HOME at LAST!!!

I am home..... finally! Exhausted, but home. I was able to leave Chicago on standby and arrived in Oklahoma City during a lightning storm at 12:21pm on Friday afternoon. Susie

STUCK in Chicago!!!!!

Susie had a long flight from Beiing to Chicago arriving yesterday (Thur) at about 5pm. That is as far as she got. Her flight to Oklahoma City was canceled due to delays and eastern weather problems. She had to spend the night in Chicago. Getting to the hotel was a trick.... It took three tries at securing a taxi to the hotel. The first two drivers were from Nigeria and did not speak English well enough to understand where she was going. CRAZY!!! She got around better in China!!!! Needless to say, Susie is very tired, and is now booked on the only flight she could get out of Chicago today... 5pm departure, arriving in Oklahoma City via Kansas City and Denver at about midnight tonight. On a side note, her aunt uneventfully safely arrived yesterday at home in Phoenix. THIS BLOG IS BEING REVISED AS I WRITE.... Friday morning: Susie just called me to say she got on an earlier flight. She now will be arriving in OKC on Friday, today, no later than 3pm. Hopefully ... hopefully.... the weather will cooperate. Laban/for Susie

Gabriel and Ariel....

It's diaper changing time for Gabriel and Ariel......

WE'RE IN BEIJING....

Our hotel in Beijing

We made it to Beijing and are staying at the Four-star Capitol Hotel... really nice and close to the center of the city. Tomorrow we plan to visit the Great Wall. My Aunt and I will be departing Beijing for the USA on Thursday. Susie

To XI'AN.... and then BEIJING

Hello everyone. We (me and my Aunt Evie) are now in Xi'an after about a one hour flight. I am drinking a delicious serving of Starbucks iced tea right now with some church friends from Oklahoma. We have had a very busy day. We said our good byes to Ben, Deysi, Gabriel, and Ariel earlier today in Lanzhou. While in Xi'an we will be staying at the apartment of an Australian missionary couple while they are gone. It is very nice and comfortable. We will be going to tour the famous Terra Cotta soldiers tomorrow. Our plans are to spend a couple of days here before going on to Beijing. Our flight home will be next Thursday-Friday. Susie

ARIEL... All Dressed Up

A TYPICAL CHINESE KITCHEN

What is a Chinese kitchen like?

First, when you rent an apartment there is a room designated as a kitchen. Unless someone has installed appliances, etc, it is a bare room with plumbing for a sink. It is always on the outside of the rest of the house, and has windows all around it. Ben is on the 3rd floor and his kitchen is on the main walkway between stairways. It has a terrific view of the city. I have gotten to know all his neighbors and their children because they always wave and talk (in Chinese). I smile and wave a lot as they walk by. There is no privacy. Ben has installed a small hot water heater, so we don't have to heat water to wash dishes. It has a single sink, one long counter, and a two burner propane stove. The room next to it is dark and windowless, but the total glass kitchen gives it some light. This other room is where their small fridge, microwave, and toaster oven are located. There is very little room for storage. In this side-room from the kitchen they have a small table and chairs. They also have a nice table and chairs in the large and sunny living room, which is completely across the house.

The overall floor plan is lacking a little, but they will be moving the week after I leave, because the owner has sold this apt. They are not sure exactly where they are moving to, and as a mother that worries me a bit. Back to cooking, ......The real reason I think I cook well in China is because there is no TacoBueno or Sonic down the street. The nearest fast food is a 2-3hour drive. Western food is not available in this town. There are some things I look forward to getting back to.

Laban, when I get back on a Thursday, plan on Mexican night at Interurban!!!!!!!!

Brief Update...COLIC and DUST

It's Monday. I will be starting back to work in Oklahoma City two weeks from today. Ariel is almost three weeks old and at the present moment is having her first bout of colic. Deysi must have eaten something that has disagreed with her. It is cold here, it started out beautiful and sunny and then a dust storm from the north blew in and now it is cold and rainy. Susie

Susie... COOKING IN CHINA !!!

What can I say! A miracle happens when I land in China. I can cook, and people even think it is good and ask for recipes. The only thing I canfigure out is that I work better under pressure and in adverse conditions. In other words cooking in America with modern appliances, full grocerystores (with items I know what they are) is boring. Give me a Chinese chicken and a Chinese kitchen and a few other basics and I can cook something.

A good deal of my time here revolves around cooking. As many of you know Deysi has a very healthy appetite and Gabriel takes after her. So we have three meals daily. Deysi and Gabriel also prefer hot foods. So in the mornings when Gabriel wakes up, I get up, because we share a room and he wakes me up. I usually fix him hot cereal and a piece of toast. He is really doing good at feeding himself with a spoon. Deysi sleeps until Ariel arises and then I fix her breakfast. Ben and Aunt Evie do their own thing. The second morning I was in China I prepared scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy, and some sort of meat (summer sausage?) for twenty people. Of course Aunt Evie helped.

This morning I fixed Grandma West's famous french toast and scrambled eggs for around ten people. Who are all of these people? Most of them are part of a group of twenty-four South Africans, I think I mentioned them before. They have become very good friends the last couple of weeks. Some evening we prepare meals together. Another six left this morning for a 6 day hike through the Tibetan mountains and villages. So only four are around right now. They are some of the nicest and most helpful young people I have ever met. They always insist on helping clean up also. Stay tuned for a Chinese kitchen description.

Susie.

Gabriel Takes Off...

Gabriel finally takes off: On April 10th and 11th, Gabriel finally decided to take off on his own two feet. I, as a person in special ed, was becoming a little concerned because at 15 months he wasn't showing much interest in trying to walk. He has cruised around furniture for months, but refused to take a step anywhere without holding on to something. He was very careful. He has had a lot of encouragement the past two weeks, besides Aunt Evie and myself encouraging him, he has had the South African team working with him as well. On Tuesday of this week he took a few steps and is so pleased with himself he now is standing up by himself and walking all over the place. He gets a lot of praise for this and has taken to clapping for himself if we don't respond appropriately.

...Gabriel gazes at Ariel

GABRIEL TAKES HIS FIRST STEPS !!

Well finally! Gabriel has begun to take his first steps as shown in this frame from a video that Susie sent. Susie says he loves to stand and try to walk. His face lights up as he tries to move across the room. Ben and Deysi need to look out now.... because Here Comes Gabriel in a fresh and inquisitive way.

Susie would be writing this blog but they are still having problems with Ben's computer. Sometimes it works ands sometimes it works NOT. Sometimes they can get online and sometimes they get online NOT!

Ariel Susana... 10 Days Old

THE MOST HORRIBLE TERRIBLE FRIGHTFUL FLIGHT OF MY LIFE

What an adventure, coming to China. Everything about my trip was wonderful, all connections were great until we were one hour from landing in Beijing, or so I thought. I was sitting next to my Aunt Evie, who joined me in going to China, and I told her how wonderful this flight was because it went straight from San Francisco to Beijing with no long layovers in Japan, Taiwan or Korea. I was stoked and not too tired because the overseas flight was only 12 hours long. It didn't even bother me that the video monitors in our cabin didn't work so there were no movies. I just read, visited and slept a little. Then the pilot came on and informed us that he had diverted from our flight into Beijing because of severe turbulence reported across Russia where we would have flown. So now we were almost out of fuel so we would be stopping in Japan to refuel. Refueling would take at least an hour, then it would be another 3 hours toBeijing. We were not allowed to deplane in Japan.

We were back in the air within an hour and the flight attendants were told to prepare our last meal. The phrase "last meal" troubled me some. After the meal we all settled down for the two-hour flight into Beijing and tried to get some sleep. When evidently the violent turbulence moved south and caught up with us.I have never felt anything like this before. I felt sure the plane would fall apart. Not one person of the 450 aboard remained asleep. It probably lasted at least 30 minutes and would come in waves. At three different times everyone on the plane screamed in unison. I really though I would not survive. I prayed and felt I was ready to die, but this was NOT the way I wanted to go. I prayed for peace about it, but to be honest I was scared to death.

My Aunt Evie who is 85 was very calm. Bless her soul. PTL-We did survive and made it to Beijing. Everyone clapped when the plane landed. We had missed our connecting flight to get to Ben's city. So after customs, I had to convince them to change us to a later flight and that we didn't need to pay again because it wasn't our fault we missed the flight. All of this was done in English, Chinese and "No-Speak-Chinese” sign language.

It was very hard for me to get on another airplane but I knew what was at the end of the flight.... Ben, Deysi, Gabriel, and Ariel were waiting. I managed to find an Internet cafe and email Ben and Laban that we would not be on the flight Ben was waiting for. It was up to Laban to get a hold of Ben. I may just stay in China forever, just kidding, I have a lot to come home too also.
More later................... Susie

Computer CRASH!!!

There will be a shortage of text coming from China due to Ben's computer crash. Hopefully it's not a serious problem and we can be up and running soon. But as of now we will have to rely on local internet cafes which will not be as convenient for us. All are doing fine except Gabriel who has been running a medium to high temperature for a couple of days. We are not sure what is causing the fever.... he seems to be feeling fine otherwise. Please keep him in your prayers.
More later..... Susie via Laban.

Gabriel driving in China!!

The Benjamin West Family...

Ben, Gabriel, Deysi, and Ariel

Grandma Susie and Ariel Susana.....

Gabriel loves his little sister Ariel....