Happy Thanksgivukkah Everybody. L'chaim!

Today is Thanksgiving Day.  It is also the first full day of Hanukkah.  This won't happen again for 70,000 years.  So I hope you're prepared.  We are.

Aaron spent all morning Wednesday morning prepping the chicken (no turkeys on the roof of the world) for Thanksgivukkah.  

Mazel Tov!

This makes me happy

One of the only Christmas-y things I can buy here (Who cares if I can buy them year round?):

And here's one of the best Christmas commercials ever, featuring those lil' guys:

A Christmas Tradition

As soon as we returned from our honeymoon in Greece,  I was ready to set up our Christmas decorations, and realized as most newlyweds figure out their first Christmas together that:
A) we had no christmas decorations

2) we had no christmas tree

and D) we had no money.  (home alone reference anyone?  and yes I've seen that at least once every year (most years multiple times) since it came out during my childhood)

Thankfully family gave us some of their old decorations and there was a Food Lion right down the street where we bought a $25 tree with our VIP card.

Our first Christmas together, Aaron gave me Home Alone.
It was the longest I went a Christmas season without watching Home Alone.
My previous Home Alone was on VHS and we had upgraded to a Blu-ray at this point.

Our first Christmas tree....also, I look like I'm in 9th grade in this picture.
No seriously, I wish I could post my yearbook picture.  you would agree.

Our first Christmas together.
Notice - no VHS capabilities.  It was a sad season until Christmas morning.

Anyway, that Christmas we decided to start a Christmas tradition of getting a new Christmas ornament every year, so we could slowly add ornaments to our Christmas tree.  So this year - this is what our tree looks like:

this year's tree

Here's a sample of some of our ornaments from the past 5 Christmases.  (the first two are MIA because I left them in America, afraid they would break or get lost over here).

2010's ornament.  I love this little guy.  He always makes me smile.

2011's ornaments, our first Christmas in China....we spent a lot of time on bikes and dodging electric scooters, so it seemed appropriate.

And the cloud ornament below is this year's ornament.  We bought them from a local artisan's guild here.  You see clouds like that in decoration (painted as trim on walls) all around the city.

I look forward every year to picking out a new ornament.

And here are some pictures from our previous Christmases together:

2008, Aaron's parents' house

This happened right after:

2009

I miss this house

2010, first Christmas in China

since we just moved into our house I didn't have much to decorate with
so I made one festive corner

2011

I'll be honest, I don't miss this house.

the other dorm room - a video tour

Here is the long awaited tour of the other room:

tour of one of our dorm rooms

After a few days of trying and one long night of spades while waiting for it to finish loading, I finally got one of two videos of our dorm rooms loaded onto youtube.

So here it is.

Okay - so it turns out that the video above doesn't always show up.  I shouldn't be surprised - since it took forever to even get it loaded.   If you're looking for the video and you don't have it - here's the link....hopefully this works:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRFWTTNUTO8

Catching back up: part 4, we live in a dorm room

So at the new school we're attending, foreign students are required to live on campus.

Here is a little video preview of what our dorm room(s) looked like before we moved our stuff into it:

we had already taken the furniture out - so here's what came in the room

to show just how small the kitchen is

Catching back up: Part 1, the return to China

We got back to China at the end of August to a home covered in mold from not being aired out all summer long.  Also, our flights got messed up on the way back to China, so we didn't have luggage for a few days.  So we spent our first week cleaning up our apartment, very reminiscent of when we first moved into that place.  I didn't take any pictures of the apartment covered in mold, though Aaron wanted me to, because I just didn't want to remember it.

A week after being back in China we packed all of our stuff onto a moving truck, cleaned out our apartment, got ripped off (didn't get the extra months we had already paid for our apartment back), said goodbye to our favorite neighborhood people then got on a 24 hour train to spend the next couple of days with our friends Phil and Julie.

This lady runs our favorite dumplings restaurant down the street from our old apartment
We saw her at least once a week for a year.  She cried when we told her we were moving.

random neighborhood girl whose homework for her english class
was to take a picture with some foreigners.
so when she heard we were were packing up our house, she came running over.

packing it up

a blurry picture so you can see the stuff in our truck

ya suspect

We must've been looking a little too long and hard into the neighboring complex causing them to wonder what we would do, because the neighboring complex put up barbed wire around the wall that separates us from them.


Either that, or our complex decided we are in general a danger to society and we may try to escape the complex they have made to contain us.


It makes the gray skies feel even grayer.  Plus - those tree branches up there are next door's delicious fig tree.  How are we supposed to steal figs anymore?

un, dos, tres Esteisi ("stacy" in spanish)

So, there was one point where I was on track to run a half marathon….then i got hit by a car…..then the winter came and it was so cold i didn't want to run outside….then thailand came and i decided i wanted to sleep in, instead of run….then we came back home and it was still cold….

so what's a girl to do when she lit-rally can only run outside for a few feet, before she says "i don't care if i'll eventually warm up, i am so cold right now."  She goes inside and zumba's her little heart out, that's what she does.  and that's what I did.

Zumba is super fun, but you don't ever really want anyone to watch you do Zumba.  and when you live in a small two bedroom apartment like we do, it's inevitable that someone is going to see you doing Zumba. 

Especially true when you have to do the robot part of this Zumba song:

Okay, I coudn't find a clip, so here's the song and a video of someone doing the robot.  now imagine someone doing these two things together.  in fact. mute the video with someone dancing, and play the song.  you'll see what i'm talking about.

dancing:

the song:

Seriously the robot??? It's shakira's HIPS that don't lie.  Not her stiff arms and head movements.  

The weather is starting to warm up, so I'm back to running outside…and still doing Zumba.  me gusta bailar.

I need to pick up the running though because when we go home Aaron's dad is going to dominate me at running - he's still regularly running 5 & 6 milers.  Maybe to even the playing field I'll invite him to Zumba for 50 minutes.  Then we'll see who can keep up with who.


Domo arigato, mr. roboto.

本地人 （locals）

we've been here a while, and it's starting to show.  remember that sausage hanging outside that i posted a while back?  well, guess what?

we have some hanging outside of our window.


the family that sells us vegetables gave us some as a gift when i went to see them the other day.  the sausage still needed to dry some, so it's been hanging out of our window the last few days.


in the province we live in, locals like to walk around in their pajamas outside.  their pajamas are generally a thick matching quilted set, that look quite warm, yet still quite tacky.  well, guess what?

  
Aaron and I got some pajamas the other day.  ours weren't quilted and really thick like the locals, they were just fleece awesomeness.  Unfortunately, the size that aaron bought was too short and too tight in certain areas (let's just say he very likely could've been arrested if he ever went out in them).  we bought these pajamas to wear to a new years party...and when one of our Chinese friends came to spend the night with us.....and later this week when we fly to see Josh and Danielle for a night on our way to Thailand.....and to wear to the airport to pick up our friend Graham when he comes to visit in February.  There were just so many good times to be had in those pajamas.  But, alas, Aaron had already bought the largest size ( XXL) and there's no going up from there.


so we returned them.....but not before we had a photo shoot (it's the model in us, i guess...)

other holiday festivities

DADDY RICK MOLASSES COOKIES!

There are many reasons to look forward to Christmas.  And molasses cookies at the O'Hare household is one of them.  Aaron's Granddad Jack used to make these cookies, unfortunately I never got to know him. So these cookies bear only Aaron's Dad's name.  Daddy rickies, is also acceptable.

We had friends over tonight for a bonfire in our driveway. I was going to say "courtyard", but really it's the parking lot.  That's okay.  It was still awesome.


We drank wassail and sang carols around the fire.  It was really nice.  I loved the way I smelled when I came back in the house, and how my face stayed warm for a long time after I left the fire.

Megan and Weston

We leave on Thursday night to spend Christmas with the Shelleys and the Jungs!

essentials

at least i'm calling them essentials.

These are the things that have so far made the month of December great:

the milk frother i got from ikea to make coffee
and hot chocolate with frothed milk!

egg nog!  thanks danielle for sharing your recipe

the fireplace in our tv 

the gingko trees turned yellow
fall came at Christmas time this year

homemade pizzas

hanging out with Jackie (Asian Kate's son)

week in review

Really it's the last week+.


Asian Kate took me to Haagen Dazs.  It was unbelievable.  It was my first time actually ever eating Haagen Dazs, and I think it is just as good here as it is in America.  Maybe even better, because it's been quite a while since I had ice cream.

I got some curtains in the mail from my mom & stepdad for aaron and my anniversary!  I have been wanting these curtains for so long (or at least it feels like so long).   and i love them.

Cute babies actually posing for a picture.  That's right, she put her arm around him just for the picture.

We hung out with some friends who are moving out of town soon.  Waah.

We went out for hot pot (cook your own meats and vegetables in boiling water at your table), where Aaron and I ate the intestines of the pig, the cow, and the chicken.  It surprisingly wasn't as disgusting as I thought it was going to be, since intestines are not the kinda things I choose to make at home.

2 different broths to cook the food in - 2 non spicy, two super spicy

one of my teaching assistants and her husband

me & phyllis

And to end the week, tip off weekend started on ESPN with Carolina playing Michigan State in the Carrier Classic.  My husband was literally jumping up and down saying, "it's Carolina and it's America!  This is AMAZING!"

He puts on as much Carolina stuff as he can find