Happy New Year!

Today we woke up to the sound of fireworks and as I am writing you now at 9:30pm, we are still listening to fireworks! It is the new year here and everyone is celebrating. We took a small video just to give you a taste of what we have been listening to all day. It is funny to hear these firecrackers going off and then look out the window to see how many car alarms it set off! What you are about to see is the shortest of what we have heard today. They usually last about 4 to 5 times longer. And notice the mess that it makes. Our sidewalks are now covered in red paper!! This is unlike anything that we have ever seen! Enjoy!!

Sadie's First 6 months

Adventures from Today....

Yesterday while in the taxi heading home, I thought, hmm...I should find out when does the largest holiday of the year actually start? I knew that it started sometime before we leave for down south but wasn't sure when. Oh well found it that it was tomorrow. My brain quickly went to the fact that we still had three bills left to pay. I knew we needed to do it soon. I asked our driver and she told us that we would have plenty of time to pay them today, just make sure we do it today. So, after a good breakfast of french toast (Clark says that they were my best mind you!) We bundled up and headed out in search of the place to pay our bills! We knew that it has to be close and we wanted to find the place that was right near our house so that we could pay them there every month. My first thought was to ask the guard at our gate. He should be the one with all of this knowledge! So, I showed him the previous bills that our landlord gave us and asked him where we could pay our power, gas and water. He told us that we would need to go to south gate (we were at the west gate) and it would be right there on the right. I thought, okay, not so hard. So, Clark, Sadie and I head in that direction. With a stop at our apartment to get an extra scarf for Sadie, it was quite cold! The high today was 17 degrees! So, we headed that way, stopping to ask the guy at the south gate where we could pay our bills. He didn't know and so he called the guy at our gate to ask him. We finally walked off realizing they were no help! So, we found the bank that I thought might work. Umm..no, didn't work! He told us to go back outside, walk for about 10 minutes and we would find both places. (The power is in one place and water/gas is in another) So, we walked but stopped first at this small shop just to see if they had diet coke ahem, Coke Light as they call it here. And nope, none there! We kept walking, and walking and walking. We walked for oh a good 30 minutes and didn't find a thing!!! All the while, Sadie was taking a nap on me. We at least got some good exercise. So, I decided at this point, we needed to get in a taxi and find this place! So, finally after hailing a taxi, he decided to take us into town. Now, the funny part is he already had someone in the front seat and just picked us up to make an extra buck! So, we finally found the place (you see, I knew how to say it in English but I didn't know the Chinese to tell him, I will never forget now!) and so, we finally made it there, paid our driver and got out. I let out a sigh of relief, we had found the place!! We walk inside and all the doors are locked and everyone has gone home! WHAT??? How had this happened. We went outside and looked across the street, there was the headquarters. Let's just walk in there to see if we can pay our bill. After talking to the guards they told us that they were already on holiday and we couldn't pay our bill. We thought, well okay, let's just see if we can find the bank to pay our water/gas. So, we started walking (again!) and on our way, we stopped at a baby store (because I always like to look for things for Sadie!). We go in and lo and behold this was the exact store that my friend and I were looking for the other day. We went in about 5 different stores looking for THIS one and couldn't find it. After describing to the lady that I wanted a business card so that I could always find this store, we left. (That alone took 10 minutes to describe, I forgot the word for card!). After leaving, I realized where we were. A block away from all those other baby stores that we searched! We continued on in search of this bank, we just knew it has to be close!! We FINALLY found it and went in. The lines were long but we were willing to wait. I thought, hmm..I should ask if we could pay our bill today, because I knew myself and I knew I would lose it if I waited in this really long line only to get up there and not be able to pay it. So, I asked the nicest that I could if we could pay our bill. He looked at me and told me the answer that I didn't want to hear, no, the holiday is tomorrow, gotta wait until after the holiday!! I couldn't believe it, after this long search, we have 2 bills that we couldn't pay! And then we walked outside and I looked to my left and saw this shop that I wanted to go into. They had the cutest pair of flats that were crocs, super comfy that I bought the other day for 2 1/2 bucks!!! And I wanted to buy a pair for my mom and another pair for me. I mean, who couldn't pass that up?? We went in, bought them so very easily and headed back home to eat grilled cheese and drink a sprite. Whew....what a day!! The moral of this story....listen to your husband when he says that you should pay the bills early, second, hey, at least I got a cute pair of shoes out of it!! :)

Update from our House....

Well, once again, here are some pictures for your enjoyment! We have been enjoying the snow from the inside of our house. It has been quite nice to be sitting in the warmth looking at the beautiful snow outside. Today we decided to venture out once again. We decided to go to our "local Walmart". While in line, I had a "moment". I looked around and then looked at Clark and said, "Clark, do you realize we are the only foreigners around?" It is so funny to look around sometimes and see no one like you. But then after that moment, I realized how much I loved it. Yes, there are so many who are different from us, but it's fun to be different. Then, we go outside and had quite a time trying to get a taxi that I realized hmm...different...is it still fun?? :) You should have seen us though, we were just like the locals, fighting for our taxi and beating out others to get in before they could! Hey, it was cold outside!! :)

Yesterday when we realized that we might not be getting out a while because of the snow, Clark ventured out to get the "necessities". Now, you might think that these things would include, bread, milk and eggs. But no, they include Sprite, Icecream and Potato Chips!! :) Don't worry, we did eat a little healthy later that night, I had already bought our veggies!

One last fun thing...we bought a humidifier today and it resembles Pooh Bear. But it was lots better than the one that was a bull with mist coming out the two horns!!

That's it for us now....we are going to watch Growing Pains...yes, I bought all 7 seasons on DVD.....

A Local Person's view of a fridge...

Sadie's New Friend

Sadie has two new friends here in Dumpling Heaven. Sadie has been deemed "Little Person Number 3" So, here you have Little Person Number 1 and Little Person Number 3!

Fridays are Family Fun Night

We have decided that Friday's are a time for us to spend time together as a family. We thought we would let you enjoy our Family Fun Night too!! I bet you haven't ever seen a Pizza Hut like this!!


Sadie is sleeping peacefully! We got to enjoy a quiet meal, it was quite nice!! :)

Winter Wonderland!!!

We woke up Thursday morning to a Winter Wonderland!!! It was snowing like crazy! Here are some pictures below: This was Sadie's first time to be out in the snow. (Just to let you know, we only went outside to take a few pictures! It was way to cold to be out there for long!)







This was us staying inside enjoying watching the snow from the window!

Our First Video

I am so excited, I just finished my first video! I hope you all enjoy watching, this one is dedicated to our families. We hope you enjoy looking back at our first Christmas with Sadie. We love you guys and we will be posting more videos since I finally figured out how to do it!!

We love you!!

Ice

Earlier I told you that we were off to search for a place with ice cube trays....well not only did we find those but we found men who enjoyed the ice a little too much!! See our pictures below...it is quite the site!!!
These men come each day and make a hole in the ice and go swimming for 2 to 3 minutes and then get out and put their clothes back on and go running for about an hour! It was so crazy to watch!! I was so cold and I wasn't even in the water!! :)





I hope you all enjoyed our life today...I will try to be better about posting fun stuff like this so that you can enjoy a day in the life of the Formans!!

Rewind...to Christmas

Please bare with me as these are very much out of order but at least I got them all on here! My child is screaming but I wanted to at least give you some pictures to look at :)


Our last time with our best friends, Kris and Vanessa
Clark's parents with Sadie
My parents with Sadie at Christmas time
Sadie's cousins, Russ and Rachel
Clark's side of the family, his sister Michelle and brother-in-law Randy, his parents and our niece and nephew all spending a few days at Calloway Gardens
My aunt and uncle with Sadie
The girls!
A girl needs her shoes!! :)
Sadie opening presents.....

My dad and stepmom with Sadie.....
Taking a bath in the sink with Nana and Pops (My dad and Tina)
Sadie on the plane for the first time!!! :)

Our New Home

Here are pictures of our new home...read below to find out more on what is happening in our lives :)

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!!! :)