our Diocese cares very much about their care. We arrived at 10am and found about ten Sisters waiting for us in their meeting room. Our children introduced themselves at the microphone and told the Sisters a little history about the Saint they were dressed as, and/or why that Saint was important to them. It was very sweet and the Sisters eyes seemed to light as each child spoke. Then the children handed out prayer cards and sugar-free candy (as requested). I don't think we were there for more than 30 minutes but I am pretty sure the children brightened their day. According to our contact, Sister Eleanor, there are 16 Sisters living at the facility right now. We missed a few because they were at doctors appointments but we hope to see them again when we visit at Christmas and Valentines Day.

Here is our awesome group of Saints! Lia is standing just behind Emily and you can't see her. When Emily realized we were going to introduce ourselves and tell about our Saint, she was a little distressed because she had lost her voice! This morning her throat hurt and she couldn't speak but she was a huge trooper and made the trip anyway. She had been using a pencil and a clipboard to communicate with me all morning so before it was her turn she composed a short essay of what she would like for me to read. This was very impressive because she generally complains about having to write in general and she wasn't feeling well on top of that. I was proud to read her introduction for her and I'm glad she toughed it out for us.

I introduced Lia, dressed as an angel, to the sisters. She was very shy!

Daivd, was very brave and introduced himself!

Here are two more warrior Saints. Another St. George and St. Martin (I think). David did battle with these two out in the Labrynth garden. These boys were quite skilled with their swords and shields... and my son definetly held his own as well! And yes... this is how boys get so banged up, I am learning!

Patrick and Mary Margaret handing out prayer cards. I spoke with this sister personally. She had such a twinkle in her eye. It was easy to like her. She obviously loved children very much.

Emily's 1st Communion Candle

This is a sacramental preparation year for Emily. She attends weekly faith formation classes at church and monthly sacramental prep classes. Since this is all mandatory, I decided to co-teach her faith formation classes on Monday nights with my friend Bertha. We have a class of 16 kids who are all very sweet and eager to learn for the most part. Chris takes Emily to her monthly sacramental prep classes and we are all learning more about our faith with her. One of her assignments was to decorate a candle, a task she really enjoyed and you can see from the picture how proud she is of her candle. The first big event will be her first reconcilliation, or first confession with a priest in December and then her first communion will be in the spring. She is taking it all very seriously and we are very proud of her.

David's First Trip to the Emergency Room

So this was minor... but a trip to the emergency room counts and this happened to be David's first. Last Sunday while David was in his little faith formation class, he managed to trip and fall into a book case. The cut and the bleeding was bad enough for the director to come and get us out of church - right as the gospel was being read! David handled it like a champ but did seem a bit wierded out at being the center of attention with a bunch of grown-ups staring at him. Chris and I checked him out and we decided the cut was deep enough to warrant a trip to the emergency room for possible stitches. It wasn't bleeding heavily, but it would ooze blood every ten minutes or so and just looked generally nasty. Poor kid.

Luckily the Emergency Care place wasn't too busy. They had a nice waiting area and I stayed with David while Chris took the other kids out to eat. And his silly Mommy documented it all for posterity... but before you laugh at me, I was really glad I took the pictures because I was able to compare the before to the after in the end.

So here we are in the waiting room for about half an hour. David really likes to take pictures with Mom. It always makes him laugh because I usually cut off someone's head in my first few attempts.

And we were lucky because they used glue to seal his boo-boo together. The doctor was very kind and she said it probably wouldn't prevent it from scarring a little... but it would certainly help in the healing process and minimize the potential scar. David thought it was cool that the glue was purple. All in all, we were in and out in 2 hours and a $75 copay. Not too bad. I guess this is pretty common stuff for boys... but I am hoping we don't make a habit of it!