Chinese New Year Update

Well we are now officially a few days into Chinese New Year, and surprisingly it has been a blast. Heather has been sad, because in recent years we've been out of the country for the 4th of July... but she said that this has made up for it all! We had heard that the Eve of their New Year's would be pretty crazy. We thought that it was going to start at midnight, but it really started at 7:00 p.m. For the better part of the 5 hours leading up to midnight there was constant fireworks. We took the girls onto the roof of our apartment and watched the fireworks, to say the least it was amazing! Our roof is 12 stories high, so we were able to see in most directions for a long ways, and in every direction their was an incredible display. In the States you have your 4th of July fireworks display which is this nice, neatly arranged area that has a firetruck and is totally controlled... Not so much here. At multiple times I watched people setting off fireworks in the streets and cars having to drive around them. And on my way to my brothers apartment I watched two guys shooting fireworks at each other. I feared for my life like I've never feared before. We went back up to the roof at midnight and the craziness had jumped up a few notches and the Chinese were in full party mode. I've never witnessed more fireworks in my life... and NEVER as close as I did. I got some pics, but it was tough to take them.

Also, another crazy thing has been the lack of people here in Xi'an. Before the celebration we heard that the city would clear out. But honestly how could a city of 8 million people clear out? Well I still don't know the answer to that question, but the streets were empty for about three days and it was really strange. For the most part our lives haven't been negatively impacted by the fireworks at night which is nice. The girls have apparently become totally immune to noise because they haven't woken up once!

Life's good right now, this week some friends of ours came home so it's nice to have them around again. I will be updating the site soon so check it out.

with much love,

Matt, Heather, Sydney and little Aubrey

"This was literally right next to our apartment roof"

Getting Ready For The Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year is this week (it starts at midnight on the 25th), what I'm about to tell you is absolutely true. Or at least it's what people here have told me about how the Chinese celebrate the Chinese New Year. For those of you who don't know (like me) the Chinese New Year is one of the largest Holiday's in China (if not the largest). It is based on the Lunar Calender, but I found that on Wikipedia, so it might not be true. It doesn't go for only one day, no no no, it goes for 15 days! Also if you can recall, their love for fireworks that I've talked about in previous posts is nothing compared to the spectacle during this time. I've heard it is about 4 to 8 days and nights of constant fireworks... supposedly it's so bad you can't get sleep and not only that, but for 2 weeks after it's illegal to set off fireworks so that people can sleep. Again, this is what I've heard from people who've experienced this, as we have not yet had the privilege. A guy who runs a store near our home just told me today that for 6 hours there will be fireworks right outside our apartment on the 25th (from 6 p.m. to 12 p.m.). Basically the 4th of July in our front yard! Another thing I heard from some people who were here last year at this time is that some people will actually shoot fireworks from their apartment at other apartments. I want to give it a try!


In other news Sydney and I (Matt) have started playing school and we are going through all the basics. It's funny, because she really enjoys playing school for some reason. If I tell her in the morning that we will play, she won't forget it, no matter what. She counts really well in Chinese (so far to 5, but that's a good start) which is fun to watch. Also, today we watched one of her movies in Chinese which was interesting.


To end I would like to share a Sydney quote. The other day she woke up from her nap and was sitting on the couch. And like her Daddy she is slow to wake up. So as she's sitting there I say, "Sydney do you want to go the park?", to which she replies, "Not yet, wait for me to wake up". At that moment my heart was filled with joy, because I saw a little bit of me in that reply.



That's it for now,

Matt, Heather, Sydney and little Aubrey



P.S. I have some footage from our trip to a play place that is seriously one of the best places on earth. Keep an eye out for it because in the next week or so I would like to upload it. I also have some video of our city that I shot a few months ago that I might upload so that you can see our city.

School's Out Forever!

O.K., not really, but school is out for the next 5 weeks for me (Matt). Last week we finished up our first semester. We actually got really far in our books, a lot farther then I thought we would get. We are halfway through our third book of six. Heather is still having her tutor come over during the break... I know, she's a better person then me, but I'm o.k. with that.

During this break we want to decorate our apartment a bit and continue to make our home a place for us to come and relax. We already started this process by having a few rooms painted. We painted our room green, Sydney and Aubrey's room yellow and our living room tan. With the curtains we got a few weeks ago the apartment is really coming together and looking great. Heather has done a great job! We still need to hang some shelves that we bought a little while back and fill some picture frames. So we are really excited about getting it all finished.

I (Matt) finally shaved my beard... if you noticed it in Sydney's Birthday video, I'm sorry. I'm pretty sure it's the worst beard allowed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. It was so disguisting. I also cut my hair, when I came home from my getting my hair cut Sydney said "You're so really handsome Daddy". That lifted my spirits, until Heather informed me that she told Sydney to tell me that. Well that's it for now.

with love,
the petersons

Sydney's 3rd Birthday and a New Video!

That’s right, Sydney turned the big 3 this week. We had a few friends over for a little cake and presents. We decorated in typical Peterson fashion with signs around the apartment. My favorite sign was made by Heather and it read "Happy Birther", as Heather was writing it she wasn't paying attention... and that was the outcome. Apparently Heather feels this isn't only a celebration for Sydney, but her too (since she was the "Birther"). For Sydney's Birthday she got some lip gloss, a jewelry and make-up box, some dolls, a necklace and some bracelets, a note book, and one giant doll (which to be honest looks a little creepy). I posted a video of her birthday you can view it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvPbaSwG418, it was a good time and I hope that you enjoy the video.

Quotes from Sydney:
Last week Sydney grabbed a bunch of her crayons from the kitchen table and ran into our living room and proceeded to throw them on the ground in front of Aubrey. I didn’t want Aubrey to chew on them (Yuck!) and since Sydney is supposed to keep her crayon’s at the table I said “Sydney, pick those up and put them back on the table”, to which Sydney replied “Cool down Daddy”. I was shocked and thought where does she get this, and please make it stop.

Soon after that I had grabbed Sydney and was tickling her, she wanted me to stop so she said to me “that’s enough Daddy”. Little did I know that this wasn’t Sydney’s 3rd birthday, but her 13th. Oh those teenage years ahead of us.

with tons of love,

the petersons

"Happy Birther"

"Happy Birthday" Princess, your Mommy and Daddy love you

Our First Days of '09

Well '09 seems promising, doesn't it? I (Matt) am enjoying the short break from school and like I mentioned in my last post I have only two more weeks of my first semester. I then have a 5 week break which I'm really excited about. So a couple of days ago we got new curtains!!! I put 3 exclamation points, not because of my excitement, but because of my wife's. To be honest though I'm super proud of my wife. She went to a local fabric market and picked out all the patterns she wanted for the 3 rooms we had curtains made for and had them made. Her tutor's mom actually made them for us once Heather bought the material. They really do look good and I'm really impressed with my wife's amazing taste! Great work wifey!

Heather and I also hit the jackpot with one of the gifts we got Sydney for Christmas. We got her a set of blocks and she LOVES THEM! Each day she'll ask me "Do you wanna play blocks with me?". This typically looks like us building towers until I get a pretty tall one, to which Sydney says to me "Please can I knock it over?", after the tower scatters across the room we both say "Uh, Oh, Spaghetti O's!". It's a blast to say the least.

Aubrey's favorite toy is consistently whatever she gets her hands on. And lately that has been Sydney's dolls, which escalates quickly into one of our two daughters (or both) crying.

I had a pretty awkward moment a week or so ago that I thought would be good blog material. There is a store at one of the gates leaving our apartment complex that we shop at a lot, and the owner and his wife are really friendly to us. Well I drop in most days and on one particular day the owner had made himself steamed dumplings. As I was walking around his store he had me come over to him, because he wanted me to try one. So here I am standing in front of him wondering if he wants me to pick one up out of his steaming bowl. When he picks one up with his chop sticks and I awkwardly let him feed it to me. I felt weird, but he didn't seem to mind, and before I left he feed me another one.

'till next time,
the petersons

P.S. I'm going to change the format a bit on our website, I'm going to only allow the past 4 posts to be on the front page, but if you miss one you can pull it up through the archives.

Goodbye 2008, Hello '09!

Note from the editors: I sent this out as an e-mail to a lot of people, but because I don't have a lot of your e-mails and also to make sure everyone got caught up, I decided to post it as well. Sorry if you got this twice!

Hello to all of our friends and family, Happy New Year! It has been a great year for us and I wanted to take a moment to write all of you at home to get you caught up on our lives here in China. This week marks our 6 month mark since arriving and it has been a full 6 months for sure. All of us in our family have seen our language make huge strides since being here. Also, we have been able to build some strong friendships with some Chinese people. We hope to continue to see these relationships grow. Here's a little glimpse at each of us.

Heather has been really enjoyed being tutored, her schedule has a really good pace and she can easily communicate with her tutor. They have become good friends and she has also taught Heather how to cook a few Chinese dishes. When we first moved here we didn't get a lot of stuff done in our apartment to really make it ours and this month Heather will be doing a lot of decorating (which as you can imagine, she's super excited about).

Sydney is also making some language leaps of her own. When Heather's tutor comes over to our house we also have a lady come to watch the girls to give Heather a chance to focus on her lessons. Sydney calls her Ai Yi (which means Aunt) and they have a lot of fun together. Ai Yi only speaks Chinese and has been teaching Sydney some words, also Heather and I will use Chinese with Sydney around the house and when we are playing games. Her two favorite words are; "Ni Hao" (which means "hello") and she typically uses it when we are on walks also she will say "Xiao Xin" (which means "be careful"). One thing that is funny is that each time I ask "where is my cell phone?", I ask it in Chinese, and she will run and get it for me. She is learning and changing so much and it is really fun to see.

Aubrey actually has said a couple of words for the first time this week! She has said "mama" and "hi", but we don't think that she knows what they mean. Either way it is cool to hear her start to utter her first words. She hasn't started to crawl yet and we will see if she starts soon. Lately, she has started to throw little fits when we take something away that she shouldn't be playing with... I'm sure we have some good days ahead of us with two little princesses.

I (Matt) will be finishing my first semester in about 2 weeks and have seen my language go from absolutely nothing (and worried about learning the language) to a place where I can communicate in taxi's, stores, and around my neighborhood. I really enjoy the difficulty of learning a new language and the joy that comes with accomplishing it. When you are able to communicate without pointing or using hand motions it is really satisfying. I'm looking forward to my next semester, but I have a 5 week break between semesters that I'm going to enjoy.

THIS YEAR OF 2009, we feel its important that before we make our next step here that we continue to learn the language, adjust to Chinese culture and life here. We also feel that taking a family vacation this next year is a high priority to us, which we are hoping to do this summer. This is important to us because it will be time away from the pressures here and to re-charge. Our options are; Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, but we'll see what it ends up like. I will keep you posted on our vacation plans. We will need some financial help to be able to do this, so if you could be thinking about helping us that would mean a lot to us. We miss all of you and wish you the best of years in 2009.

With Love,
the petersons