July Update

July has been the hottest month of the year. Almost triple digits everyday! We've been staying inside most of the time, except the swimming time after dinner for Emily. Emily loves swimming. We should have taken her to the swimming lessons. But we didn't get around to do that this summer. Here is the summary of our July:

David did lots of home projects. As I mentioned last time, we put the wood floor on and sold our new carpet in early July. The floor guy came back to fix a few stripes later. Besides that, David fixed the rental house's fence as well as our own fence (both houses got the notifications in one week). He also fixed the back door. He's attempting to do more and more home projects by himself. I'm glad he's enjoying it! Emily followed David everywhere to lend a hand to him. She was a great helper.



Emily continues growing in her body, mind and spirit. She loves her Bible class. Every time after we sat down in the pew, she would request to go to her Bible class. It brought us many friendly smiles from people who sat around us. Her first memory verse was Proverbs 3:5. She often pretended reading Bible stories and narrating them in her own words "... This is the day the Lord has made ... Jesus was glad to see the children ..." Her teachers obsolutely love Emily. One teacher said she wished her daughters were like Emily. We know that it was those wonderful teachers who made Emily wanting to go to the class more and more. Emily also loves the story time in the library. We went there almost everyday since Andy transitioned to one nap a day. Actually both kids enjoyed the story time and the puzzles in the library.


It melt my heart every time when Emily gave me a hug and said, "I love you, Mama, I'll always love you!" (which she does very often) or when she complimented me with "This is the most delicious quesadilla that I can eat, Mama! It tastes really good, doesn't it?" "You look very pretty in that pink shirt - I like the beautiful flowers on it!" "You did a great job, Mama! That's a great idea!" ... She is very protective of Andy. She tells Andy to sit down on the sofa, or not to get close to the TV, or follow Mama... She gave Andy the most gentle hug when he least expected with a loving comment, "You are precious, Andy!" or "Good boy!"


She can sing over a dozen songs ("Onward Christian Soldiers" "Sweet Low, Sweet Chariot", "I'm In The Lord's Army", "My God is so Big" and many other songs) with complete lyrics and correct tunes (I learned quite a few lyrics from her already!). It often attracted big smiles from strangers when she sang in the grocery stores or parking lots. Her favorite things to do are singing, dancing, doing the puzzles, having bubble bath, and swimming in the neighorhood pool. Undoubtly, Emily has a very good memory. If we don't know where something is, half of the chances are she can tell us. She can direct us from Preston to Hedgcoxe to Moonlight all the way to our house as if she could read the street signs. She knows where all the big and small water fountains are along Preston Rd. She recognizes all the logos from WalMart, Costco, Babiesrus, Sprout, Plano library, etc.

Emily likes to eat her homemade popsicles in the back patio. Hmmm!

Emily's first memory verse - Proverbs 3:5 "Trust the Lord with all your heart!"

Pretending reading

This friendly old man loves Emily. He always smiles and talks to her when he bumped into Emily.

After Andy's shots, Emily put two stickers on her legs to show sympathy to Andy:

Andy just turned 15 months old. His height and head size are still over 97 percentile. His weight dropped to 25-50 percentile. He still has hard stools so we are still working on his diet. He gave up his morning nap completely. So he only take a 3-4 hours afternoon nap. His favorite words are: hot, pop (which is bubbles), flower, fly (which is butterfly), eat (which is food), ball, car, prune, bread, bird, truck (which he pronounced as "Kuk").... He has been walking non-stop. As a result, he had countless falls and bumps. Finally after he had several big bumps in one day, we purchased a helmet for him. I was suprised that he kept the helmet on his head. He actually brought his helmet to me to put on his head a couple of times. Wished I had bought it earlier! Andy's favorite video is the Signing Time. This is one video that we have to take on our trip to China. His favorite songs are "Patty Cake" "Itsy Bitsy Spider" "If You Are Happy and You Know It". His favorite things are bubbles and flowers. He is ready to share. He continues winning everyone's heart by his charming smiles and friendly waving.

Fred and Fang gave us some toys. Andy really enjoyed them.

It's signing time!

bath fun: Andy and Emily don't usually take bath together because of their separate bedtimes. Once they did, they loved it!

Poor boy with a big knot

Andy's first Carousel ride. Emily decided to sit and watch instead.

While Emily was doing the puzzles in the library, I had to chase Andy around. Here he is:

David and I have been busy connecting with old friends and meeting new friends recently. Our friends Dawn and Lori both had baby boys not long ago. We had chances to meet them. We also had lunch with Leslie and dinner with the Hargroves. It always refreshes us after spending time with friends. We also made some new friends during the last couple of weeks. One was a family (American husband and Chinese wife) that David and Emily met at the playground. They were looking for a church to plugin. We invited them over for a dinner and shared our stories. The other was the New Life Behavior Ministry (http://www.nlbi.net/) friends. They were looking for someone to help them to translate their courses into Chinese and put on the website for their training seminars in China next year. David knew the president of that Ministry (they went to Russia together several years ago) and this task seems to be right in my alley. So I volunteered to help them out. As a result, we got to know several wonderful people who are involved in this ministry. This brought back my memory when I was baptized. My old neighbor Bill (who did some Bible study with me when I moved into that apartment) asked me on the way to my baptism what I wanted to do in the future. I told him that I wanted to translate English Christian literature into Chinese to help the Chinese Christians to get more Biblical teachings. At that time, I didn't know how and what to do yet. It seems that the perfect opportunity didn't come up until eight years later! Five years ago, Don Barnett and I talked about starting an online Bible study with people in China. But because of lacking of resource, we didn't proceed with the idea. Now the Seeker's ministry under NLBI is doing exactly that. I can't wait to see how this ministry will bless the Chinese people in the future!

We will take our China vacation from August 15th through September 5th. We pray that everyone will stay healthy and safe during the trip; we will be an encouragement to the Beijing missionaries; God will be gloried in everything we do in China; we will be a light everywhere we go; we will find opportunities for future contribution; ... I'm sure we'll have a lot to say next month. Until then, please say a prayer for us. Thank you!