Dreams

Aaron had a dream on Wednesday night that a little Chinese boy was standing next to our bed trying to wake him up.

I wish I would have a sweet dream about a Chinese bubba. (Instead the last dream I can remember having consisted of my mother phoning me at work to tell me, through huge sobs, that Britney Spears had committed suicide. It was bizarre. When I woke up I thought, 'why was she crying?, 'why would she call me at work to tell me that?' 'why is she even interested in Britney?' Bah!)

In other news, I got the book I left on the plane back! What were the chances!

Chinese New Year

Happy year of the pig! We had a great weekend packed full of celebrations for Chinese New Year.

Saturday night we went to a 10pm celebration at the local taoist temple. There was a lion dance and some kung fu demonstrations. Sunday we went to lunch with other adoptive families / prospective adoptive families. The state newspaper was there and took a photo of the gorgeous children - which made it to the front page of yesterday's paper!


Sunday evening we headed into Chinatown, joined by Aaron's brother and his family. We enjoyed watching a dragon dance and another lion dance, before checking out the markets and having dinner at a Chinese restaurant. We thought our 5 year old neice would be scared of the lions and firecrackers, but she was so excited that she was squealing and wanting to get as close as she could!

The local low-down

Five families in Queensland received referrals last weekend. I'm not sure why we find out a week later than the rest of the world, but it must be torture for the families concerned.

That's it for the 2005 LIDs from Qld, so it's not likely that there'll be referrals for a while now. Hangin' in there for Batch 8 & 9 who are next and have a February '06 log-in.

Mandarin Labels

This will probably only be of interest to those learning mandarin - and even then, just those in the early stages. I created some labels to stick up around the house to remind me of what things are called.

I couldn't work out how to add a file for download in blogger, so quickly made a webpage for them. Go here http://mandarinlabels.googlepages.com/ to download them. They are in a Word doc, set up to be printed on sheets of business cards (but will also work fine printed on regular paper or card).

In other news, Aaron bought me a neat book called The Chinese Have a Word For It, about Chinese phrases and culture, but we went away last weekend and I mistakenly left it on the plane! Tomorrow I'm going to phone the airline and the airport of where we went, but I don't like my chances..!

Simpsons Episode - Goo Goo Gai Pan

There was a Simpsons episode showing tonight (repeat from 2005) about adopting from China. Selma adopts baby Ling. It was cute. Completely inaccurate and all that, but all in good fun.

China banned the Simpsons from prime time tv last year (read one of many articles about it here from ABC).

Nì Hǎo Pod-buddies!

Hey, Checking Boxes is famous! We got a shout-out on Chinese Pod's Saturday Show this week. Thanks Aric, Colleen and Jenny.

You can listen here: (it's at about the 20 minute mark, but you should listen to the whole show... afterall, it is the 'greatest saturday show in the world')

	周六35 The Saturday Show for February 03, 2007
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