Happy Birthday, A-Mae

Anna Mae is now 4 years old! What an exciting time in all of our lives. Anna is so full of life and happiness. She's also developing in her memory and emotions. The other day she saved a cookie from school for mommy to eat (a feat in itself to get it home in one piece). Mommy didn't immediately eat the cookie, and the next day Anna reminded mommy of it by asking, "Did you eat the cookie yet?" When mommy said no, Anna said as she visibly became emotional about it, "But I saved it for you!"

Anna got to have 3 birthday parties!

Her Chinese school threw her a birthday party.



She celebrated alone with mom and dad.



And then we threw her a party with her friends at the house.


Oh, and Jacquelyn made a cake that was simply out of control!

Annual Goodbyes

If any of you have lived overseas before, you know saying "goodbye" to friends is an annual occurrence. This year is especially rough for us as some of our closest friends are headed back to their home countries or new assignments. Although we're extremely happy for our friends who are turning a new page in their lives, we're a little offended they didn't consider our feelings...

To all of our friends who are leaving, we're super excited for you. You will always be remembered by the Carmans. Thanks for all the good times we had together.

Jacquelyn B-day '07

Happy Birthday, Jacquelyn!!!

For Jacquelyn's birthday, we had a small get together (only 20 people) to celebrate.

Below are the pictures from the party.

BJ Small Group

The past two years we were in a small group that meet every other Monday. This group was very supportive through our pregnancy and the birth of Anna. We grew spiritually because of this group. When we first started out we were studying the fruits of the spirit, we then moved through the book "Everybody's Normal Till You Get To Know Them" by John Ortberg. Our last meeting with them they planned to study the book of Revelation.

Each week we began with a delicious meal, not forgetting dessert of course. This was usually Jeremy's and my time to enjoy home cooked western food. Recently we started singing with the kids then send them upstairs to watch a movie or just go wild while we got down to "business."

Through this group we made some really good friends that we have really been missing since in Qingdao. We did not get to know all the people in our small group very well, when you have 20 people in your "small" group it can be hard. But we really miss meeting with them and fellowship that we had. The people in our group really helped us get through some rough times - we love you guys!!

Goodbye to Friends

The hardest part about leaving Beijing was saying goodbye to our friends. We certainly were blessed to have the friends that we did. In the days leading up to our departure from Beijing, we got to take some of our closest friends to Papa John's. (Yes, that's right, even Papa John's has made its way over to China.)

To all our friends in Beijing, we miss you terribly! Please come see us in Qingdao...You'll love it here.

Minorities Park

     Happy May 1st! (China's Labor day) Today, since it is a national holiday the Carmans and our friends had the day off. We all took a trip together to the minorities park here in BJ. There are 56 minorities in China and this park shows how they live(d) and some of their customs. It is a huge park, we spent about 4 hours there and did not even see 1/3 of it! (granted we had two kids, two strollers & lots of stairs, diapers to change, kids/adults to feed - but still)
     I can't say that I really learned anything about the minorities but the park is absolutely beautiful and we had really beautiful weather to enjoy it (along with great company)!
     We saw model homes that the people would live in and we had fun picking the ones we would like to live in. There were also people dressed up in their minorities traditional clothes and saw some rituals and dances.

Summer Palace

Our May holiday has officially begun! Our friends from Wuhan (The Clays) came up to show their friend from the States Beijing. We took them to the Summer Palace. This is where the Emperor of China would live . . . you guessed it . . . in the summer. (How Brilliant!) My favorite story of this place is the life of the Empress Dowager CiXi. She was a despotic leader consumed with a desire for power. To do that she bannished the rightful heir to the thrown (her 27 year old nephew) to a small Palace-island in the the middle of Beijing. (It's actually not a very nice story huh?!)

The weather was nice and cool but very smoggy (typical for Beijing). But my favorite part of the day was watching the Clay's two month old son while they went to climb up the mountain. I pretended that I was a mother of two for those 20 minutes. It was fun but nice that I could give him back when things got rough.

Sad Good Bye's!

After 7 weeks we had to say good bye to our new friends the Clays. Lisa Clay came and lived in the vacant apartment at the beginning of February to wait for her baby's arrival. After a week alone her husband Aaron was able to join her. We really enjoyed their company. We had a lot of fun together watching Heroes, eating, playing games and talking.

March 14 handsome Ethan Ezra Clay was born. We were glad to finally meet him, although it meant that our friend's stay would be quickly coming to an end. A week and a half after Ethan was born the Clays returned to their home in Wuhan, China (it is about a 2 1/2 hour flight away - 1052km/654miles).

The Plummers

These are are friends Lee & Becky Plummer! Since in China Jeremy & I have become friends with Lee & Becky (pictured here). (Lee is wearing Anna's hat.) We have had some great times with them and they have been very encouraging!