I bet you guys thought we forgot about this whole blog thing… so sorry for the long absence. Our lives have been a little crazy since we last posted, but we vow to get back to a regular schedule of posting a blog every couple of weeks – especially now that we are in a new city (Xi’an)!!!

I’m not even sure where to start, since the last blog was over 4 months ago and Elise was only 6 weeks old. Now she’s going on 6 months! I think the best thing to do is to break it up – posting 1 blog/week over the next 3 weeks. Today’s topic: finishing up our time in the States. Next week: our month long trip back to China, and after that: starting life in our new city!!!

So to best summarize our last 2 months in the States, we will let pictures do the talking. There are so many great memories, and we’re sad we can’t give attention to each one. Approximate chronological order, and non-descript titles will have to do. With intermittent random pictures of Elise of course.

10 year college reunion. Our football team won conference… Go Bucs!!!

Elise’s many faces continue to impress

Live football game with my favorite Aggie

Elise learns to do laundry, and drink from a bottle

“Grandpa Doug’s” 60th!

Friends came from three different states to see us!

Attended an awesome Tabla concert where our friend Leilani rocked it…

With my best friend from college, now with kids?! We look a little dazed and confused…

After Elise’s 2 month vaccinations, she caught her first virus. After about a week of fever, we landed in the ER in the middle of the night :(. It turned out to be just a cold, and the nurses loved her, so not all bad!

My nephew turned 4, and my little brother turned 30

Trail of lights with good friends!

Mozarts light show… Kristen & a college roommate with their baby girls (future college roommates??)

Elise’s baby dedication at our local church…

Thanksgiving in Dallas with Kristen’s dad & fam (and some mini ponies)

First Christmas…

Elise’s hand sewn quilt from Kristen’s grandma!

My Family…

Kristen’s family (making Chinese dumplings on the left)

Leaving…
(including the traditional last meal with the Ahmed family)

(and my parents sending us off at the Houston airport)

No screen-time, unless on an international flight 😉

Congratulations! You made it to the end :). See you next week.

Elise is already 6 weeks old…whaaaaat?!!! Time flies, so Kristen and I are trying to enjoy every second of getting to know our daughter and the personality God has given her.

She’s smiling more, cooing, and loves to lay on her back and kick her legs. We go through about 10 diapers/day, and she’s already outgrown her NB clothes… mostly bc her head doesn’t fit through them 🙂 She sleeps great at night, including one 8 hour stretch last night!

Our location at Kristen’s dad’s house is perfect, and we’ve tried to take advantage of it as much as possible… like walking around Lady Bird Lake as a family 2-3 times/week:

When we are not being attacked by mosquitos, Elise enjoys hanging out on the front porch with Mom!

Pondering how Texas football could possibly be this bad…

Going pumpkin shopping with the Grandmas!!!

Going with mom and dad to celebrate their 7 year anniversary out at Lake Travis. It’s good to see the lake full again!!!

Trick or Treating with Uncle Andrew, Aunt Jennifer and cousins Aiden and Tyler!

This first month has been so fun for us as a family! Can’t wait to see what the next 6 weeks has in store!!!

I’ll end with a short video of Elise showing off her Irish dancing skills…

Our 7lb 5oz, 19.5 inch baby entered the world at 8:37pm on September 20th. 

Here’s a photo timeline of her first 10 days:

Our first time holding our daughter…

A few to show her personality…

Then when she was 8 days old, we had an amazing photographer come to our house to take some pictures. So if you are looking for someone to take family/lifestyle/holiday shots for you, Kelle Schreiber is the best around!!!

Time really flies and we can’t believe she is already 10 days old. We are enjoying every sleepless second of it!!!

And yes, Elise and I have caught a few football games together!

We will leave you with a funny video of Elise… tipsy around 2am 🙂

So we’ve been back a little over 7 weeks…wow, time flies! We’ve been able to spend a lot of time with family, friends, and the Texas heat! As we await the birth of Elise (she is already 5 days past due) we thought it would be a good idea to give you an idea of what we’ve been doing with our time.

Having not stepped foot on American soil in 2 years, there were so many people that we were wanting to see, and still plan on seeing, during our time here this Fall. Now we love our friends but, in this case, family definitely came first. We spent the first 34 days with family, soaking up our time with them.

But first thing’s first… after unloading our luggage at my parents’ house, we immediately drove to the nearest HEB. This is not a criticism on our awesome market we had back in China, but it is so nice to be able to get everything you need for the week, all in one place. Plus there were a few food items we had been craving!

Then at the checkout line, Kristen and I were so confused and had to let my mom show us what to do…

First meal? Steak!

Can’t find steak like that in China… didn’t take long to polish that bad boy off!

And more steak a week later with Kristen’s grandma…

Some pics of our time with family…

It has also been nice being back in Austin.

Kristen’s Dad has graciously given us his house while we are back this fall, and we couldn’t feel more blessed. It’s within walking distance of most of our favorite spots in Austin!

Like the trail around Lady Bird Lake…

 

But most importantly, we’ve been preparing for baby Elise…

Now we are praying that Elise would come soon! We are ready to meet her, and Kristen is ready to not be pregnant 🙂  …look at those cankles!

Sorry it has taken me so long to post this “coming home” video… I’ve been too busy eating guacamole 🙂

The day of my birthday (May 21st) my language teacher was getting married. So how cool that we got to attend her wedding on my birthday?!… best birthday gift ever! And actually, we were not invited to the actual ceremony, only the dinner that follows. But hey, free food?… yes please!

Kristen even got to help do the flowers… Nailed it!

One of the coolest, and most unexpected, things was when the bride stopped the ceremony to make everyone sing happy birthday to me! Video below:

It was an amazing birthday gift to be able to be a part of such a beautiful wedding.

 

Oh, and my friend from back home mailed me this pillowcase for my bday. I’m a huge fan of Steph, but still in shock that they blew a 3-1 lead to lose to Lebron & co.!

 

Well, when you have a day off of school and most of your city is fasting for Ramadan, you naturally ask a couple of friends to go out and climb a mountain with you! We’ve had some pretty incredible weather here lately, highs in the 70s and lows in the upper 30s. The day of this climb was the best one yet. Me and a couple of buddies drove to the mountains about an hour and a half outside our city to take in the view of our province from 14,000 ft up.

I’ll let the pictures do the talking…

 

In all, the hike took 7 hours and wore me out, but was so worth it. Not a bad way to spend a day!!!

So this our final installment of the “a day in the life” series… unless we think of something else cool to show you guys. Any ideas?

We conclude with taking you to our favorite restaurant in town. This type of food is called “Ma la tang,” which stands for “numbing spice hot”. It originates in Sichuan, a province that borders us to the south, so there are quite a few of these restaurants in our parts. We really like the flavor, and it’s also the healthiest choice by far, so we go a lot. The video will give you a good idea of what it’s like, but we welcome visitors to come try it out for themselves 🙂 Check it out:

As a matter of fact… I think we will go right after we publish this blog 😉

So we never actually announced here that we were pregnant. Hopefully it was slightly obvious in some of the videos we’ve posted recently (i.e. groceries)… but either way, we’re pregnant! and we found out last week that it’s a girl!!!

A lil’ ms. franklin will be joining our family in September 🙂 We couldn’t be more excited. Here she is… facing the camera with her right hand up by her ear. Maybe saying 你好 (ni hao)?

The ultrasound video might only be interesting for our parents, and for us in the future… but here it is:

She wasn’t cooperating enough to take any 3D pictures, so we asked the internet to make a prediction instead… we’ll have to wait a few years to see how accurate it is:

 

I’m 22 weeks tomorrow, and thankfully the pregnancy has been pretty uneventful so far. Even the first trimester wasn’t bad… apart from throwing up in the security line of the Xi’an airport, in front of maybe 1,000 people. Hopefully the rest of the pregnancy goes just as smoothly. Cravings? Nothing consistent really… but bread & cheese, and watermelon top the list.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mom’s out there (especially ours)! 🙂

We mentioned that this blog was going to be dedicated to our favorite local restaurant, however, I completely forgot we were leaving the city. So instead, this blog is dedicated to taking the train.

Riding a train in China is a must-do!!! First, they’re cheap and convenient. Second, it’s a great way to meet people. Every time we have taken a train, we have met amazing people and have learned a lot about their culture and way of life.

Train tickets are sold at four different levels… no seat (standing), hard seat, hard sleeper, and soft sleeper. No seat is obviously the cheapest (and least comfortable) and the soft sleeper is the most expensive and has the most privacy (four people in a private room). Our hard sleeper tickets to Xi’an (a 12 hour trip) cost about $30/pp one way.

The video below documents the process of getting on in Xining, and off in Xi’an:

Be on the lookout for 2 more blogs. One being the our favorite local restaurant, and two being our baby’s gender reveal blog 🙂