Ni How-dy!

I'm back! I've mainly been updating my other blog (and my husband even posted there in my absence!) as I usually post only homeschool-related "stuff" here, but I just wanted to let anyone who mainly checks here know that we are back from China. I did a quick turnaround and spent a few days in Maryland with my cute husband, and now we are back! I was so excited on the plane, knowing that I was coming back for SUMMER. NO SCHOOL! The kids are excited, too. (Surprise, surprise.)

Ever the homeschooler, I had my current issue of The Old Schoolhouse and Practical Homeschooling magazine with me, as well as the new Veritas Catalog. (25+ hours of travel time, you know!) I also made curriculum decisions and shopped for books while I was there. My daughter is really wanting to pursue Chinese for her foreign language credits for high school, and I prayed specifically before we went that the Lord would show me whether this was "doable" for us or not. I feel that the Lord has shown me that this is definitely something she can do, as she used what she's learned from just a few tutoring sessions as well as what she's learned so far in her Chinese in 10 Minutes a Day book. (I have found this to be an excellent resource, available for several languages.) I feel like God is really enabling her in this area. She spoke really well, enough to get us around town, order in restaurants, and bargain for "Coach" purses. (The quotation marks are because I'm not sure how "real" they are. But they look real...enough. ;)

Our friends had Chinese Made Easy, a series that their company recommended, but by midway through the first book the students are to write Chinese. Uh, I don't think so. Both of my friends kids are fluent in Chinese, but I think that comes from 8 years of living there and one-on-one tutoring more than from those books. Also, they speak it fluently but don't write it. Anyway, the answer key in the back of the CME book is all in Chinese, so I couldn't navigate it very well. For now I think we'll stick with our Pimsleur Mandarin cd's, add in Rosetta Stone Mandarin, and I'll stay on the lookout for some workbooks in Pin-Yin (English characters- since there are only 26 letters as opposed to over 800 characters!)

One of the other families there is moving back to the states, and sold me their set of Joy Hakim's History of US books for 150 yuan (less than 20 US dollars!) That was worth finding room in our suitcases for! I had it in my Amazon.com cart for over 100 dollars, so I was glad to find those.

So... we are back. We are looking forward to some down time this summer while I make preparations for school to begin again in August. I love planning, so once my mind gets back in this time zone I'll be digging in.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and for so many of your prayers and emails while I was gone. You are such a blessing to me!