Long Overdue...

I was reminded by a friend today that I needed to keep this thing updated!! I can't believe that it's been since Thanksgiving that I have written on here. So much has happened I haven't even had time to think about blogging. I am not even sure if I can go back and remember everything! :) But for starters, for those of you who don't know, I write this blog entry 7,000 miles away from America, 14 hour time zone difference and starting a completely new life with my family!!!
Clark, Sadie, and I left our families on December 31st to begin our lives in a new country. It was quite the adventure with a 7 month old, 1 stroller, 1 carseat, 2 backpacks, 2 carryons, 6 trunks and 3 suitcases on a 15 hour flight across the globe!! Sadie was quite the trooper though, she slept the first 7 hours on the flight and Clark was in heaven, he watched movies on his on personal screen for 14 hours!!! We finally made it in country and I was amazed at how quickly my language came back. I asked for help while we were going through customs because there was just NO way that Clark and I could really push all of those bags ourselves. And Father is gracious because he gave us help through a sweet women who worked there.
Once we landed in "Dumpling Heaven" (the name our city will be referred to) we started looking for an apartment. We had a "wish list" of things that we wanted and well, we did get some things! :) We ended up with a 2 bedroom apartment. It is in a beautiful location! (I will add pictures below) We are nestled in the mountains on the east side of the city. Clark likes to describe our home like living in Gatlinburg, TN. The only downfall for me was there was quite a bit of orange in the house and I have been trying to make it work! Apparently orange was the in color this year. We love where we live and have been able to get out and start making friends around us despite the cold weather. Speaking of cold weather, it hasn't been near as bad I was thinking it would be. Sadie is constantly strapped to me in the Baby Bjorn and keeps me extra warm!! It has been fun carrying her around like that. She takes quite a few naps while out on the streets. People here LOVE seeing the foreign baby! She is a constant attraction around here. And Sadie, well she loves the attention too! She will quickly give any one a smile if they look her way.

Today marks our 2 week mark in our new country. We can't believe it has already been two weeks since moving here. We are starting to really get settled in here. We are hoping to hang pictures on the wall today and then it will really start to feel more like home. The pictures that I am going to post today are not the finished product but I knew that you all would at least want to see a little of where we live!

I promise to really start to update at least 2 times a week with funny stories that we manage to get ourselves into! I know that our family and friends back home will really want to know how we are doing, and its much easier to write here than try to send out a million emails! :)

I have to share one story with you though....the other day we were on the search for an oven. Now this oven is not the size of the one that we would have in the states, this oven is about the size of an oversize toaster oven. And so we knew the name of the market that we needed to go and we knew the general direction to go (look for the meat section) and we knew to ask the people if they had ever met a tall foreigner (our friend). So with all of this information we were off to find the oven! The taxi driver drops us off and we were thinking, what in the world? Where are we?? We go through the doors and we were surrounded by people on all sides. We could barely move. I became the protective mother hen and covered the front of my body because I was carrying Sadie in front of me. And we began to push forward. To describe to you what we were seeing...a HUGE flea market on a Saturday morning. That is what we were in, and we began to walk and walk looking for this meat section. Once we found it, we started looking for the stalls with the ovens. We finally found it by the grace of Father!! We got our oven, they put it on a dolly and a lady started out the door with it, on the way out, we saw a trashcan that we wanted and made a quick pit stop to add that to our treasures. We go out to the front of this market trying to get a taxi. Well, as it turns out the police won't let taxis stop there. What??? We had all of our treasures, a 7 month old and we NEEDED a taxi! After literally chasing one down and begging them to take us, we were off back to our warm apartment with our new oven and great trashcan!! Gotta love ole Dumpling Heaven and how such simple things can take forever and what you have to go through to get. I know that I will be very thankful for that oven when I take that first pan of brownies out of the oven.....

That's it for today folks....we are off to find ice cube trays so I can start making Sadie's baby food....

More news from the Forman's later.....

We love you!!! :)