Yan's Blog

So finally my parents have their visa to come to see us. Yeah!!! They will be getting their plane tickets next week to come here. We are very excited that they will be here for Hailey's birthday. My kids just know that their Chinese grandparents are coming to stay with us, but they have no idea how far away they are coming from. None the less, they know change is in the air from the fact that we set up the guess room to get it ready for my parents.

Some exciting news I received last night: this Chinese lady in OR has been donating her own time in helping me translating my father's family chart. As of now, I have about 70 names ready and waiting for temple work to be done from my family chart. The history so far goes back to the 1600's. She is so awesome!
Something more surprising is that she has discovered that there are about 16 volumns worth of microfilms from Salt Lake City family history center that contain the "Wan" family history around the same province that my ancestors are from. So there is a high probability that the very first generation of ancestors on my family chart will belong somewhere in that 16 volumns of geneology worked already done, which will extend my current family history back to who knows, maybe .BC, another 20,000 or so names! she has helped me ordered the microfilms from SLC and will let me know if she finds anything.

Now another thing that I never thought would even be possible: since my mom side of the family has no record of their family geneology at all, I really would like to start doing something about that. So after talking to this chinese lady, I told her my mom's family name, what province I think my grandfather was from. She said that since their family name is not a common one, there might be a chance that she be able to contact someone with that family name that still live in that province who would know about my grandfather's family.

I never thought I would get this far with my family geneology work. It all started out with a sunday lesson preparation, then a fireside, then this. I am a true believer of the power of Elijah!!!

So we just got back from visiting Jandy in North Carolina a few days ago. The kids are happy to be home and seeing daddy again. So I am just catching up on some reading that I didn't get a chance to do before I left town. I have to say, after "3 cups of tea" and "A thousand splendid suns" back to back, it puts life in perspective for me on how blessed we are to live in this country. Yes, we still deal with crappy issues, such as the bad housing market, bad economy, horrible reports about retirement savings, but at least we are not worrying about a bomb dropping on us everyday or our children/family being killed or tortured. I am just grateful for that.

So my whole family has been sick this past weekend. Hailey had some vomiting Thursday night. It started out just Jeremy on Saturday, then Sienna started vomiting for about 8 hours straight. It was scarry. Finally she stopped vomiting and went to sleep. So she is doing a little better, but still doen't feel good. I haven't been able to get her to eat anything yet today except some drink. Let's just say that it sucks to have the whole family sick. Since the kids need to stay home until they are well again, mommy's got the "cabin fever" from staying home these days as well.

So I have been trying to sort through my genealogy work that my father has mailed to me from China. According to my father's family record, the genealogy work goes back 9 generations. But since all of the writing is in old Chinese characters, and the dates (birth and decease years) are based on the Chinese lunar calendar until after the last imperial dynasty, the only dates that I am able to translate are my four grandparents from both sides of my parents. I called my dad in China and trying to figure out how to decrypt the lunar calendar dates, and he is as clueless as I am. Apparently each lunar year has its own two Chinese characters for the name, and there sure has to be some kind of rules in the naming process, but I cannot figure out. But none the less, I have 4 family names ready for temple work, and have made my appointment with the bishop to renew my temple recommend. So excited!!!

So today, Hailey climbed up the entire set of stairs in our house all by herself. Talk about amazing. I just stood behind her and watched her little legs reach up to the next step each time, while Sienna urged her on. I am just so amazed at how strong she is. Sienna didn't do that until she was probably 10 months old. Hailey is only 8 1/2 months old. I can't wait to see what she does next.

Jeremy's mom just sent us couple of Jeremy's baby pictures in the mail. We looked at Jer's baby pictures and Hailey's pictures side by side, and they look so much alike. Like father like daughter. The most similar features are the eye brows, nose, mouth, ears. It's funny how Sienna and Hailey don't look alike at all, but Hailey and Jer look like twins. I am glad that Bobbi (Jer's mom) sent us those pictures.