The Williamson's

Today, Debi tested for her 1st degree black belt and Chuck tested for his 2nd degree recommended black belt. Both passed! WOOHOO! Debi has to learn a new form, the moves to Exodus, and more.

Danni and Nick sat with a student’s parents (Peggy & Richard) and was doing very well until she saw Debi. Thank you Peggy and Richard for watching Nick and Danni while we tested!!! This was the first time Danni was cared for by someone else without one of us VERY close by. Nick got to sit at the big table during the Tea Ceremony after testing. He helped Ms Raines pass out rocks and tea to students. The funniest thing is Debi was in the Tea Ceremony and Nick asked while on the way to dinner who she got the rock and tea from. When Debi said “Ms. Raines.” He said “No you didn’t cause I didn’t see you!” He didn’t remember seeing his mommy come up to the table sign her name on the scroll, get a rock, candle, and tea. He thought for a second and responded “I was focused on getting the rocks for Ms Raines I missed mommy! Did I do good?” hahaha

Happy 1st Birthday Danni!!!

Today, we celebrated Danni’s 1st birthday. We don’t have any big plans since we will do a big party at MeeMaw, PawPaw, and Uncle Jr’s house after the holidays.

The Tschoepe Family came for a visit and to meet Danni.  Cousins Tori and Spencer got to play with Nick and Danni.  Nick enjoyed the visit since he has been missing his cousins.

We were leaving to go to dinner and Nick said he had a loose tooth.  He has been saying it for months because all his friends have lost at least 2 or more teeth.   Debi checked and sure enough there was a loose tooth.  While eating spaghetti and meat balls, Nick lost his tooth.  We took it home and put it in a baggie so it didn’t get lost under his pillow.

Over night the tooth fairy came.  Nick was so excited that the tooth fairy took his tooth he didn’t even look in the baggie to see how much he got.  He is so funny!

We got home around 4pm Friday night.  Our flight landed ahead of schedule but by the time we got off the plan and to baggage claims it was 4:30pm.  We had a great flight and all the prayers were felt.  Danni and Nick slept some of the first leg of the trip and all the 2nd leg of the trip.  Craig and Kristin Kelly met us at the airport to take us home.  Thank you Kelly Family!

We had a great first night at home.  We all slept great until about 2am when some of us woke up.  We took MeeMaw to the ranch where we met up with PawPaw and Uncle Jr.  They were taking MeeMaw home.

We got back home in time for loads and loads of laundry.  We did laundry in China but it isn’t the same as home laundry.  We are all adjusting well to the time change.  We even made a trip to the church for AWANAs.  We didn’t get to see everyone but we saw some people.  Several had to do a double take to make sure it was us walking down the hall.  It was great to be home.

We leave Hong Kong for home at 12:50pm.  We are on the same flight as 2 other families in the group.  Security in China is very different than the USA.  There is more security check points but you get through them faster than in the USA with less security check points.  The flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco is 11 to 12 hours long.  We land in San Francisco after we take off from Hong Kong.  It is so funny to say that.  Once we land and get through security and immigration, Danni will be a US Citizen.  YAY!!!  We have a 2 1/2 hour layover and then we are home bound for Dallas.  We are on the same flight as 1 other family who lives in Allen which is about 45 minutes from us.

We can’t wait to be home!

We didn’t do much other than pack and get ready to take the train to Hong Kong.  Our guide will be picking up Danni’s visa while we are waiting on the train.  She will meet us at the train station with all the information for Danni to be a US Citizen when we arrive in the USA.

We are all doing great and adjusting to the new addition.  Nick is missing home and his friends more each day.  We are all starting to want to be at home.  The beds are hard as bricks and the ones here are the worse.  Just when we get to sleep a body part falls asleep and you have to adjust. 

Our train ride is about 2 or 3 hours long so it will be night by the time we get to Hong Kong.

We spent 99% of the day shopping for gifts and items to bring home.  We ended up buying another bag to check.  MeeMaw has gotten better at negotiating the prices.  We went to the pearl market.  Yep, you guessed it Debi and Danni got pearls.  We walked through the herbal market on the way back to the hotel.  It was quite interesting.  They had dogs, cats, rabbits, scorpiones, turtles, water snakes, frogs, fish, and lots of dries stuff.  A guy in our group tried dried black ants.  It wasn’t as bizarre as we thought it would be but it was quite interesting.    They still drive a little crazy here.  They would at least honk and give you a few more seconds to move out of the way before they tried to run you over.  In Nanchang, you would get a honk then a second later they would try to run you over if you didn’t get out of their way.  Our guide is wonderful.  She stood in the street on occasion to help our group get across the street so no one would run us over.  At one point, MeeMaw, Debi, Nick, and our guide were between a group of bicycles on one side and cars on the other side.  It was a little nerve racking but everyone made it across the street safely.  Thanks to our guide!  After getting back to the hotel, it was lunch time and then Debi, Danni, and MeeMaw went out shopping while Nick and Chuck spent daddy-son time alone.  They went to the little park behind Lucy’s. 

Tonight, we had our last group dinner before most of us are off to Hong Kong.  We had Cantonese food.  It was great.  They only had 4 highchairs for our group to use.  They were really like booster chairs because there was nothing to keep the babies from sliding out.  Danni and Finley shared a chair.  It was so cute.  They were sharing a plate of food.  At one point, Finley was feeding Danni noodles.  It took a few times to actually get a picture of that.  We will post that later.  It was really cute that our 2 Dallas babies were sharing so well.  Our table was the Texas table.  The other family at the table was from New Braunfels.

We think MeeMaw is ready to get home just like we are.  It is hard living out of a suitcase for 14 days.  Nick is starting to get homesick too.  He has a couple more pages of homework to finish and a couple book left to read.  He is enjoying the time playing with other kids in the group, but we think he is ready to sleep in his own bed.  The beds here are harder than the other beds we have slept on.

We waited around our hotel room.  Well, Chuck waited in the hotel room.  Our guide took all our paperwork to the American Consulate to fill the paperwork to bring Danni home.  We had a group picture on the famous red couch.  Danni was screaming and crying the whole time while the babies on each side of her looked at Danni like she was crazy for crying.  It was kind of funny.  She doesn’t like Debi to put her down.  Debi went to shop again today with MeeMaw and Nick while Chuck and Danni stayed in the room for a nap.  MeeMaw is learning the art of bargaining from Debi.  We had to buy another suitcase to bring back goodies home.

This afternoon we went to the American Consulate to take our oath which is our last step to bringing Danni home.  On Thursday, our guide will pick up Danni’s visa and we will take a train to Hong Kong with 9 other families.  After leaving the consulate, we had a group dinner at a Thai restuarant.  It was good.  Most restuarants charge you for a to-go container but they don’t accept tips.  They charge a service fee instead of tips.  A glass was broke at dinner and the family was charged for the broken cup.  Imagine what would happen in the USA if that were to happen.  Guangzhou is a lot calmer than Nanchang.  Nanchang was busy and noisy.  Debi and MeeMaw walked across the street in Nanchang.  They stayed really close to 2 elderly ladies because they didn’t want to get ran over.  In Guangzhou, you can cross the street and may get honked at but the chances of getting hit are a lot slimmer here that in Nanchang.  In Nanchang, you might get hit or at least the likelihood of getting hit are greater. 

Debi practiced a few of her Cantonese words on the locals.  Some could understand her and some just laughed.  Even here we got questions about what province Nick is from.  When we told them he was ours, they were a little skeptical until we told them PawPaw is Chinese from Guanzhou.