December notes
Posted by stanley on January 26th, 2009
It turned really cold all of a sudden last week on Monday and we even had snow at midnight that night. Winter had officially arrived (also according to the Chinese calendar). The day-time temperature had fallen by at least ten degrees to a freezing -7. After this it has steadily become warmer again everyday - it’s still cold though.
This December had been a very busy one - especially with all the extra English lessons I had to make up because I had the flu for a week. This meant missing a few lessons and no running for a week.
In total I only missed about three lessons (from my part time jobs) and kept on teaching my other lessons. This gave me a bit of a respite, while Carrie nursed me back to health by pumping me full of medicine and, I probably slept more hours since when I was a baby.
On Christmas Eve the two of us went to go and watch a movie together “The Christmas Story”. We also went to go and check out the very beautifull Christmas tree at a church close to Xin JieKou.
The cold weather got my hopes up for a white Christmas, but I was to be dissapointed in the end.
On Christmas Day we got up very late and went out later to go and enden up browsing a local library and having dinner at a nearby German restaurant that had some live Christmas music. Afterwards we went shopping for food and looked at babystuff at a supermarket.
All in all we had a quiet and lazy Christmas.
Other Christmas memories this year would include that I did go out and buy a Christmas tree (all be it a very small one) earlier in the month and on Christmas Day we bought some fairy lights for the trees.
I also spoke to my mom on Christmas Eve (it was her birthday) and had a long chat with my grandparents and father on Boxing day. I still need to speak to my brother and sister - I will leave that for New Years Day.
Carrie has been getting into full “mommy-gear” for a while now. She buys books about how to handle pregnancy and on how to raise children. I, in the meanwhile, try to continue to live life as normal, but of course have been involved in looking at babystuff whenever we go out to the shops or browse the internet together. In my opinion she’s doing an excellent job so far.
I, on the otherhand, will be relying a lot on my experience gained from teaching children. It has taught me a lot and I can honestly say that I am looking forward to fatherhood. The babystage is going to be a very new experience though!
This year has been a year with an enormous amount to be thankful for. It has been rich in blessings and we will carry these into the new year and trust that there will be a lot more rich experiences awaiting us.