Happy New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year, that is. We are now entering the Year of the Tiger, one of the twelve animals associated with the Lunar calendar. We have celebrated this year by cooking Chinese food. My (future) sister-in-law gave me a great cookbook for Christmas that highlights several countries, with China included. There are some fabulous recipes in there for delicious Chinese food.

We celebrated one evening by inviting some good friends over to eat beef and broccoli in oyster sauce and Sichuan green beans. Tonight, I tried a version of chicken lo mein. Both meals turned out really well. As previously mentioned in other posts, we are foodies around here. I love to cook, and I love trying new recipes, but Chinese food is especially fun. When I was growing up, my mom would make chicken chow mein: you know the La Choy stuff from the can with the crunchy noodles? Yeah. My initial interpretation of Chinese food was that is was simply gross. I never wanted to eat it and I didn't until I was an adult. Little did I know that as a child, while I was snubbing Chinese food, I would come to love it and have more dim sum than I could want when I was in China for an adoption! 

Speaking of China, we are leaving in 11 days. We are flying to Beijing first and spending an extra day touring. We will be there for three days. We then fly to Guangzhou and spend about two weeks there. Guangzhou is the capital of the province where Asher lives. We are flying into Guangzhou on February 28 and we are supposed to meet Asher on March 1. For anyone who has read this blog for a while or remembers when we met Caleb, we were surprised to have him meeting us at the hotel a day sooner than expected. So, it is unknown when we really will meet Asher. Following our two weeks in Guangzhou, we will take a train to Hong Kong and stay there for two more days before flying home. It's long. 18 days actually. 

We have been celebrating Valentine's Day around here, too. Russ and I had a date last night and were able to go out for Indian food and see a movie: Valentine's Day, the movie. It was actually pretty good, despite some questionable reviews. I think I saw a movie in the theater twice in 2009, so I was happy that since we were actually going, it was a movie to enjoy and not something to suffer through.

The next 11 days are pretty full around here. It's not just getting ready to go, it seems that everything is busy right now. Today I helped my dad at my parents' farm with vaccinating cows. Yes, I am still putting my nursing skills to good use. 20 cows received intramuscular injections with a very large bore needle that I wouldn't wish on any human. The next several days are also full of preschool, speech therapy sessions, a one-day conference, a birthday party, MOPS, and multiple other things that end up being thrown in there. We'll see how it all goes.

As I am now rambling, it seems that it's time for me to just sign off and get started.