Certified, Crazy

So I need to clarify something. Although we went through our Red Cross Training in Beijing we haven’t officially been certified by the Red Cross, UNTIL THIS WEEK! It’s cool because I got this nice red official certification (See picture below). It’s a huge relief to have the certification in hand. It means that the Red Cross recognizes me as a certified teacher and will now promote me to Xian’s top Universities and High Schools to teach their “Life Education” course. Very cool.

I’ve kinda kept the fact that I’m dieting a secret, but I want to share with all of you that I’m down 30 pounds! For the past few months I’ve been doing the little things to lose weight and am seeing it pay off. Although being down 30 feels good and feels REALLY good to write, my goal has always been to lose 50. In light of my weight loss, I would now like to now say “In your face” to the following products and establishments. “In your face!”, Burger King, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, anyone who packages/sells donuts, French fries, Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, frozen pizza, microwave popcorn (the ultra-butter kind), Snickers, M and M’s, anything caramel filled, biggie sizing a meal for .13 cents, and Oatmeal Cookies. There are many more, but this is all that comes to mind.

OK, onto other stories of late. I did have a very embarrassing moment that may have made me look crazy to the people living around my neighborhood. Here’s how it happened. I was going to buy our groceries, and when I do this, I take our double stroller so that I can walk the groceries home and save on not taking a taxi (I know genies, right? It wasn’t my idea (sad face)). Anyways, on my way out the door I grabbed a clear garbage bag full of stinky/used diapers and the rest of our garbage. I set the nasty bag of diapers in the stroller and continued on with my errands. I got outside and dumped the garbage. As I walked to the store I had a lot of Chinese people look into my stroller (it happens a lot, people are curious), but it’s kinda weird when you don’t have a kid in your stroller, well, not as weird as what I was doing. When I got to the grocery store, I realized, I had forgot the clear bag of nasty diapers in the stroller. So basically I was pushing around a stroller of used diapers... I think I might be the creepiest guy in the neighborhood.

So lately we started homeschooling Sydney and right now we’re working mostly on her phonics/reading. Last week we had been working on her reading/making the sound for “R”. Well recently when we sat down to do school she read “R”, on her own, and I was so proud. Then she said to me “And I got more good news!” and continued on to read anther sound. It made me laugh so hard that I’m now trying to work in the phrase “And I got more good news!” into my daily life.

Much love,
the petersons