more beach fun!

I guess it's obvious at this point that we love the beach. We stayed at my mom and dad's for about 10 days and just had so much fun! We biked, swam in the pool, hung out at the beach, and played alot of cards! Since we are approaching the eligible age to buy a house in this retirement community, we actuallly talked about buying a place. We'll see :)

Bike, birthday, sick kid & Chinese school

Mimi learns to ride with no training wheels!! Go Mimi!! After a few days, in the bitter cold, she got it and now she is a maniac......

MPCS future cheerleaders!

Our Grace turns 8! We love her teacher, Mrs. Dodson, she looks like one of the kids! What a blessing to have such a loving, hugging, warm environment to learn in!! Our girls love to go to school, they miss it when they aren't there....thank God for providing this wonderful place and these wonderful people to embrace our kids and give them confidence to pray together and to pray for each other, learn about giving to others, and not feel they have to follow the culture, which these days can be pretty scary:) We are blessed!!

Family photo! Maybe next years Christmas card! ha

New China Tree school opened in January - Gwinnett! We have 15 students and two awesome teachers! The school is designed for kids 5+ years old. Our teachers Yumin and Hong Ma are both getting their Masters Degree's at Georgia State in Linguistics. They are fabulous teachers and with their dedication and love for these kids we are off to a great start!

Making and eating dumplings! We handmade over one hundred dumplings!

Three beautiful girls - loving learning Chinese language and about their culture!

Class picture taken to send to our new friend Li Ke, whom China Tree school is sponsoring. Li Ke lives in an orphanage in ZhengZhou and is 10 years old. Our goal is to have the kids from China Tree go to China in two years and we will definitely stop in to see our friend Li Ke.

Our first trip to Scottish Rite - Mimi had such a bad stomach virus. They made her feel so much better...

Mt. Paran's annual daddy/daughter dance! The three of them had a special dance they worked on...lots of foot moves and booty shakin! I heard tons of stories about the night, my girls loved their date! I sat at home by myself, which was such a rarity for me these days, and just enjoyed quiet!

I am working on a new blog design, not my forte, but it's fun learning. We are getting ready to go to China in a couple of months and are getting our first medical mission team in place. If you are ever interested in traveling other than an adoption (hopefully one of our trips will be for Hope) please let me know. We have this upcoming trip and then another in the fall 2009 and early 2010....we will "always" swing by Xian to visit with Amanda at Starfish....this is an ongoing "need" and she is an incredible person who is doing so much for these kids.I hope to get my new "blogsite" up soon...there is so much we are working on and I hope to pass along some of these opportunities to those intersted in getting involved over in China.There are big things and small things to get involved in....we sure have seen the incredible "need and appreciation" from those who are working with the orphans who "still wait". I never knew how much these workers appreciate our involvement and our comittment to supporting them each and every day. They work very hard and sometimes the "daily grind" can seem overwhelming and hopeless..but I've seen the gratitude from a caregiver's face when we showup with supplies or just a fresh look. Let me know if you have any interest in joining some of the work in China....just e-mail me at chapmansk@bellsouth.net

My sister is on the Today Show - Today!!

We are so excited for my sister, Cheryl and her husband, Jeff, as they share their story live on the Today Show with Kathy Lee Gifford. They will be on today, Friday, January 9th at 10:00AM if you have a chance to tune in! Their book "I Do Again" was just published and you can purchase a copy on Amazon. Jeff, Cheryl and their two BEAUTIFUL twin girls, now 20 years old, are so special to Dan and I....we love you guys!

Vacation Part II

We swam at the pool.
Played in the waves
Looked for shells
Celebrated Grace's 8th birthday

We had so much fun on the second part of our Christmas vacation. We flew down to Ft. Myers Beach and stayed with my parents, in what feels like paradise after coming from the hectic pace of Atlanta. My dad says the people in their community call where they live "God's waiting room"... pretty nice set-up! We really didn't do much which was fine with us. I went on a nice run every morning and we all get into the pace of life on the beach really quickly. Dan is a born beach guy and loves the beach, which will be just fine with me one day!! Oh, we did celebrate New Years Eve on the beach watching fireworks...Happy 2009 to all!

Making Cookies and Grandpa's Birthday

The "Girls" making cookies....cousins Brit and Lauren (twins)

Grandpa turns 78! We celebrated my dad's birthday in Dallas, TX where some of my family came out to celebrate my sister's surprise 50th birthday! We all had such a great time and so many laughs! We have so many inside jokes in my family, that we laugh for hours about stuff nobody would ever get. My nieces (the twins above) are now 20 years old and our girls just loved hanging out with their "big cousins". We shopped, went to their church, and just loved hanging out together....we can't wait to see you guys soon!

China Tree Lunch!

Some of our kids from China Tree School and Ming (teacher). We had a fun lunch at Classic Gourmet for our last day of the semester, we had over 70 people attend!! Thanks to all our families and for your dedication to your kids!! Great job kids and you deserve a huge "round of applause"!!

Our friend who just came home from China with now her 4th child (and she is a single mom)

Some of our dedicated teachers, who are awesome!!

Well, we are finished with our first semester at China Tree School. Dan and I feel like things went well especially with the classes for the 5+ year olds, but we struggled abit with the "little ones". I know we worried and struggled over this class, but just couldn't get this little ones class to "click"! We know the issues were varied but found out this the most difficult class to teach.
Seems simple enough, teach a little language, learn some Chinese games, sing some songs, but the "vibe" of the class comes from the teachers. We have found out how difficult it is to find preschool teachers who teach Chinese language. If you talk to the Chinese people they don't understand how a class doesn't involve, for use of a better term, "strict learning". I guess in some ways it is really against their grain. We have had to really work with our other teachers to get them to "lighten up" and just look at learning Chinese as fun! In talking with all our teachers they have never experienced the concept of "learning is fun" as they have gone through school!! We are going to make some changes in the school for January, and will probably discontinue the little ones class for awhile until we can correct these issues. I wrote some thoughts in our newsletter and feel so passionate about these kids learning and embracing this wonderful language! We will move into our next semester in early January and just thought I would share our newsletter with you, if you'd like to take a look...just go to:
www.chinatree.org ....We are very excited to start a new China Tree school in Gwinnett in January and we are also getting ready to open another one in Nashville, TN in the fall! Now those are some southern talkin Chinese folks!! All the China Tree classes will begin at ages 5+ and we will no longer offer classes for the little ones until they reach age 5. We are excited to help more kids around the Atlanta area and have just received our 501C3 (non-profit status).

We Still Feel Like We are on Vacation!

Grace has her dad's sense of humor and always tries to make us laugh...seems like lately we all find humor in the smallest things, but sure starts the day off on the right foot when everyone "gets it"!! Grace thought pulling her hat down low would keep her brain warm so she would learn so much more today! Mimi agrees!!
I can't image getting serious about school for the next few weeks...we are in a vacation mode and will probably stay in this gear until after Christmas...sounds good to Dan and I!