number 2 son is settling into school at last. we have not had any tears upon departure this week, and when asked about his day, he says, "it was a little good" instead of the "horrid" response i usually get. this morning i was overjoyed to hear him singing a little chinese song as we got ready. 
it has been unusually cold here. last year i can remember the girls riding their christmas scooters with no jackets. it does get cold here in southern china, but not like the cold in the north of china where they are already experiencing power outages due to the cold, and there have been reported deaths from the snowfall a week ago. here it does get chilly but is semi tropical. when the temp dipped last week i turned on my heaters and broke out my sweaters. even today i am still bundled, with the predicted high of 67. i know it is pitiful. this of course is the reason i will be someday retiring to a place of tropical warmth. year round summer is my friend.
i always loved those first crisp autumn days. the sun would still be warm on your face but there was that wind blowing in your hair and making you pull your jacket a bit tighter, preparing you for the months to come. i have fond memories of cold and snow. my friends and i would have snowball races. we would push our snowballs around for days to see who could make the largest. they would grow so large, eventually we would need help to maneuver them. we would make what we called slidees. you scoot with your wellies until you have a long smooth slide in the snow and then of course you run and slide. i have lots of snow and cold weather memories. i fear now that i shall never again enjoy the cold. what a shame, because of course what comes with cold is HOT CHOCOLATE!
