Failed family night

I’m thankful (81) that our “family night” this past Wednesday is the first failure in a while :) For a couple years now I’ve had my eye on the one mini-golf place in Beijing- Ritan Park (a park about an hour+ away by subway). So, me and the kids started off Wednesday towards the subway as Craig was finishing up his class, knowing he’d catch up to us. Made a quick (successful) stop at a good little shoe stand on the way to pick up some new shoes for Hudson- his old ones were loved on and used for more than a year through the snowy winter here and all. After finally making it to the park, we asked the guard where the mini-golf place was- he pointed us in the right direction and we never found it. There were several areas under construction, so we’re guessing it was one of those. We then walked by a playground and merry-go-round which were also closed up. But the kids didn’t really mind and we just ate some pb sandwiches on a bench, looked in the little lake for a minute and headed back- the highlight being a flagpole area we played on for a few minutes as we left. I’m pretty sure I was the most disappointed (the kids of course not knowing what they were missing-glad for that!).






While we were checking out the lake, Titus said a new word, the Chinese word for fish. His word count is not very many, a few in both languages, but his accent saying the tricky- “yu” was just right. Not surprising he'd be willing to say fish, Titus LOVES any animal he lays his eyes on- dogs, cats, birds, fish, bugs... he’ll follow them all around, often exclaims, “wow” when he sees any sort of animal.

Another funny story from that night: as we were on our way back home, Craig saw a sign for the new karate kid (which apparently was filmed in Beijing)- Anyway, he tried to tell the kids about the karate kid (and me too, have never seen it). When the kids were about to go to bed, Craig showed them the “crane kick”. They LOVED it and did it a few times before heading off to sleep in their room. A few hours later (our house now full of guests watching the US World Cup game with us), Grace woke up to the noise and couldn’t go back to sleep. She came and sat with us for a little (about 11:30pm) and was quite out of it. The next morning she told Hudson all about watching “The Karate Kick” and how “The Karate Kick”s won the game. He was confused.


82. adoring little brother who claps for his big brother throwing the baseball
83. Titus’s few words (half chinese, half english) that bring us all such joy
84. my kid’s most requested song- “By Thy Mercy”
85. discipling sweet humble friends for a short season
86. a good Chinese squat and yummy yogurt to drink



87. all the verses the kids were singing and making up in their room of “He’s Got the Whole World”
88. getting to dress a little girl every morning (well, she often dresses herself (89), but every once in a while...)
90. a friend to keep me going on memorizing Romans 8
91. chances to speak of how great God is
92. a great language tutor who is a good friend
93. longing for home (John 14:3)
94. T's curiosity