Arnold Adventures

Brian has been studying Shaolin, a Chinese martial arts, at the LIU Institute for almost a year now.  He has truly enjoyed it and has even tried to recruit me!  I do everything I can to avoid these attempts.  I am so not coordinated; it would not be a pretty sight for me to take kung fu classes!  I am so very proud of Brian though.  He has trained hard, learned a lot, and is even teaching the kid classes now!  (He actually has some of my former elementary students!)

Even though I do not train at the Institute, we have been warmly welcomed into the Shaolin family and community.  We have built friendships that we treasure and that extend past Brian's class times. 

Because I am adopted, culturally I am more "Southern" than "Chinese." (as a toddler at my Fisher Price kitchen, I always made "gree-its") The Institute has been a wonderful re-connection to my heritage, and a great introduction to Chinese culture for Brian.  So much so, that when we visited Taiwan this past summer, we went through more culture shock when we RETURNED to the States than when we arrived in Taiwan!

Here is a great introductory video about the Institute.  The music is amazing, too! (because Brian composed it!)

As if I don't have enough to do, I decided I wanted to start blogging!  I think it will be a good way to share our experiences as well as record memories for ourselves.  I actually was inspired by a friend's blog: Leslie's Taiwan Tales.

I did try online journaling back in the day of "xanga" - before blogging was actually cool!  I didn't keep up with that one very well, so I hope to do better with this one.

Please be patient with me as I get started!  For now, these posts will be sporadic at best.