Where have they been?

Jennifer writes:

Where have the Stams been?  Well, we’re still in DC.  I apologize (again) for the lack of update on our blog.  Here’s a quick review of our life in the past couple of months. 

As you may know, we began the application for my green card in March.  By God’s grace, we received my green card in the mail early August!  One great thing about having the green card is that I can leave the country AND get back in without any problems!  So I am actually updating now from the northwest as I take a vacation visiting my family in Vancouver and Seattle.

Mark’s internship at CHBC ended in May.  We went through a couple of months of unemployment.  It was definitely a time of testing and growing in our trust in the Lord.  The Lord of course proved Himself faithful and kind to us by providing for us, sometimes in unexpected ways.  In His kindness, we both started working in August.  I find Mark’s job quite ironic.  He was born without any appreciation for coffee and anything coffee-tasting.  But he is now working at Starbucks!  I definitely enjoy the benefits of his job at Starbucks (a pound of coffee a week, wa-hoo!!).  To make things even more interesting, I also am working part-time as a barista at a local coffee shop (www.ebenezerscoffeehouse.com).  Besides making gourmet coffee, I also teach 2.5 year-olds at a preschool.  I’ve always kind of wanted to work as a barista.  But teaching kiddos at preschool?  Never crossed my mind.  Looking back, perhaps God has been preparing me for this job.  Since moving to DC I’ve spent more time with toddlers and young kids (either babysitting or hanging out with the moms) than ever before in my life.  God has grown my love for kids and experience with them.  On top of that, my employers at the preschool are both ladies from my church and are very encouraging.  So even though the job requires a lot of physical energy, patience and wisdom, I am enjoying it! 

As I mentioned earlier, I came to Vancouver last Friday to visit my family.  I’ve missed them!

Right now I’m enjoying hanging out with my little niece.  But I’m also looking forward to seeing Mark next week when I return to DC. 

That’s it for now.  Thanks for visiting our blog.  We hope to do a better job of keeping it up-to-date.

 

Iowa Vacation

After our NY trip, Mark and I rented a car and drove to Iowa to visit his family.  We haven’t been driving much nowadays, since we don’t own a car.  So it felt like we were making up for that by making it all the way to Iowa in one day, a 17-hour drive!  It’s always fun to go to Iowa.  Mark’s family is never short of activities for us to do.  At the same time, it was so relaxing to be out of the city for a while. 

Mark’s sister Laura and her family are back in the States this year from South America.  It was great seeing them (minus the brother-in-law who was out of town) again and getting to know her and the kids a little more.  Our nieces and nephew are growing up fast! 

It’s good that Mark captured this moment, because it was the only time Avianna allowed me to hold her.  It took a while for her to warm up to us.  Also in the picture are Joyce (Mark’s mom), Olivia and Makayla.

Mark’s parents’ neighbors have a mini-zoo.  They have animals from stinky goats (they REALLY stink), pigs, horses to baby bobcat, baby owls and baby hawk.  The peacocks are now supposed to be in a cage.  But this tricky one has not been captured yet.  In this picture it’s roaming freely on the barn roof.

We had a picnic at Red Rock Park.  The kids had a blast playing in the water.  Joyce is a cool grandmother.  She plays in the water with the grandkids, she even picks up snakes on occasion to show the grandkids.

Yes, I gave fishing a try.

Avianna found quite a few dead little fishes in the water, and they kept her entertained the whole time.

We spotted this mother and her tiny new baby on Mark’s parents’ farm.

 

New York, New York

New York City is seriously one of my (Jennifer) favorite cities in the world.  I’m so glad that it’s not far from us – only a 4-hour bus ride away!  I cannot have enough of it.  So about 2 weeks after my trip to NY with my friend, Mark and I went back for a day trip.  We left real early in the morning.  I mean really really early.  And we didn’t get back to DC till that night.  Needless to say, we were exhausted.  But we had a great time of course!  What made this trip even better is that we arrived at Chinatown in the morning, so we had some Chinese breakfast.  Then we went back around noon to have dim sum for lunch!  And on the way back to DC we bought carry-out Chinese food for dinner!!  Oh, did I mention real good bubble tea?

 

 

 

Ellis Island

 

Boy, I’m so glad that immigration is not nearly as hard now as it was back then!

 

Central Park

 

Inside St. Patrick’s Cathedral

 

NY and Boston

Jennifer writes:

It seems that the Traveling Stams have been on the move again lately.  Mark and I have taken a few trips, together and separately, over the past month.

Back in May, a friend of mine with whom I had been spending time for a few months wanted to visit the East Coast before she had to return to China at the end of May.  I was so glad when she asked me to go with her!  Linqin has become a good friend, and I had a great time with her on the trip.  She is now back in China, and I miss her a bunch!

We took the bus to New York first.  We spent one afternoon and one morning there, not as much time as I’d like in one of my favorite cities in the world.  Then we took another bus to go to Boston, and stayed there for a few days.  Boston is a charming old city, with a lot of old buildings and winding cobblestone streets.  We explored the Freedom Trail – it might have been more fun if we possessed more knowledge of American history.

 

We stayed at The Pod Hotel.  It was possibly the smallest hotel room I’ve ever stayed at in North America.  What you see in the picture is pretty much all there is in the room.  We shared bathrooms with the whole floor.  With that said, I did enjoy my stay there very much.  It was new, clean and trendy.  And you can’t beat the location, right in the heart of Midtown East.

 

St. Patrick’s Cathedral

 

Central Park

 

Linqin and I

 

Boston

 

Mr. John Harvard himself

 

Panda bears and their friends

Jennifer writes:

At the end of May Mark and I finally went down to the National Zoo.  Mark, being the avid animal lover, was very excited about the visit.  The zoo did not disappoint.  We had a great time visiting the panda bears, elephants, cool reptiles (according to Mark – I tried to avoid the reptiles), apes, orangutans and more.  The only less-than-satisfactory part was the tigers.  Having been to the tiger park in northeast China last year, where they had hundreds of Siberian tigers in their natural habitat, the 2 lazy tigers laying around by the pond in the zoo were just not that gripping anymore.

Here are some highlights from the zoo.

The panda bears were given by China, and this is one of the containers the pandas came in.

Silly orangutan was playing with his blankie.

These alpacas have just been shaved.

The anteater trying to get the sweets with his nose/mouth.

 

Mt. Vernon

Couple of weekends ago we had our first visitor since we moved to DC.  Mark’s uncle Stephen came to Virginia for a church meeting, and we were able to spend a Saturday with him.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day – clear blue sky and perfect temperature.  We visited Mount Vernon - George Washington’s home - in the morning, and hit some toursty spots in the city in the afternoon.  We had a lot of fun!

It was a perfect day to visit Mount Vernon.  That’s Washington’s mansion.

Washington had some awesome view of the Potomac River from his home.  A group of people bought the land on the other side of the river to ensure the view is maintained for generations to come.

George Washington’s final resting place is also at Mt. Vernon.

This picture is for my (Jennifer’s) family and any Chinese history buff out there.  In the visitor center there are pictures hanging on the wall of leaders and royalties of different countries who have visited Mt. Vernon.  I was delighted to see Madame Chiang Kai-Shek’s picture.

Thanks for visiting, Stephen!

 

Embassy Row

Jennifer writes:

Few weeks ago Mark and I had a fun date walking down Embassy Row.  We spotted a few of special interest to us.  Check it out:

Marshall Islands (for our friends Dave and Monica and their daughter Makana).  Sadly, the embassy looked rather unkempt, with the flag rolled up and overgrown grass.

Previet!  That little white row house is the Kyrgyz embassy.

Philippines!

 

Sakura

Jennifer writes:

It’s cherry blossom season here in DC!  Cherry trees, dogwood, tulip trees (I don’t know exactly what they are, but the blossoms look like tulips) have been blossoming all over town for the past few weeks.  Last Saturday Mark and I walked down the National Mall to the Tidal Basin to enjoy some beautiful scenery.  It was not as enjoyable as we had hoped, because it turned out to be a crazy windy day, and by the time we left at around 9:30am it had gotten so crowded that taking pictures was getting difficult.  But we had a good time and got some great shots of the trees.  Enjoy!

This is Stanton Park next to our apartment.

It was a beautiful clear day.  That’s the Washington Monument sticking out behind Smithsonian Castle.

We also found this World War Memorial.  It doesn’t say World War “one”, because it was built before the second World War.

 

My favourite animal is…

Jennifer writes:

Remember those elephants (or elePants as Avianna might put it) that I saw passing by our apartment last week?  The parade was a great advertising tactic.  After seeing them we decided that we must go back to visit them.  So we bought tickets to the circus last Thursday!

Well, if we were 20 years younger we might have enjoyed it more.  Nevertheless, we were very glad to see our elephant friends again, along with some very cool indeed performances.  For example:

What do you think is inside the globe?  7, I repeat, SEVEN motorcycle riders are spinning around the globe extremely fast on their bikes in this extremely precise choreographed sequence.  It was a little too stressful for me to watch.

There were also some very beautiful tigers performing.

The elephants!

Let’s hold hands…er…tails.

Good job!  I love elephants!

 

Inside the Capitol

Jennifer writes:

Last week Mark and I got to go on a Capitol tour with some other Iowans – the tour was given by a lady who works in Senator Grassley’s (spelling correct?) office.  At the end of the tour we were given Senate and House Gallery passes, so we could sit in anytime they are in session and listen.  Of course no photography was allowed, so we could not take any pictures of the lone Senator from Nevada who was making his speech and who was the only senator in the room except people taking notes and recording.  Honestly, I would rather spend my afternoon doing anything else than sitting there listening.  I’m just not very into politics.  After his speech Senator Grassley came in to make his speech.  But by that time we’d had enough of that so we left shortly after.

Here are some pictures from the Capitol.

Apparently there are underground tunnels connecting all the Senate buildings and the Capitol.  This is the little subway that takes you from one of the Senate buildings to the Capitol.

The Rotunda.  George Washington is in the painting on the ceiling, surrounded by 14 or so ladies.  I forgot what they represent.  Sorry..I’ll pay more attention next time.

Mark inside the Rotunda.

There is an acoustic flaw in this room.  This is where John Adams’ desk used to be.  After he died it was discovered from his journal that he used to eavesdrop on people whispering across the room and pretend he was taking a nap.  We tested it out – our tour guide stood across the big room and whispered to us.  We heard it like it was amplified through a loud speaker!  Very interesting.

The star on the floor behind Mark is supposedly the center of Washington DC.  DC, as you may know, is divided into four quadrants with the Capitol as the center.  And that star is in the center of the Capitol building.

It seems that there is never a dull week in our life in DC.  Still more to come from our fun-filled week.