Spring has sprung

Well I think I've finally emerged from hibernation after all this cold weather and snow.  Really, I have had the winter blues big time but now the snow has almost melted from the yard and the temperature is rising.

Back at the beginning of March Snow celebrated her 18th birthday.  She had a little party at the house with several of friends.  The girls enjoyed playing Wii Just Dance and ate Chinese food of course.

Turning 18 in England is a really big milestone especially since it is the legal drinking age.  It is a rite of passage to go to the pub once you turn 18, but here it is 21, which seems a long time to wait if you ask me.

It's hard to believe Molly and Snow finish school in just over 2 months' time.  That's 3 months of summer vacation.  What!?  Three whole months of laying in bed until noon and then finding excuses to not tidy their room.  Well Molly anyway - Snow will be back in China for most of the summer then she will be back with us for her senior year.  Yes, we asked her to stay another year, mainly since she is easy and fun to have around, but it seems we have to do some preparation for solo living once she goes away to college.  We knew she is not much of a cook but the only thing she has been able to cook by herself is ramen noodles - the college staple!  This week I started making the girls make their own lunches.  Snow didn't even know how to make a sandwich.  I took it for granted that she would know, but it was comical watching her struggle with not knowing how much honey mustard to use, how to put the ham on the bread and cutting the sandwich (with a totally inappropriate knife).  Seriously, we have some cooking lessons to get on with.  I fear I have already left it too late....but then again there's always ramen noodles!

Chinese New Year celebrations

Happy Chinese New Year everyone....the year of the horse has begun.  Yesterday we attended a huge banquet in China Town, Boston, with other hosting families, students, members of school faculty and Eduboston staff.  Paul flew in from Holland just in time after spending 2 weeks away from home.

Snow and some of her dance team did the fan dance despite being full of a cold, plus there was the traditional dragon dance that is often performed at New Year.

It is traditional for older people to give red adourned envelopes containing money to younger family members.  There was a drawing for 30 or so of these and Erin and Snow got lucky, but not me.  I'm lucky in love, unlucky in life!

We all had a great time, but for me, I really enjoyed meeting other host families and sharing experiences with them.  Chinese New Year celebrations actually lasts for 15 days so there's a good excuse(if you ever needed one) to go out and party!

  Good friends - Jenny, Cici and Snow

 Molly, Cici, Erin and Snow

The return of Snow and more snow!

Snow returned back from China in the early hours of Saturday morning after a 5 hours delay - urgh!  This was due to a major snow storm over January 2nd and 3rd, resulting in 8 inches of new snow and 2 snow days for Erin.  We all received gifts from her trip - green tea, a book of Chinese stamps, a picture and illustrations of the animals depicting Chinese New Year.

   

China celebrates New Year (aka Spring Festival) according to the lunar calendar so the actual date changes yearly but is in either January or February.  Each year is named after one of twelve animals and this year, the year of the horse, starts on January 31st and is celebrated for 15 days.  That's my kind of celebration!

Today all three girls returned back to school.  Molly has decided to take up band, which is a before-school activity starting at 6.40am, which means both Molly and Snow have to leave the house at 6.35am three days a week.  Snow was a trooper and was quite happy to go into school much earlier than usual.  She has struggled with the time change so we haven't seen much of her since she returned, but with all this sleep she's been having she should be up bright and early for school tomorrow!

Christmas without Snow

It's Christmas Day and for the first time ever there is just the four of us for Christmas lunch.  We feel like we are missing a wheel as we usually have Paul's parents with us.  We will be joining some friends for dessert and more drinks later on though.  

We were anticipating Snow would be with us but her Grandfather is sick so she had to go back to China during the Christmas break.  The day brfore she left on her trip we gave her our Christmas presents, which was pajamas, cozy socks, a Coach purse, mint chocolate covered graham crackers and a Terry's chocolate orange.

Santa brought us all some wonderful presents from the Apple store, Lululemon, Athleta, North Face,  Hollister, American Eagle, Banana Republic, Coach, Nordstrom and of course the liquor store....so I guess we must have all been on the 'nice' list this year.

For lunch we had roast beef, Yorkshire pudding (a British side dish which is similar to American popovers), gravy, Brussel sprouts, carrots and roast potatoes.  I have to thank my wonderful husband for taking them helm on the cooking today.  The food tastes much better when you don't cook it.  Dessert will be Christmas pudding, Christmas cake, profiteroles and chocolate sauce, mince pies and cheese and biscuits.

From us and ours, to you and yours....we hope you had a great Christmas and have a happy and healthy New Year.

Thanksgiving

Well, the holiday season is upon us and the frenzy of eating, drinking and shopping has begun. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays mainly because there is no pressure to decorate the house, send cards and buy presents for everyone including the mail man, plus Paul and I get 2 days off work.  Molly and Snow had 3 days off school, so with the weekend that was 5 straight days of not running them to school at 7am - yay!

On Thanksgiving Day we spent the day with our friends, The Wards - Lee, Mandy, Charlotte and Alex. Snow actually is in the same home room as Alex.  A couple of years ago we tried deep fried turkey and now that has become the tradition on this day.  The meat is so moist (probably with all the oil) and the whole bird cooks in 40 minutes....so tasty!  I did spinning at the gym that morning so I could eat without feeling guilty about it.  This as close to a British Christmas dinner as it gets, including the Brussel sprouts.

  

Another reason to love Thanksgiving is Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thankgiving) and any other sale that entices us to spend money we wouldn't otherwise spend.  I hate crowds so I chose to shop on-line on Black Friday and I actually went to the mall on Saturday.  My shopping is still far from being finished, but next weekend is the ladies' weekend away in Maine doing outlet shopping in Kittery and we may just have fun in a bar somewhere in Kennebunkport - just maybe!

Asian food night

On Saturday Snow invited 2 friends, CiCi and Lilly, over to the house.  Now Snow doesn't cook, but CiCi and Lilly do, so they decided to make us pork and Chinese dumplings.  Here is a similar recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/pork-dumplings/

The three of them worked solidly for three hours creating one hundred of these artful little packets of pork, egg and Chinese (napa) cabbage.

   Snow and CiCi working hard

          Lily

Here is the finished product, served with a Chinese hot sauce containing salty soy beans - yum!!

Snow hid pistacho nuts inside several of the dumplings, giving luck to the person finding them.  Apparantly I am not very lucky, even though I kept trying my luck 'just one more time' before giving up with a full belly.

I also made shrimp Tom Yum soup which is a spicy Thai style soup.

11/11 - Veteran's Day and Singles Day

Today is Veteran's Day and the kids are off school.  The greatest thing about no school is that I don't need to drive the Molly and Snow to school at 7am so I got to sleep late - well 7.30am is sleeping late to me.  This is one of the rare secular holidays that is also celebrated in the UK, called Remembrance, Armistice or Poppy Day.  In China 11/11 is another celebration altogether known as Singles Day because of the four single digits.  The holiday is known in Chinese as "Guanggun Jie,"  which refers to "bare sticks" — slang for bachelors.  It is celebrated by hanging out with your single friends and gift-giving.  It has recently become the biggest shopping days of the year where retailers offer on-line discounts similar to those offered on the first Monday after Thanksgiving, known as Cyber Monday.

I am just about to head off to Spinning at the gym (the current time is 8am) but I don't expect to see the kids up until late morning.  It took the five of us three hours to clear all the grass and tree areas of leaves so I expect they will be tired.  I love working outside in the fall feeling exhilarated by the fresh air and hard work.  Here is a before and after shot of the front yard.

The kids working hard....