We took our whole family to this large event, and stayed overnight at the same hotel. Kids swam in pool on third floor, a spectacular place on the river.
MY LOVE
HERE'S THE VIDEO. WATCH:
Comments:
SRA You guys look fantastic!
SE I see so much grandma Kate's face in that picture. I'm not saying you r old! I remembering her when she was younger. You guys look like you are having fun.
GJ we are having fun, and we are getting old, at least in the real years. When I tell people I'm 54 they always act shocked. Is that what happens when you old? People act shocked at your real age?
JRT You should have seen the young butcher's face when I told him the salmon was for my mother, at which point his eyes grew big and he gasped out...." How OLD are YOU????" So funny!!
LH What a fun looking evening.
CONSTANCE PRESENTATION: a slide showing THE FAMILY ON A TRIP TO A LOCAL SCHOOL FOR IWG CHARITY EVENT.
Two taxis to get there... from across town, but it was worth it. We had dinner with our friends Ian and Milli, and explored the famous streets and trails there afterwards. The two taxis across town to get home, crossing the big Jialing River to get there.
In this video it shows our family mostly on the streets and trails. They were very interesting and had a Disneyland feel to it. Kind of like the trails that lead up to those epic rides like Pirates, or the Indiana Jones ride, etc.
FRONT PAGE NEWS!! we made front page in the ChongQing Newspaper today. Topic is Home School, Music, and Family. If you know Chinese, read all about it!! It's also on the QQ (like twitter) and Weichat throughout China. This was apparently a big deal. The fact that my wife was in the International Women's Group and met some ladies there, and the fact that she ends up telling them that she has 12 kids does not go lost on their memory of her. Surely this was part of the reason that we were interviewed by the Newspaper reporter and their photographer came to the home. I was there too, on my lunch break. The city of Chongqing's newspaper did a story on our family's home school program this Sunday! It was very positive! We had a really nice reporter over here last week, a young lady, a reporter, who is very interested in our homeschool program and what we do as a family. She was also very interested in our upstairs creative studio. So here are some photos of the printed newspaper, the website, as well as China's biggest instant message or service, QQ and wei chat. Here is the article in Chinese on various websites: http://cqcbepaper.cqnews.net/cqcb/html/2013-11/17/content_1693744.htm
自由思想，随时体现。让孩子们回归到自然社会，不要去学校被洗脑。(Freedom of thought, ready to reflect. Let the children return to the natural community, do not go to school to be brainwashed.)
Halloween Ship on the Yangtze River
This video was taken while were on our way to and after we arrived to the Halloween Ship Party on the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang 长江). Christa is part of the committee of the ChongQing International Women's Group (IWG) with several other ladies in this city, and they secured a ship, made the invitations, promoted it, and got 400 people to want to pay and come to this event. These events they hold are always benefitting the charitable causes this group also supports. Pretty cool, and we had a great time and met some new people too. —
COMMENTS: AHLG How cool! I love seeing the videos and seeing how much fun you're having. It's just awesome. Love you LLC WOW! Decorating, planning and creating must be in your blood Cousin. Your MOM and DAD definitely rubbed off on you.
LLC YOU throw one HECK of a PARTY Christa!
SJ Wow.. I've got an influential mommy! LLC Oh, and Grant - thanks for sharing with us you and yours awesome journey and experiences. Even though you all are so far away it is like we are all with you through your videos. AHLG I saw 6 1/2 min. I love the videos, keep them coming!
NP Worked fine for me! Looks like crazy fun! GWV How cool! PAM That looks like it was so much fun!!! Thank you for sharing!!
The ChongQing Rivers Convergence Spot: Jialing and Yangtze Rivers 嘉陵江和长江
Its Saturday morning in China, and we've got a big Halloween Party to go to tonight. Christa's gone teaching English. Emily and Jaylene are gone, went with Edurne Benevides (leader with ChongQing International Women's Group) to go decorate the Ship. Over 300 people are coming tonight (400 wanted to). Christa is going over after class to help with others to decorate and get it set up. Christa and I have got our PIRATE costumes. Emily=angel, Adam=Spidey, Audrey=witch, Jaylene=pikachu. We got all our costumes ordered on TaoBao.com what a crazy day. Christa stayed up all night sewing Emmy's costume. I can't mitigate that. I'm with Adam and Audrey, and we'll go downtown to the Yangtze River ship later this afternoon and meet up with the others. Pics and Vids will follow This should be a great activity, meet a lot of people too!! That's what its all about.
Christa was invited by her friend Olivia to bring our family to her wedding reception. They fed everyone dinner, had entertainment, and it was a great way to spend our Sunday afternoon meeting new people. Enjoy the various pictures of the event!
The bride and groom. Olivia
Christa
Comments:
JRT Ever a beautiful woman! Looking regal here.
RB She is so beautiful
GWV Ahh! that's our Christa!
BJW Gorgeous picture of a sweet lady and you look so young.
My daughter Emily was listening to songs from lds.org/youth the other day at home here in Chongqing, and I asked her what her favorite song was there... she said "I AM HIS DAUGHTER" and as I listened, I remembered it was one of my favorites there too. Kindred spirit stuff. SO I made this video to celebrate the truth of it, that she (and her sisters) are His daughter... These kind of things help keep our family ties strong because they reinforce the truth that we are an eternal family no matter how many miles separate us on the earth. In this video are some of my favorite samples of videos that I have taken each of my daughters at one time or another in recent years.
7 Behold, I give unto you power, that whatsoever ye shall seal on earthshall be sealed in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven; and thus shall ye have power among this people.
Comments: 18 shares
SRA Oh I loved this so much. Thanks for putting it together guys
GJ It was a group effort, getting ALL KINDS of suggestions from Emily and Christa, helping me remember clips from the past that would work with this wonderful song, Emily's favorite from Strength of Youth. So I made a vid with that song. I love that we are an eternal family...
SRA Me too
NP Love this!!
SJT Stop making me cry!!!! I am ridiculously emotional right now at 7 months pregnant! Ah who am I kidding it has nothing to do with being preggo, I always cry super fast when I feel the spirit. Or watch a sappy commercial. ...or anything to do with kids & it makes me think of my own. This was just beautiful for being a thrown-together Hodge podge collection of video moments you've taken over the years dad. I love how you can slow down the video and zoom in, etc, it really adds so much.
SJT I actually held it together until the last second when I saw me with K flying the kite. Then the tears came. Thanks. Lol
DJ, GJ you are a genius, and we're sure missing your family. RRJ and I have very fond memories of our family fun together as young married couples. My how time has flown by, our kids are the jewels on our lives. They bring us youth and joy. YOU know how to put it into music and video better than anyone I know. wow Love you Guys
CM I hate it when I can't find anything to criticize in your work.
TJT Amazing!!!! loves to you and the family!!!
KMW This is beautiful, Dad!! It made me cry as well. I love our family I do have to say that one of my favorite parts was with N. One of the only scenes with her in it, and she was moving so much the camera couldn't even focus on her! lol
KJF Really very touching, and so well done!
NP Hahaha yeah...I must have been talking about something very important...
KSR I am overwhelmed with emotion. I feel so blessed to know your family and your example and strength has been my rock on many occasions as I look to your family, I know I can persevere in the hardest of times. I love you guys!
SJT KMW, I thought the same thing. I was cracking up (until I started crying at the end) because N, you are always talking like that! ...about very important things! Haha!!
TSB I love this! My cousins are all so beautiful. It made me feel close to them even though we are so very far away.
MP Great work, one of my favorite songs as well.
GJ at first this vid was going to be about Emily but the words "part of the bigger picture" kept ringing their spiritual truth, and so this daughter has sisters and a mom who are also daughters, and they all found their way into it.
RJ That was really neat Dad, thank you! Audrey is just the cutest ever! Boy I miss all my sisters and Mommy so much!
NP I miss everyone too Nae!! Someone make a darn teleporter already!
MJLH Oh GJ that was the most beautiful video of portraying the truth written in that song. I miss you all so very much. Thank you for bring us together again even if it was in a visual sense. I felt closer to you guys than I have since you have moved so far away. I love you and am thankful for your talents and abilities, that enables us to share these moments because of them.. love xoxo aunt N..
LLC bEautIFul!
DDB Love it!
CH You are so talented, GJ, and you have such a BEAUTIFUL family.
GJ We showed this to a new family we met and had them over for dinner this week, and "formally" introduce them to the rest of the family…
LJ Beautiful. Who is singing the song?
GJ LJ that would be an artist from Utah who participated in the Strength of Youth music available on lds.org. It is from the EFY 2010 "Courage to Stand" album, produced by Russ Dixon (who I really like the way he produces), and it was sung by Nicole Sheahan. She is on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicolesheahan Nicole Sheahan Event and Publishing Coordinator at Refinement Records Studied Media Music Studies at Brigham Young University Lives in Provo, Utah
Now while she SINGS this, the artist who made up the song and the lyrics is STEPHANIE MABEY and the sheet music is here: http://www.yourldsmusicstore.com/.../EFY2010...
CS I needed to hear/see this today...coming off kidney stones and feeling a little blue...from far away you have reached me and lifted me. Thank You so much.
One thing that we're doing over here is trying to write in our journals. Even the little kids are giving it a shot. Here's my little daughter reading a part of her journal recently and I thought it was cute. My favorite part: "I have way to much sisters so i dont have any time to interduce their names because..."
TODAY is the beginning of eight days away from engineering! What to do? Start with prayer. Figure it out. Get er done! So many creative ideas.
First inspiration item: Call SJ. Hey SJ! Trying to get a hold of you... Second inspiration item: Music in China. Make some.
Third inspiration item: Find a hardware store! Get PVC pipe, make green screen walls for set.
Comments:
SJ Just call me! I also have Skype on my phone September 30, 2013 at 10:30am · Like GJ I tried that . Hey you call me, then I might have the right number... I am on Skype now SJ My Skype name is ********* GJ ok, looking up right now... Off to the "Hardware Stores" to find stuff to make the green screen walls for the sets. I've got green screen curtains from America, but nothing to hang it on. GJ Christa is off to GuanYingQiao to meet with the committee for International Woman's Group in ChongQing, of which she is now a part! After that, going to visit a new family here in ChongQing, the K's who are from America, work for Ford. A lot of social things planned for this week. And a lot of creative things as well. So fun to have the change of pace. SRA Have fun! Let me know how it goes, getting the green screen set up! KSR I am so enjoying your journey...only wish we could come visit you guys CM christa is superwoman GJ Thanks KSR, and you guys are welcome anytime! JN How bout us? Can we come visit? GJ Of course, get over here JN! RJ We want pictures and videos of all your fun creativity ASAP!! GJ OK! but we are ramping up still lol GJ Had a setback with some puffy eye allergic reaction to some soap yesterday… opposition in all things I say! Life was not meant to be easy, just worth it! SRA Uh oh! Hope it's getting better.. RJ Oh boo! Sorry Dad!! GJ My eyes look like raccoons. No pictures forthcoming… SRA Aww poor dad! 🐼 Kinda like this face? Lol
Such a fun adventure, many of the Chinese people who live here in ChongQing get out at nights after work and go places, its like an event every night because there are so many people out. Loving being around all of these people, so many of whom are super friendly. Not all of course, but so many are. Of course we are a novelty of sorts in this city, way inland... a 1000 miles from those large cities like ShangHai or BeiJing which have a more significant "westernized" element... but ChongQing is a much more authentic Chinese culture experience, IMO. Because of the lack of western influence. I like it.
Comments:
LB Keep these videos coming, I'm loving it !
RJ Too cool! I'm glad you guys are having this adventure and posting videos so all of us can join you!! I love that random people come up to you and want pictures with you! It's hilarious!
SRA Hey dad, I remember that song! Isn't that something I did on the chordboard?
GJ Hey Bear, yes, that last song is one that you wrote (Mayan Eyes) and the one before that, one that I wrote (Straight Line). Great instrumental music, upbeat. You wrote that song in 2007.
SRA Cool! Such a long time ago, I can't wait to not be busy and start writing music!
Grant's COMBAT SIMULATION in China's DaZu Long Dragon Lake Island. I went on a company retreat last weekend and part of the activity was CS (combat simulation games). Its a step up from laser tag because, well, just watch... the island (take a boat to get there), the jungle, the empty brick houses/compound, etc. and the uniforms, etc. Although he is not seen much in the video, you do see the view from his camera during the battles while shooting (looks like a video game, first person lol). Watch: I have never sweat so much in my life. Salt water constantly going in my eyes. It was hot, humid, the clothes were hot, and the helmut was hot. Like war (what would I know?). My backpack when I finally took it off, was also dripping, yuck! I needed water, and lots of it. Afterwards we had dinner, played board games into the night, etc Comments KEB That looks fun.
CS That is amazing! How fun! I even had Jason with me, we were both glued to the screen watching Chinese laser tag. Love you all! xoxo SJ That looks like fun! Mostly the terrain.. You would have a more realistic experience of it was paintball though.. Funny coincidence, you were playing Halo music through the video, and at 2:25, the girls number is 117.. That's the main characters number in halo.. Nerd moment over! GJ too funny SJ. I thought of you when I was there. I thought how much cool this would be to actually do paintball, for you, not for me because it hurts too much ha ha. At first I thought we were going to be doing paintball, because I just couldn't understand the language. But then it turned out to be this GJ my favorite part was at 4:50 where I did a suicide run just charging into a bunch of people blazing guns, camera rolling LOL
KM are you a game designer? or are you being prepared for what could happen in the future there?? SJ I would be more worried about here in America Krista.. In fact, go find some combat simulation somewhere near you and prepare yourself.. JRT When 5 year olds can be kicked out of school for pointing a finger and saying "bang"... are there really CS in the USA?
Our family made a visit to the HongYa Dong area in downtown Chongqing in the YuZhong district on the peninsula there between the Jialing and Chang rivers. We went with our friend Lynn. We did all kinds of things that day and it was a complete blast. One of the highlights of our trip was the street, A walking street, they had a lot of things to see and there was this pirates statue, the statue of the headless pirate and you could get up behind the statute and put your head or rather put your chin on top of this little platform and pretend you were the pirate. When Lynn got up on this ended up Pirates face our little girl Audrey just lost it fell to the ground laughing, For a long time.
We even saw a movie later that night, the White House Down movie, and I thought of all those secret combinations in play seeking for power and although it is only a Hollywood film, to me completely believable and plausible, because there's so much of that in our history of the world.
Our STUFF from the USA arrived on the boat last month, and we FINALLY got things going on setup. Here's The STUDIO and Adam is busy writing a bunch of new songs, and the rest of us are going to get busy! Practicing singing, writing lyrics, scripts, storyboards, videography... Lots of fun creative stuff to do... So we have a spot upstairs with a view of the lake, and lots of fans to keep cool, and studio monitor speakers plugged into a 240/120 V converter so it will all run. Now the chordboard is actually there to help create music tracks, but we are working on a new version of it called Meridi. New software in the works. Works on a touch screen monitor. So exciting...
Our loft studio in Chongqing China... the creative place
Comments: JS Let the Studio games begin!
Grant Johnson Oh yeah! There's actually some really good places in here to hang some green screen (over the balcony, or from the high wardrobe cabinets, etc.) We even have LIGHTS ha! JS YAHOO! I am thinkin of producing a High School Talent competition - could be great fun or great trouble - we'll see ... too bad I dont have GJ Services - but I'll make do ...Or...I can send it all overseas and have GJ Svcs do the editing etc.! Grant Johnson ha! LH So there really is a "Slow Boat to China."
GL Hey! Are those Mackie 8's or 10's? Setup is looking good.
Grant Johnson Hey GL, those are actually Yamaha monitors. Smaller, but very capable. I got 5 for surround sound (if I ever get into that).
Grant Johnson LH, more like a slow moving company. I think our stuff sat in China for about a month before they finally got around to getting it to our house. Same on the other end in the USA. I think the boat ride was about two or three weeks. But total moving time? 11 weeks. It's actually okay, because we really needed to spend a lot of time getting a jump start on the language, and actually still do… Grant Johnson The Chordboard STAC is fired up and running. Adam is once again making multiple track scores on logic Pro. I am also beginning to dabble in my music again too. So exciting times!
SRA And I just got my keyboard fixed again! Time to get movin! Grant Johnson I meant to like your comment 10 TIMES!!!!!!!!!!
Some things in China are very different from my experience in the United States of America. Like carelessness over financial things and passwords is not as severely punished in the USA. You can forget things, lose things, and get solutions fairly quickly. There are multiple options for getting things "fixed" and people you can "escalate" things to in order to get a solution.
But when I first arrived in China, I had trouble even cashing American Express Travelers Cheques at the most major bank here in ChongQing, a city of 32,000,000 people. They looked at me like I had some strange strange request and I even had a Chinese person from my office helping me to translate everything. We traveled to three banks who all said no they could not cash these checks so I could get some Chinese money (RMB) exchanged, and we finally ended up at a large bank that would do it, the bank the other banks referred us to. The problem was there were lines to wait for, it was approaching 5:00 pm, and when I got to a window at 4:00 pm, they took so long at the teller window to examine each check individually, while the clock was ticking, and over an hour had passed.
I had signed all of these checks in front of them (you can only sign them once), and then when they were done counting/examining each check, taking no less than 20 or 30 seconds for EACH check to look at the front and back, carefully, they wrote down the tally and finally went to go get the money. The was all behind the glass where I could just watch what they were doing… problem was now... a manager came and told them that it was too late to get any money. Never mind that they had kept me there for over an hour carefully pouring over each check and closely examining it, One by one, and then when they were finally satisfied that these were not forgeries (because apparently they had never seen this before), then they moved to the next task which was to actually get me the money… Never mind that I was already IN the bank, already at the window, and we were just finishing a transaction. Never mind all that and that they took 10 more minutes arguing about it, the answer was: "come back tomorrow" and I did my best to control my anxiety over what was happening. Even the Chinese translator knew that this was not copacetic. Here I was being handed back checks that were already signed, and yet the rule is that you must sign these in the presence of the teller. Well, what if that same teller was not there the next day? (she wasn't either, and so yes I was worried about all these unknowns: would they honor these checks??). So I made them write a note stating what had happened, seal all of the signed checks in an envelope, stamp the envelope with their seal, and then I took the envelope. I made sure my translator told them to do all that. I wanted to make sure that my ONLY access to some real money before my payday which was a month away, was possible. Who would have known these things were possible??
Things like forgetting a pin number on a bankcard. A week after this experience, that's exactly what I did. Oops! What do you do? Well, in America, It's simple. You just go into your bank, show your ID, and get things fixed pretty much immediately. Here I have to go home and find my passport, come back with a Chinese person who has time to help you, fill out forms in Chinese that I have no idea what it says, nor what the tellers are telling me or asking me, so it is imperative that I bring a Chinese friend who can do this for me, interpret, and then in the end you don't get helped right away by the bank, no simple walk to the ATM machine to enter a new PIN code, no, you have to wait a week or two before things are straightened out by an internal review committee, and come back much later, a week later. So if you make a little mistake like forget your pin number (or worse! lose your card), you are out of luck as far as getting your money is concerned. You can't even share a bank account with your wife here. They don't do that. Bank accounts are for individuals. So my wife could not get access to this money either. And she had no money in her account. My company had to loan me some money in the meantime by paying me back in RMB cash for my expenditures on moving expenses, and I couldn't put it in a bank, so I had to hide it at home in a big cash pile in a suitcase in a closet. That way I could get things, like a phone, buy groceries, pay bills, etc. etc. all in cash. And it was very awkward to get all of this fixed. There are no shortcuts and there is no other way. There is no convenient method that I could find or any Chinese person could offer me. That's because there was no convenient solution, for anyone no matter who you are. There are no credit cards I could go get. I've got ONE card and if I lose it or if it gets stolen I am in trouble for a while. I got cut off from my cash this way in my first month being here because I did make that mistake, until the company paid me my reimbursement cash "early." I could not use my ID a week later at the bank when they told me to return with ID, because my passport ID was tied up at the ChongQing Police Department getting reviewed with all of the rest of the family's passports in order to get our residence permit, and they needed it for a whole week, and so I had NO ID and no way to fix this. I had to wait, a long time (3 weeks total wait). Because I forgot my pin number and used the wrong pin number five times trying to make a withdrawal, my bank ATM locked me out of my money. It now considered it a stolen card. I would have thought that I could've just talked to a teller and fixed it right that very minute. But no, I had to wait weeks, and I needed a passport, something that the ChongQing Police were hanging on to. It was horrible. Just one of those little (yet BIG) unexpected things that I could never have predicted nor known how careful I needed to be with a pin number. Just the first of many such experiences where it is nearly impossible for a foreigner to figure it out.
There will always be opposition in all things. Its just life.
http://cqcbepaper.cqnews.net/cqcb/html/2013-11/17/content_1693744.htm
