Following Cory's Story

Thank you again for all of the prayers for Cory and the rest of our family! He has begun treatment for the cancer. It's nice to know they are starting to kick it's butt! If you would like to follow his journey, his grandpa has started a CaringBridge site that he updates nearly daily! He obviously knows much better what is going on than I do! Click on the link below and it will take you to his story...

Cory's CaringBridge website

I know they appreciate the prayers being said around the world on Cory's behalf!

More trimming the tree!

Cooper was invited to his dear friend Isaiah's house this past Sunday to help decorate their Christmas tree. We did this last year and we both really enjoyed ourselves, so we were very much looking forward to spending time at his house again this year!! Cooper started talking about it last week and couldn't stop! I was a bit nervous when Eens came down with strep throat on Saturday, fearing that Coop would have it the next day! Thankfully he woke up fine (mommy woke up with strep, but assumed it was the dry air because mommy's don't get sick!!).

We both had a wonderful time socializing and helping decorate the Christmas tree! Cooper's eyes just light up when he is with Isaiah. They can fight and argue, just like brothers, but they truly care about one another!

A Night at the Raffles

Last Wednesday night, the Raffles hotel invited our elementary choir to perform at their tree lighting ceremony. Ellie has joined the choir this year and was very excited to perform. I was excited to watch El and let the kids enjoy the holiday spirit which is not always easy to find here in China! The Raffles did not disappoint, there was a lovely buffet of food, beautiful decorations, and even Santa! The choir did a wonderful job on stage! They have a new director this year and he definitely has a gift of music and he keeps the kids singing all day long!! He does a fabulous job!!

We are counting down the days until the kids and I arrive in the US - one week to go!!! We're just hoping for snow, which I've heard is a pretty sure thing this year!!

It's still not perfect!

We have been in our house for one year now, and even though we consider it a huge upgrade from our previous accommodations, it is still not perfect!! We have had off and on trouble with hot water since we moved in. The owners honestly try very hard to keep everything up and running at high standards, but they have to hire local workmen to do the jobs and unfortunately they love tape!!

This is our solar panel for the hot water. We have it programmed so it will fill and heat electrically if it does not meet certain requirements. For the most part this works, but last Tuesday we had no hot water. The landlords called in the workmen and this is what they did...split some wires, taped up an electrical strip!!We now have hot water, but I'm not sure how long the tape will hold!!!

Cheap or a Real Steal??

The other day I was shopping in exciting E-Mart where I happened to stumble upon the Christmas decoration section. When we first came to China, I was only able to find about 10 Christmas items for sale. This year, I was very excited to see almost a whole aisle dedicated to Christmas!! Of course, most of the decorations weren't really my style, but they were still there! I remember our first Christmas here, my ayi had to keep going to the local market to try and find lights for the tree (they kept going out), but this year I can find many different kinds right in E-Mart! I, of course got a bit excited and decided to buy a tree for the kids' rooms! I got a good giggle out of my girlfriends because they could not believe I was buying these trees. I explained that in the US we usually had a tree in almost every room, except for the bathrooms!!

I bought the trees for a mere $2 apiece(ornaments and garland included!!)! The children could not have been happier!! Now every night they fall asleep to the colorful lights blinking off and on! I'm pretty sure these trees will be in the shipment going back to the US and they may just be the little ones favorite things to pull out every year!! That is of course, if they survive!!!

9 Fabulous Years!!

Our sweet Ellie officially turned nine years old on November 27!! I find it so hard to believe that I have had the joy of being her mommy for the past nine years - I am very blessed!! She turned our lives upside down when she entered this world - a few tears from both mommy and Ellie, along with loads of smiles and tons of laughs!! When she smiles my world lights up! She is such a caring, kind, loving daughter with a very big spirit!! I love watching her grow and become her own person!! Happy Birthday Ellie!!El decided on a cookie cake for school - an easy option for mommy, so I was very happy!!Smile El - it's your birthday!! Ellie has wanted a "big" girl camera for about a year now!!More gifts from our dear friends when they came to celebrate Thanksgiving with us in the evening!! She was quite spoiled!!Zhu ni shang ri kuai le!!

The Waiting Game...

Thank you for all of the prayers being said for our family. As I told my cousin, I'm sure the gates of Heaven are being stormed right now with prayers for little Cory!! After their visit to the hospital in St. Louis last week, Cory has been diagnosed with a "muscle tumor" which is most likely cancerous. Chris and Michelle are still waiting for the full report, which may come this week as they are back in St. Louis doing more tests. Cory also will have a port put in which will alleviate many needle pricks and allow for them to give him chemo.

Not a day has gone by since I received the email from my mom about Cory, that I have not stopped doing something because my eyes are filled with tears. If I feel like this, I cannot begin to imagine, nor do I want to, how Chris and Michelle must be feeling. The good news is, I know they are both strong individuals and they are ready to battle this nasty disease. They have a huge army behind them, willing and ready to help in anyway we can!

Please continue to pray for Chris, Michelle, Cory, and little sister Mallory as they begin to find a "new normal". Please also pray that the doctors are able to decide on the best treatment plan and that Cory has minimal side effects. It is the season of miracles and we believe that we are about to witness one!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving from the St. Martin family! We hope you all had a wonderful day full of loads of yummy foods and great company! Although we now celebrate a delayed Thanksgiving, we had a lovely meal surrounded by our "China family"!!

We did begin to prepare for our feast a few days before we celebrated. My Grandma Kimler's egg noodles require proper time to dry out before they can be served! Danny and I enjoy spending one evening making them together! I do most of the mixing, kneading, and rolling, while he loves the cutting! This year we doubled the batch because we were feeding 20 people - we definitely had enough and plenty for leftovers. My favorite part of making the noodles is reading the recipe card in grandma's handwriting. It is a treasure to me and I think even if I really didn't like the noodles, I'd still make them every year just to see her handwriting and know that she followed the exact same steps in her preparation for our family feasts when I was younger! I giggle every time I make them though because she left off half of the recipe - oh grandma!!

Danny and I also prepared cream cheese pumpkin muffins (courtesy of my friend Jen's facebook picture!) for the kids' classes. We opted to make the small muffins, as we would have been in the kitchen all night had we done the big ones! We ended up with over 70 - enough to share with the classes! They were delicious - I think it is the dry pudding mix that you add to the cake mix!!

On Thanksgiving Day I went to Coop's class and read a Thanksgiving story and made pilgrim hats (made out of cookies, peanut butter cups and a bit of icing!) with them. They are precious and I was so thankful to watch Coop in his element! He is more of a leader than I thought and has made some really good friends this year!

The rest of my Thanksgiving Day was like any other day here in Tianjin! I did miss my family terribly and I wished we could be home eating turkey and watching that silly Macy's day parade! Danny was missing football and time off of work. The kids, fortunately missed nothing because they have forgotten our Thanksgiving traditions in the US! They knew mommy and daddy were cooking turkey on Saturday and that was good enough for them!! I'm so thankful for their resilience!

On Saturday we began to prepare for our feast early in the afternoon! We invited dear friends to help us celebrate, because that is what Thanksgiving is about, celebrating the harvest of the season in the company of loved ones. We had quite a feast with everyone bringing dishes to share - no one went away hungry! We spent most of the evening listening to the children play peacefully throughout the house while the adults enjoyed wine and lots of laughter. I could barely get through my toast because as I looked around the table at the faces of the people who have shared this experience with us, I was overcome with emotion. I could not tell them enough how thankful and blessed our family feels that they are a part of our lives. As much as I miss our family and friends, I wake up everyday knowing that we have family here - they may not be blood relatives, but we all do whatever it takes on a daily basis to make sure we are putting one foot in front of the other!

Each year there seems to be the question of, "Will she actually fit in our little oven?"

Thanks to Danny's turkey expertise, she came out beautiful and the right side up (last year I cooked the turkey upside down!!)!

Thanks to Oriental Trader, the kids table had plenty of activities to keep them busy!!

Thanks Guitar Hero, my little Eens now loves Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer!!!

So, Thanksgiving for us was China perfect (with a little added excitement from an asthma attack and a black out due to our main fuse blowing!!)!! We stuffed ourselves and made many memories with friends who will now most likely celebrate Thanksgiving wherever they end up!! Karen summed it up best in a painting she gave to us, it was a day of Food, Love, and Friends!!

Prayers Please...

When 1 hurts, we all hurt, that's what it's like when you are part of my family. Grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, it doesn't matter what place you take. We protect each other and if someone is hurting, we all hurt right along with them.

Tonight, I am hurting very much for my cousin Chris and his family. Two days ago they took their son Cory to a specialist because he had been ill since Halloween. At previous doctors appointments they had been told that he had the flu, sinus infections, etc. Of course, this seems very reasonable because it is cold and flu season and Cory is in elementary school where germs run rampant. Unfortunately, Cory was not suffering from minor ailments of growing up. After speaking with the specialist, a CT scan was ordered where they found a tumor in his sinus cavity.

My heart is breaking right now as I write this. We do not know the diagnosis, but Chris and Michelle will hopefully get some answers today because they took Cory directly to St. Louis to the Children's Hospital.

Please, please pray for Cory, Chris, Michelle, and his little sister Mallory. Please pray for my Aunt Shirley and Uncle Keith as they try to be strong for their son. Please pray for our family, this affects us all and we will all do whatever it takes to help Chris and Michelle bring Cory home healthy!

When Vegas come to Town!!

On Saturday night we celebrated our dear friend John's 40th birthday!! Karen went all out and organized a Vegas night at their home. She had all the glitz and glamour of Vegas along with the tacky! We all wore fancy dress, everything from sequins, wigs, bridal veils, babies (from the Hangover), and jewels were on display! Some people were very creative!!

You can't have Vegas without Elvis or Marilyn! As you can imagine, by the end of the night, neither were standing!! We hope John had a wonderful birthday (pretty sure he did!) and we are looking forward to hopefully meeting them in Vegas this summer!!

Happy Early Birthday Ellie Bean!!

El celebrated her 9th (oh my goodness, I can't believe she is going to be nine!!) last Friday night with a sleepover! Earlier in the year she went to a big sleepover at one of her friend's houses and I told that mom, "I'm not up for it, so don't expect a sleepover for El's birthday!". How wrong I was! El begged and pleaded for a sleepover and I really wanted to reward her for her outstanding work ethic that she has adopted this year, so I caved! We decided to do it this past weekend because we will be celebrating Thanksgiving on Saturday (everyone works here on Thursday - Thanksgiving - what's that??!).

Ellie chose to have a beach theme, so we decorated the house and tried to come up with some beachy games! We wore hula skirts and leis, we decorated sun-visors, and we ate Hawaiian pizza!! We tossed rings around a flamingo, did the limbo, and played pass the parcel. Danny, of course, made Ellie a flower cake to help us celebrate!!

I was really worried about having so many girls over because I do not have the option to jump in the car if one of them wants to go home! I kept them as busy as possible, so much so that I believe I may have fallen asleep before some of the girls! Don't worry, I woke up about five times throughout the night to go and check on them! I guess I might as well get used to this as we enter the tween years!!

Good night sweet girls!!

She's a Natural!!

Ellie has always loved animals, so it was no surprise when she came bounding home from school in early September telling me they were going to offer horseback riding as an after school activity, and then begging me to sign her up! We tried to get her in the first session, but it filled up straight away. The school put her in session two, so we have patiently waited for the past three months for her to begin her lessons! I think I was almost as excited as she was. When I was growing up, I rode horses with my dad in our pasture whenever he would let me! I never had formal lessons, but I loved being on the horses. Probably one of the reasons I loved it so much was because it was usually just my dad and I (growing up with four siblings, that was a treat!)! Now I am so proud to watch El riding the horse like such a natural! She just has a way with animals and I hope Danny and I can foster that love for her and allow her to continue pursuing this passion!

You must be thinking, "horseback riding in China??". I thought the same thing until I saw the brochure for the stables. El rides both inside and outside in rings. She is led by her own Chinese instructor. A Chinese teaching assistant from the school accompanies them to the stables so she can translate if necessary, but much of what they are learning can be taught by example! They provide leg protection and proper helmets. Ellie is allowed to ride for an hour once a week - she would do much more if I would let her! The cost for the lessons is about the same price as what we would pay in the US. All of the horses have been imported from England and they are beautiful animals!

Here is a short video of El riding, followed by some pictures of her during her lesson!

Second Lesson Horseback Riding

El is learning to practice her balance with her arms out. She also was working on looking in the direction that she wanted the horse to go! She was able to guide the horse all the way around the inside stable without being led by the instructor!Coop enjoyed watching his big sister on the horse! He kept telling me he wanted to ride also, of course this does not surprise me, but he's going to have to wait a few years!! I kept his mind off of getting in the ring by visiting with the camels and ostriches!