Our Blog turns 4!

Well around this time four years ago I started this blog.  When I wrote my first post I had no idea where our blog would go.  It’s been fun getting to share our lives with our friends and family as our journey here in China unfolds.  I love that we have a little family journal to look back on our time.  Since starting this blog our family has grown a lot from Aubrey being born, Caleb being born, Lily coming to join our family and Ellie/Sammie coming to live with us as well.

I'm reminded of when we first moved here and I walked across the city.  And when I saw a hamster on a leash tied to a tree one day.  And there's the time my teacher called me fat in my Chinese class.  Oh and there's the time we found out that the bowl we had been using for popcorn was actually a kid's toilet bowl, yikes!  I don't want to forget when Sydney and I ate frog legs or when we ate pig's feet.

We’ve had some great opportunities come out of our blog as well.  We’ve got to meet some cool families who have read our blog as well as been encouraged by some of the blogs we've come across.  One cool opportunity was writing this guest post, which then turned into me getting published in a magazine! 

I also think of the fun I had taking a trip with my friend Lawrence to his hometown.  And we for sure won’t forget the amazing time we had last summer in Xining (minus our travel home.)

Finally this past month we ran a fundraiser for a group of people here working with orphans and it has been awesome getting to use our blog to do that.  Moving forward I’m going to continue writing/blogging and we'll see where else this journey takes us.

In four years we’ve seen:

21,038 visits

28,539 page views

8,486 visitors from 116 countries

For our long time readers, what was one story you liked?

Much love,

Matt, Heather, Sydney, Lily, Aubrey, Ellie, Sammie and little Caleb