We have a blog!

So, moving to China wasn't quite enough to motivate me to start a blog. But moving to China AND having a baby (soon)...that did it. My two main reasons for writing this blog are to keep our families updated (mostly on the little one) and for my own journaling purposes. But I'm happy to welcome any readers who would like to see lots of pictures of a ridiculously cute baby (which I'm sure he will be, when he's finally done cooking in approximately 3 weeks and 2 days). Brandon and I are getting nicely settled into our apartment in Nanjing (pictures to come!). It's a studio apartment, but much bigger than the studio we had in Shanghai. And with TWO burners instead of one, aren't we lucky? :) We're trying to decide what we'll do with Oliver when he gets here. Sleeping at night shouldn't be too much of a problem - even if we had a couple bedrooms he would be sleeping in our room for the first several months. But naps during the day might be a challenge because there's not really a dark, quiet place for him to be. Today I was envisioning creating a sort of bedroom for him with a sheet, some yarn, and command hooks. We're about to get all kinds of fancy up in here ;). Maybe we'll tape some grocery bags to the "wall" to add a little "decoration" to his "nursery". What a lucky little boy he will be in his very own corner! We'll figure something out, and we'll be sure to take lots of pictures when we do.

Brandon is enjoying his first week at Nanjing University! The campus where the Flagship office is located (which is the campus within walking distance of our apartment) apparently only offers masters level classes so that's what Brandon and his FS classmates will be taking. But the first couple weeks they're allowed to attend several different classes before deciding which ones they will take. And a lot of the masters classes don't even start until the second or third week of school. So this week has been pretty laid back for Brandon (and for me, of course, but that's a different story). He's gone to a couple classes that he has enjoyed, and some that he won't be going back to. Hopefully he can find a few that will be interesting and worthwhile (and, if we're lucky, will transfer to BYU credit).

Meanwhile, I've been trying to keep myself busy! The first couple days in our apartment I spent a lot of time cleaning. It wasn't too bad, but I just feel better knowing that it's been cleaned by me. I've also been spending time studying Chinese, crocheting (I only have a few more weeks to finish Oliver's blanket!), exploring the markets and shops nearby, and hanging out with the FS wives! We're here with five other married couples from BYU and we've met two married couple from ASU who are also here with FS. Two of the couples live in our building, four couples live in a building about a five minute walk from us, and one couple lives about a five minute walk in the other direction. It's just perfect. Such a blessing to have so many friends nearby :). Our Nanjing branch also seems wonderful. The Relief Society president had all the sisters over yesterday for lunch and a walk to Xuanwu Lake (so beautiful, but sadly I didn't bring my camera with me. A post without pictures is so boring, I apologize!). The FS girls make up about 3/4 of the RS sisters. The branch gets a whole lot bigger during the school year with the combination of FS students and BYU study abroad students :).

I found a picture to steal from facebook (thanks, Samy!) to make this post a little more interesting. Here's the group last Sunday - we all got together for Sunday dinner. With the eight married couples and three single BYU guys, there were 19 of us in Joe and Samy's studio apartment! What fun :).

Overall we're doing extremely well :). I have very swollen feet, and it hurts to walk (also to sit, stand, or move in any way) but I can count the remaining days on my fingers and toes (and also my ears and nose)! We're getting so close and we are just so excited!