California Crusin'

Hello, again.

Friday morning finds us being a bit lazy. Have you ever tried to anticipate all your needs for the next 6 months!? We are still trying to figure out how to do Christmas and birthdays from China. Maybe we'll just celebrate everything in February!:) A person can't find Christmas cards in July!!!

Andy has spent the morning reading (napping?) on Berkeley's front porch. Oops, just woke himself snoring!! Will try to post pictures this weekend so we have BC (before China) pictures for comparison!

Betsy got the puppy, Trey and Nicci got the cat, Berkeley gets . . . us for a week before our departure so we can drive her nuts! I think we are succeeding. Our goal was to make her sick enough of us that she was ready for us to leave--may have reached that yesterday but will rub in it for a few more days to be sure!!!

Monday is D-day--we can't wait!

More later.

Countdown to China

Greetings:

This is our first attempt at a blog so bear with us! We will get pictures, etc in when we have a better idea of what we are doing!!

What do you name a blog? We thought about China Chatter, Lindauer Travels, etc. Nothing seemed to work until we considered that we will spend most of our time in Yan Tai, China so Yan Tidings seems a good fit. [Andy wanted to use Barack Obloga but it just lacked 'something'!]

We have had the pleasure of seeing most of our friends/family before our departure--whether in Florida, Tennessee, Indiana or California. Thank you all for coming to see us-- we will hope to see you again in February!!

Andy & I have been enjoying some beautiful California weather--sleeping with the windows open! We are in the final countdown and trying to get all the banking and insurance business closed before we depart.

We depart Monday for Beijing. We go to SeaTac (Seattle Tacoma) first where niece, Shannon Berkley, will meet us and show us some of Seattle. We hope to see some friends there, too. We will depart about 8.30pm and will arrive at 11.10PM on Tuesday night--which means we'll get to the hotel Wednesday am--very early! Lu Chao (FGCU Fulbright Scholar) and Xie Ping (FGCU exchange student last year) are anxiously awaiting our arrival. They have sights for us to see in addition to the Wall, Tienamenn Square and the Forbidden City. We'll post pictures and information as we go.

Will try to get back to this tomorrow and add pictures, etc.