Autumn 2016 in Our Family

Year 2016 has been an exciting year for my family and now just before Christmas it’s a good time to look back this past Autumn. I haven’t written as many personal blog posts recently, so thought it’s about time to write a bit about us.

After we came back from Finland, the first thing was to find an ayi to help take care of our daughter. I wanted to get back to working and Anna was already big enough to stay at home with a nanny. Having a live in ayi haven’t always been easy, but it makes our live so much easier. I also like that Anna can stay at home with her, and not go to kindergarten like she would if we lived in Finland.

After child care was settled, I got to work with full steam. Quite quickly I got over 10 students, most of them studying basics of Mandarin with me. My lessons take me all over Guangzhou every day from Tuesday to Saturday. Soon I started to spend more time commuting than actually teaching and I decided it is the right time to register my business and find an office.

At the moment I’m in the process of registering the business and I’ll be having my own office starting in February. Hopefully I can spend more time actually teaching Chinese than running or driving around the city. I still have lots of work to do, but I’m really positive I can be successful in my chosen career.

My husband is still working in his friend’s bakery, that they started earlier this year. They have two locations now and they are planning more for next year. In the coming year my husband will be concentrating on setting up a central bakery to provide bread and pastries to their different locations.

Our daughter Anna turned 1-year-old and has learned to walk! She likes talking a lot too, but so far we haven’t been able to understand that she is saying. My in-laws think she can say a few words already, but I’m sad to inform them that those have been just pure luck so far. Bilingual kids often speak a bit later, so I’m not worried.

Now we are getting ready for our second Christmas with Anna. I have invited the in-laws over for dinner and crossing my fingers that all will go well. Like last year, I bought small gifts for everyone, so we should have a nice Christmas atmosphere at home this weekend.

Wishing everyone Happy Holidays!