year in review

Standing at the stove, preparing Christmas dinner, it suddenly occurred to me that we had spent Christmas in six different homes in the last six years:

2012 – Here in our home in the north of China
2011 – a temporary home in Cobourg, Ontario
2010 – a temporary home in Scarborough, Ontario
2009 – our home in the south of China
2008 – our previous home in the north of China
2007 – our home in Toronto, Ontario

But we’ve always been together, and we’ve always had warmth and love to spare. While we were back in Canada, someone approached me in a church once with a scripture verse for me. She read it out of the Message translation: Psalm 90:1 “God, it seems you’ve been our home forever…”

This year marked the culmination of a few years of efforts: getting back to the city that feels like home so JavaMan could finally launch his business here.

In January, we spent time with family after Christmas, and got to indulge in lots of snow play and making lots of Canada memories before we left. It was as cold as it looks!

In February, we said “goodbye” to JavaMan, who left for China to find us our fantastic apartment. He did such a great job keeping me up-to-date with his search while he was in China and we were back in Canada.

Finally, in March, our day to board the plane arrived. We crammed everything we could into those suitcases, had to leave a few cherished possessions and homeschool things behind (and later found out we had several more pounds luggage allowance than we’d been told, despite asking), and were on our way!

We jumped into the homeschool routine just as quickly as we could in April, when our belongings were still somewhat in bins, and we still had no heat in the house. We went out on nature walks and stomped around (and got lost) in our new/old city. It was good to be home!

We still had no furniture, except for the small table and chairs we used in the homeschool room, and had no idea then that we’d be waiting until the end of October before it finally arrived!

By May, spring had sprung in our city, and after a bit of a scare with our paperwork for our visa applications, we were finally granted one year visas for our stay here. We settled in even more and began our Chinese lessons at HoldtheMSG.com,

Summer went by all too quickly, with only a short break for regrouping and planning the new school year.

In retrospect, we’re glad we took only a short break, since the new school year turned out to have lots of breaks, with seemingly one holiday or interruption after another–a trip to the Chinese countryside, the Chinese national holiday, Canadian Thanksgiving, American Thanksgiving…

…and the arrival of our furniture!

Since then, we’ve begun ESL classes and other meetings in our home and have had a chance to entertain quite a bit, including 7 friends on Christmas Day!

I’m participating in a Blog Cruise with The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew. Click here to read more of these posts.

It is difficult to capture in words and pictures all that this year has meant to our family, but I’m a sucker for year in review stories, so when Spirit-Led Homeschooling introduced a blog hop, I just had to participate.

Until June, I had virtually no online presence, but as I finally dusted off the manuscript that had been neglected during the last couple of years, I knew I wanted to begin blogging again. I had a clearer purpose for the writing I wanted to do, and knew what I wanted to inspire in my readers: courage, hope and conviction. So this blog was born.

In July, I finished my manuscript for After the Snow Falls, and we began our busy summer of traveling.We were also blessed to visit with my sister and her family before their move to Germany. Growing up, I could never have imagined our close-knit family would be flung so far from each other! Later in the month, we attended the Dream in High Park. It was a highlight of the summer.

In August, I wrote two popular posts: Homeschool Spaces and A Day in the Life, with a window into our homeschool, and we went on part two of our summer roadtrips, with visits to tourist destinations and a camping trip sprinkled in along the way. During that period, I wrote a post on Our Secret to Traveling Well with Kids.

The highlight of the month for me was being blessed with a trip to the Greater Philadelphia Christian Writer’s Conference.

In September, I experienced a low with a miscarriage–the third in a year and a half, and I posted about that in a post on Defictionalizing Miscarriage. September was also the month we settled in to our homeschool routine, and our new (temporary) home in the country.

In October, after posting just two months of menu plans, I finally started seeing a nutritionist about the health problems apparently responsible for the miscarriages. She recommended a new regimen for me, but also that we go gluten-free for the sake of my daughter’s nutrition as well. I posted about that in Going Gluten-Free, as well as subsequent posts with our experiments in bread-making, and another popular post on making a child’s Chef’s Hat and Apron.

The highlight of November was the trip to visit my sister in Kentucky and also to the Creation Museum. And after months of revision, I also signed with Trestle Press to see After the Snow Falls published.

December brought more visits with family, as we headed north for what turned out to be a white Christmas after all, and the release of After the Snow Falls. How appropriate!

It’s hard to believe so much happened in just a little over half a year. We are truly blessed. May your family be equally blessed as we head into another new year!

2012: A Look Back

The Year in Review: 2011