Another Walk Down Memory Lane

Here is a little movie I made back in 2005 after a summer visit in the USA with a lot of very special people....mainly grandkids. There were only seven then.....now there are 12 and we are so incredibly blessed to be able to visit them as often as the Lord permits. Children are a heritage from the Lord, gifts from God !

God Loves You

The Kindergarten class sang in Middle School Assembly last Monday, May 11. These kids are so cool !!! I'm their music teacher on Wednesdays and have loved getting to know them this year ! They will be graduating to first grade on June 2.

Roll over Beethoven !!!

Here is my own version of "Fur Elise" by Beethoven played on my 60th birthday in Madrid, Spain. I've been playing it with this Spanish beat for years, and finally it's been recorded (sideways.....whatever !).

Madrid, SPAIN !!!

About thirty-four years ago our family went to Madrid, Spain to live and work. We lived in the center of Madrid for the first four years and then in 1979 moved to La Poveda (Arganda) on the outskirts of Madrid where we bought an apartment. That was our home for the rest of our time in Spain. We've owned that apartment for thirty years now and recently decided to sell it. Matt, my second son who lives in Mexico now, has been helping me during the last two years with all the paperwork, phone calls, legal aspects and information. We needed to go to Spain to get the apartment ready to sell and to sign many papers with a lawyer (inheritance issues), notary, a bank, a realtor. It took several days to do all that, but we perservered and got most of it done.

Well, since we love Madrid so much we just could not help but enjoy ourselves to the max ! We both arrived the same day (April 16)...Matt from Mexico City and I came from Beijing. Many of our dear Spanish friends offered places to stay, a car to use, cell phones, and invited us over for meals. We are so blessed. Needless to say, we still love Spain and the Spaniards. A beautiful country with beautiful people and customs. It had been five years since Matt had been in Spain, and it had been eight years for me, so we were super excited about being back. I loved being in a country where I was not stared at for looking so different, and where I could speak and understand the language. Many of our old friends welcomed us with open arms and hugs and kisses. And many of my friends are now Grandmas (Yayas !) like me, so of course we all wanted to talk about our grandkids.
I've known Gemma since she was a young teenager and now she is the mom of three precious boys and wife of our dear friend Carlos who became a Christian when he was a teenager. I stayed with them for over a week and we got to catch up on many years of being apart. She treated me like a queen all the time ! I loved it.

We were able to attend the Arganda church and share about Mexico and China. Here we are with good friends, Jesus and Esme.
I've known all these ladies way over twenty years now ~ they still meet occasionally for brunch (without me !!!) All have lived in Spain for a long time. I was so happy to be able to get together with most of them and we all got to share our stories.

Birthday Buddies

The Kiepke family came to Tianjin the year after we did (5 years ago) and we discovered that Amelia, soon to be SIX has the same birthday as me - April 25. (We celebrated early) So every year we do something together. Her big sister, Cassia was EIGHT last month - so we all went out for pizza together along with their parents, Raelene and Eric. These girls are adorable as you can see. They know how to ask for the bill, or for a take out box, or napkins all in Chinese and love living in China.

Fun Piano Lesson

Anna is my best piano student. She is also my only one! Each Wednesday her mom brings her to my apartment for her weekly lesson. She's quick and very intelligent. I remember going to the orphanage when we first got here to China with Kristen, her mom, and seeing little Anna before she was even two-years-old shyly smiling at us. She was adopted by the Pollock family about four years ago and recently turned six years old and will be in 1st grade next August. We know many families here who have adopted Chinese children.

Pizza with Little Friends

Every Tuesday some of us volunteers at the local orphanage take about seven kids out to Gold's Pizza, owned by a kindhearted Korean friend who pays for it all ! This week we had a fantastic time with these kids and they were so excited about the whole experience~ the taxi ride to the restaurant and being able to eat out, a very rare treat.

This little guy, who is mute, created this on his chopstick.

Here is the owner giving a little girl a new coat.