A Look Back

Well here we are again, starting over together.  With each New Year the mind turns back and takes an accounting of what was and then the mind turns forward and envisions what will be.  So first, here is a look back at how the Barlows experienced 2011.

Shay continued with his many travels for work to interesting places like India, Taiwan and Japan. Despite his busy workload he managed to fit in some camel and elephant rides, took some weekend trips to amazing places like the Taj Mahal and as always made friends with the locals. It was hard for him to be away from the family so much and to have so many projects going on, but he continued to be an amazing and loving father and husband, expressing his love and gratitude for us as often as he could and making the most of the time that we did spend together.  He sacrifices a lot with his commitment to work and providing for our family. He is always wishing he had more time and energy to read, exercise or do Bikram's Yoga at the new studio he found here in Shanghai.  

Tirzah learned to make fruit and lemon curd tarts and continued to enjoy cooking.   She also learned to snowboard in NY last winter with Shay's help and patience and with a beautiful new bamboo board that Shay gave her for Christmas. She served as the first counselor in the Primary in Corning and loved teaching sharing time every other month to the little ones at church.  She practiced Yoga weekly and started a kick-boxing class as well.  She studied Chinese each week and daily tries to improve her speaking ability.  She enjoyed making up funny rhyming songs and telling stories to Addie and Elijah, as well as pretending to be all manner of monsters, witches, and spiders at the request of running, squealing children.  Tirzah had a big job in preparing for and coordinating the move from Corning to Shanghai and she is still working on getting our apartment organized with everything in place, though most of the boxes are unpacked.  

Addie attended Kindergarten at Frederick Carder in Corning and started Year 1 here in Shanghai at Yew Chung International School in August.  She was involved with Chinese Dance and Kung Fu afterschool as well as soccer on Saturdays.  She is learning Chinese at school and enjoys singing the Chinese songs that she learns.  She is also involved in Passport Club at school where she works on learning geography.  She continues to improve her reading and writing and loves looking at the photos in National Geographic magazine and asking lots of questions.  Addie loves dress up, imaginative play and performance.  She has now recruited her younger brother to take part in her dress-up and make-believe sessions, and it is always entertaining to see the scenarios that they come up with and the dialogue exchange back and forth between characters or animals. Addie unfortunately had some "little friends" show up to visit her hair this year, so we had our first experience with head lice and the fun job of anhilitating them for good!  Glad they were gone before the start of the New Year or that would have been bad luck :)

Elijah started half-days at school and he is really loving his English and Chinese teachers and his new little friends at school.  He is fully potty-trained and proudly wearing his big-boy underwear.  He religiously changes into his Batman suit each day when he returns home from school around lunch time .  He enjoys books, playdough, playing with robots, animals, dinosaurs, trains, and pretend play where he makes up little scenarios and does the voices for different characters.  He is a funny little guy and often makes jokes and does a great robot dance.

If Jude were here with us, he would have turned 2 years old on November 17^th.  This past August we had his footstone laid on the 1 year anniversary of his passing, around the same time in the morning .  Mom and Dad Barlow were there at the cemetery in Ithaca and connected with us via g-mail video call and we were able to see the actual laying of the stone from here in China.  We miss Jude dearly and Addie and Elijah often talk about their little brother “Judester” and they still recognize him as an important part of our family.  It is sometimes hard to see families with three kids, as it reminds us that one of our beloved is not here as we wish he was to experience the here and now with us.  We often wonder what Jude is experiencing and learning in the Spirit world and we know that he must be close watching our family and encouraging us to do good.  Addie especially asks a lot of questions about death and the resurrection, so it gives us a lot of opportunities to share our testimony of Jesus Christ and the power of his atonement and resurrection and the gifts that he gives to us.  We are uplifted by the promise that we can one day be united as an eternal family and we will no longer experience the sting of death and the loss and disappointment that this life can bring.

We spent many great weekends with Grandma Ka and Papa Stan in Ithaca and Corning, sharing good meals and time together.  It was so great having them close and the kids really miss their visits to Grandma and Papa’s house since our move to China.  We are looking forward to their visit to see us in Shanghai in a few weeks for Chinese New Year!

We visited Shay’s sister Andra and her family in Seattle before heading to Shanghai for a househunting trip in April.  Andra deserves a big big thank you for her sacrifice caring for Addie and Elijah as well as her three children, so that Shay and I could go to China together to prepare for our move there.  It was great seeing Tess and Adam and celebrating George’s birthday with the mentos and soda experiment and scientist theme!

We returned to Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NY for the first time since Jude’s passing.  We went in May, exactly 1 year after his admittance to the hospital on May 17, 2010 and had a special reunion with many of the doctors, nurses and staff that cared for Jude and worked with our family.  We were also able to visit with the staff from the Ronal McDonald house and friends from church there who were so generous with their support and help babysitting Addie and Elijah while we tended to  Jude in the hospital.

Our friend Annie Yang visited with us for the month of May while on break from college in UT.  Shay taught her family the gospel when he was a missionary in Taiwan, so it was really great for him to see her after all of these years.  We took her to visit the church sites in Palmyra and to see the Hill Cumorah Pageant.

We had a wonderful visit with the Serpiello side of the family in June.  Mom and Dad Serpiello  visited from Plano, TX and Dan and Andrina visited from Phoenix.  We were able to spend the day with Andrea and her family in Allentown and had a special visit with Addie and Elijah’s great-grandparents in Philadelphia on Father’s Day.  Grandpa Serpiello passed away several months later in September, so we are all so grateful for that meaningful visit with him.

We had a great summer trip out west in late June/early July for the Barlow family reunion in Idaho and visited Yellowstone National Park and friends and family in UT. It was Tirzah and the kids first time out to Idaho to see where Shay was born and raised as a kid and also to meet many of his extended family members. Shay and his brother Adam and cousins had a great day climbing at City of Rocks near Albion, Idaho.  We rode horses, did a rafting trip with the kids, saw the amazing Grand Prismatic Pool, Paint Pots and Old Faithful in Yellowstone.  We spied grizzly bear, buffalo, elk and moose. For the first time we visited gorgeous Antelope Island, UT and saw the most amazing sunset. We also had a chance to visit our old friends Joe,Lee,Zina and Adah Bennion in Spring City, UT and Addie and Elijah had a great time feeding their horses, chasing chickens, walking the dogs, riding on the tractor with Papa Joe, and visiting Lee's painting studio and Joe's pottery studio and shop. We had a fun stay with Shay's cousin Lance and his family in Provo, UT and another great reunion with Shay's BYU-Idaho Chinese professor Scott Galer and his wife and kids.

We moved to Shanghai, China in July on a 2 year assignment with Corning Inc.  We didn't expect to be moving back to the Middle Kingdom so soon, but a great opportunity came up for Shay and our family so we went for it. We lived abroad in Beijing with Addie from 2006-2008 when Shay worked with Microsoft and enjoyed our time there.  Shanghai pollution and traffic are not as bad as Beijing and shopkeepers and taxi drivers are much less rude, but we definitely miss the proximity to places like the Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Great Wall, and numerous parks in Beijing.  Shanghai is very metropolitan and commercial overall, but none the less an exciting place to be with its towering skyscrapers and fast pace.  

We had the amazing opportunity to visit two exciting destinations during our holiday breaks; Vietnam and Australia. Check out my previous posts for some pics and details about Vietnam during our October Holiday vacation. The above photos show our Australia trip.  We flew overnight from Shanghai to Sydney on a 10 hour direct flight several days before Christmas. Sydney is only 3 hours ahead of Shanghai, so the jet lag is not so bad.  Sydney was stunning!  We explored around the Opera House and took the kids inside to see a family ballet performance of Angelina Ballerina.  Other highlights included a visit to the Royal Botanic Gardens to see the lovely plants and bat colony and the ferry ride and sky safari to the Taronga Zoo. At the zoo we bought tickets to go behind the scenes with a zookeeper to feed kangaroos, koalas and other little friends.  We also ferried over to the beaches in Manly, did a hop on-hop off city sightseeing tour, explored The Rocks, Circular Quay and Darling Harbour, ate some tasty fish and chips and butterscotch honeycomb ice cream, and saw sharks and stingrays at the aquarium. The day after Christmas we left the city and drove south to the beach town of Kiama for a few days, where we visited Kendall's Beach, the Kiama Blowhole and the Illawarra Fly Treetop Walk.   Then we continued on to lovely Jervis Bay to enjoy white sand beaches and a dolphin watch cruise. We rented a little cottage at Bay of Plenty Lodges in Booderee National Park and we were frequently greeted by wild kangaroos. The beaches that we visited were absolutely gorgeous with turquoise water and lots of natural vegetation lining the beaches and protecting them from development.  We returned to the city and celebrated Christmas in Sydney and watched the harbour fireworks on New Year’s Eve before flying back home the next morning.  What a way to finish up 2011!


As we look back upon the year, despite our challenges and our individual shortcomings, we cannot help but stand in awe of the many blessings and opportunities that we've been given and we look forward with hope and motivation to learn, grow, love and serve a little more in 2012.  

"Wherefore,whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God." Ether 12:4 Book of Mormon