QIAN JIA TING: All about our Family

A New Blog!

Okay everyone, I've started a new blog. I thought it was fitting to close the chapter on "qianjiating" and begin a new blog in time for our China adventures. Here is the new address:
theqiansinchina.blogspot.com

So, please visit there and book that as the new Qian family site. Also, due to technical difficulties, I've lost EVERYONE'S blog addresses when I changed templates. PLEASE write me soon and tell me your blog address so that I can update my links and remain in touch. Thank you!

I'll check this one for another few days and then will be mainly checking and only updating the new blog: http://theqiansinchina.blogspot.com/

It's Official Now!

William will work for ATL Technology and I will teach 8th grade at Clifford School in Guangzhou, China. We will be living in the same place we lived when we met back in 2001. See the post from a couple of weeks ago for how this all came about. It's official! We're moving to China.

Girlfriends are a Treasured Gift!

I am incredibly grateful for the gift of friendship. I have truly been blessed with good and genuine friends and I really treasure those relationships. We are going to be leaving California very soon and so begins the process of gathering email addresses, taking pictures, and saying "goodbye" for a season. Here are a couple recent pics with some people I will miss!

Sheila is just amazing. She is an exceptional friend and we clicked almost immediately upon meeting. Right after I moved here, I met her at church and then saw her at the park. She offered to take care of the kids when the time came for me to give birth to baby Alex. Amazingly, I felt comfortable accepting her offer and we have become good friends since then. She is beautiful, smart, talented, and extremely capable. I have learned a lot from her and I will really, really miss her. She took me to one of her favorite places last week, Carmel. We sat on the beach chatting, ate a great dinner, and had a really great time.

Lori and Sheila in beautiful Carmel

These ladies and I have a special connection, since we all watched our 4-year olds enjoy Sonshine Preschool together this past year. Jackie, Linda, and Tina are such kind, fun, interesting women and it has been so great to get to know them! They are all very positive, energetic, and strong women and I am so glad that our children brought us together. I look forward to keeping in touch with them. They were really sweet and treated me to a fabulous Mexican dinner last week. We sat there for hours chatting, laughing, and having a blast. You ladies are awesome!

Jackie, Linda, Tina, and Lori at Alberto's

Enjoying the Summer with Friends

Our friends, Shannon and Brad, came to town. Shannon and I spent the day in Chinatown and had lunch at a great dimsum place right in the heart of it all. It was a really fun day!

Abraham and Annabelle hanging out with their friends on Memorial Day

The crazy boys having a Pepsi drinking contest

A family pic taken at our branch bbq a couple of weeks ago.

The piano man!

My favorite sister missionaries

Just kickin' back, letting the bottle hang

Annabelle is the most self-sufficient girl I know. Tired of waiting for me to change the batteries in her talking panda, she took matters into her own hands.

Annabelle loves taking pictures of me lately, so she took this one the other day.

Chun Fen and Jin Yan's son Wei graduated from high school. He's now off to UC Berkeley. Smart kid!

Why Are You Going to CHINA?

A lot of friends have been asking the same question: “Why are you going to China?” I thought I might attempt an answer to that question and will answer other questions in subsequent posts. Thanks for your interest!

First and foremost, our family's decision to go to China comes down to a feeling. William and I, for personal reasons, simply feel it is right at this time for our family to move there. As has always been the case before, the real reasons will show themselves after the fact, I’m sure. So, I would say that’s the first reason---a feeling. Lots of sub-categories under this “feeling” umbrella, but those are for us to sort through as we go through this exciting process.

Now, getting more concrete, and on to reason two. Our kids’ education. We have always wanted our kids to be bilingual, to be fluent in Mandarin and English. So far, that has not happened. They understand some Chinese but without context, they are in no way actually speaking it. There is a window of opportunity for the linguistic miracles to do their thing and we are coming to the end of that window with our oldest.

More than just the language issue, though, is education in general. William and I both have fairly strong feelings about what education means to a person’s life. We also know our kids, and know that they will benefit from a structured learning atmosphere, prior to what the U.S. kindergarten system (as wonderful as it is) can provide for them.

Second, we have family there. Yes, we also have family in the US and it has been wonderful to spend time with them these past 5 years. We have tried unsuccessfully to bring William’s parents here, even for a visit, only to be denied by the U.S. So, if we want our kids to know their only living grandparents, we are going to need to go to them! Having them associate with their extended family there will be a great blessing to them, I’m sure.

Third, money! We will have an opportunity to save money over there, whereas here that is impossible for us. Granted, we do live in one of the most expensive parts of the country, but our potential to save will increase quite a bit by working and living in China.

Well, those are the top three reasons, I guess. There are more, but that gives you an idea of why we’ve decided to move to the other side of the world. In an upcoming post, we’ll tell you more about what we’ll actually be doing there! And remember, if you’ve ever had the desire to visit China, we’d love to show you around. It is an incredible place!

Our Crazy, Happy Family at the Temple

I love this picture. We've got the 4-year old in the baby stroller with a pile of chocolate cake in front of him. The three year old is on her Daddy's shoulders, and the baby, with no pants, sits on Mom's lap. All of their shoes were long gone by this point. This was following a fireside and potluck dinner in Oakland Sunday night. A tiring, but very fun night.

Our attempt at a "nice family" pic in front of the temple. Abraham is trying to run away, Annabelle's sticking her tongue out, baby is looking at William...

Like I said, a happy, crazy family. That's us!

China, Germany, Alabama, California

You just never know where people are going to end up, or where we'll re-connect with friends. Alice and I met in a yoga class in China. Later that year, she married her German boyfriend, Jens. I remember seeing them at the lake one night and telling her I was pregnant. To my surprise, she said "me too!" We enjoyed hanging out with them and said our good-byes when William and I left China in 2003.

We kept in touch a bit and visited them in 2006 when we went back to China. At that time we met their daughter Karen who is very close in age to Abraham. We again said our good-byes.

Well, they are now living in Alabama and were going back to China for a visit recently. They stopped off here for a couple days, so we got to see them again. This time, we got to meet their baby boy, Peter. It was so fun. Our two families are very comfortable together and it was really fun to watch the kids play, partiularly Abraham and Karen :)

We wish them a wonderful trip to China and I imagine the next time we'll see them will be when we are living there and they come over for a visit. But, who knows!

A beautiful, smart family: Jens, Alice, Peter, Karen

Jens and Karen going "cherry picking" in our backyard.

William reading to the girls.

We took them to the Pleasanton farmer's market.

Alice, Jens, Peter, Alexander

William loved chatting with Jens.

Karen playfully winks at me while Abraham intensely takes "his woman" by the hand :) Mei Mei's not sure what to think, but she's holding tightly to those crackers!