Home.

I’m so sorry that it’s taken me so long to update you on how our return to China has gone. We were without internet for a few days (Typical), busy (Typical) and I procrastinated a bit (Typical). It’s been amazing being back in Xian with our friends and family.

I wanted to write about our flight back as well. Heather and I were nervous to say the least, I mean, it was our first time as a family of 5 and we had 9 bags (not including carry-ons), 3 flights with 2 layovers as well as a total travel time of over 24 hours. But, and it still seems unbelievable to me as I write this, but it was amazing. It easily was our best time traveling. Why? Well, first off, our kids were amazing. And we had a bunch of super helpful and friendly people help us along the way.

One cool story from our travel day was when we were in Minnesota waiting to fly to Chicago and our kids and my wife befriended the women sitting next to us. Heather shared with her about us moving back to China and our heart to love/serve the Chinese. Just before we boarded the plane she handed Heather her business card and some money. Heather didn’t know how much it was, but after takeoff she pulled it from her pocket and we discovered a $100 bill! Again, this was our best time traveling… and we thought it would be our worst.

It’s been great being home and our kids have done great at getting over jetlag and settling in. They love playing with all their old toys that they forgot they had… it’s kinda like Christmas without spending money on new stuff (In the negotiations world, they call that a win-win situation). They also are happy to have all their friends back.

And guess what… I (Matt) am already leaving. That’s right, tomorrow; I will be heading to Beijing to attend a week of training for teaching college courses here in China. I will share more about this in my next post as well as the opportunities that doing this training will open to us. For now I will say this, I’m VERY excited about it and there’s good reason.

BUT that means that I won’t be with my wife and kids for a week and that bums me out. I have to say this, my wife is a champ for letting me leave for a week and take care of our kids. She’s a warrior, but instead of a sword and shield, she carries a diaper bag and pushes a stroller. It also means that on my business trip I will be picking up a couple toys to bring back for the kids, which makes me feel responsible and old.

Other than all of this I also wanted to say that we’ve started the process of finding a new apartment here. It looks like our landlord has a buyer for our current apartment and we will need to move. It makes us sad to have to leave the place we’ve made our home. We’ll keep you all posted on what develops with this.

Well that’s it for now. Thanks for stopping in. Come back soon!

the petersons