The Catepillar's Voice

The Kindergarten /JK and the first grade class worked for *weeks* learning this little play that they shared with all the parents and the rest of the elementary aged kids. Afterward we all went down to the cafeteria and had a little "Easter Tea". The whole rest of the day in my head I was singing "stomp, stomp, crush, crush, elephants and lions beware...stomp, stomp, crush, crush, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah" well, you know how it is, they're so darn cute you don't really listen to what they are saying/singing anyway...

This week, on Monday we will be going on a field trip to "Ocean World", which Rachel has very sadly misinterpreted as a field trip to the ocean... she was very sad when I explained to her that it would only be a place where you can see animals and creatures of the ocean...not the actual ocean. She's her mamma's girl...we love the ocean! Should be interesting!

Chinese New Year or Chun Jie (Spring Festival Holiday)

Since we are just trying to "catch up" with you here....i will not droan on and on about Chinese New Year and what an amazingly different and beautiful and culturally deep time of year this is for China . . . but I will share a couple of pictures from our hua yuan (apartment complex) and our cute darling of a girl dressed up in her Chinese New Year outfit for school. (It's kind of like the "easter dress" tradition we have in the States . . . kids get new Chun Jie clothes to wear on the first day of the new year.)

Enjoying family

In January we were able to make a trip back to the States for a week to attend Jerry's grandpa's funeral. Even though our hearts were filled with sadness, we were terribly blessed to be able to see so many friends and family in such a short time! And Ra was amazingingly enough, able to get completely spoiled in just 10 short days! :)

Ra with Grandpa Gene, Aunt Jo and new cousin Lycan

Ra with Grandma Alice and Grandma Hinten

and Grandpa Hinten

Strawberries the size of your HEAD

yeah, so strawberries have come into season... we'd had a few batches of them and like last year, we found that even though they were greenish looking, they were some of the sweetest strawberries we'd ever tasted. Well, then the other day at the market I saw these monsters! They were, no kidding, the size of a large plum or small necterine! HUGE . . . and they were RED! bright shiny red!

Ra loved 'em, as you can plainly see! yummy!

The newest member of the jonesesinchina

well, there are so many things to catch up on here in blog-world, however before we go back and catch you up too much, we would like to introduce you to Lexi . . . well, "snuggle bug" if you ask Rachel, but officially she is named Lexi. (my childhood dog's name was Lady, Jerrys was Max...and we thought combining them might be fun...but "Laxy" ? well...a little too close to "laxitive" and we really didn't want her to live up to her name in that respect...SOOO....Lexi it is)

She's been with us a week now. We have wanted a pet for some time, but just have not done it...until last weekend. A friend of a friend took us to a "shelter" like place for street dogs which was quite the experience, and you wouldn't believe the change in her if we could get the before picture to load onto the blog... she was a grey/black shaggy mess of a dog...but now she's our beautiful little Lexi!