What an awesome end to a wonderful year...

December was PACKED with excitement and celebrations!! I don't even know where to begin. Pictures say a thousand words, so I'll let them do most of the talking.

On December 19th we celebrated our one year anniversary. After attending our church's Christmas concert and sharing lunch with over 200 members, Ellison took me out to Pearl on the Peak for dinner where we dined over the Hong Kong skyline. El had saved over $200US in coins for our dinner and he was so proud of himself....

December 21st was Sylvia's one year birthday! Ellison took her to the park and then we clipped her nails, gave her a bath and made her cry.


December 22nd was a super happy day when we welcomed my mom and brother to Hong Kong for the first time!! As soon as they arrived we had them on a double deck-open top bus singing Christmas carols throughout the city.



The next day, December 23rd was Ellison's 26th birthday. We celebrated by taking a trip to Macau with both of our families (it was also the first time they had met).


We also spent a little time at MGM Grand and the Venetian and topped the day off with some Fernado's and and a stop at good ole' Ned Kelly's!


The following day was Christmas Eve and we hosted some of our good friends for get together and some texas chili. Nathaniel started dipping sugar cookies in his chili and we figured it was time for him to open his present...and boy..he was excited.


Ellison also opened his gift from Paul and I...XBOX 360 and KINECT!! (a true gift for me)..hehehe.

No Christmas eve would be complete without my family's traditional "Santa" game. To explain it simply..you beat the crap out of the boxes to get to the gift in the middle!!


With my mom and brother in town we had a very "un-traditional" Christmas day..after the church service we went to Madam Tussuad's Wax Museum and then later to dinner at El's parent's house. Here's a few of my favorite photos..




The following days were filled with sightseeing and exciting days. Disneyland, horse races, Big Buddha, Avenue of Stars, markets, New Year's Eve fireworks and Cheung Chau Island, etc. etc. etc.





My brother had NEVER been to a beach before..and even though it was really cold we look over and he's stripped down to his undies and went diving in!!


It was truly a great vacation for everyone and I'm so thankful my mom and justin were able to experience Hong Kong!! We had a truly blessed December and we're looking forward to everything 2011 has to offer!!

You're young and have so much to learn...

I've heard this phrase MANY times in my life especially from my mother, but I never expected to hear it from my supervisor. Let me tell you the story...

I've never really enjoyed my job. I started to appreciate my job more when my Nana sent me an email telling me that people have jobs to test butt thermometers. So I've been happy at times and there have been great moments. However, overall I'm getting a bit restless teaching arrogant students who think they can have communication skills like the best of them, which clearly..Obama wouldn't pronounce 'the' as 'da'....anyway, that's a whole other issue. Back to my story..

My office is great, everything outside of my office is chaos. I'm the type of person who likes a plan and I like to stick to my schedule. My superiors like to throw things on us at the last minute and expect us to rearrange our schedule accordingly. I could not be more annoyed by this. It's frustrating and I feel as though I'm letting my students down. Well, this happened on Wednesday and I couldn't rearrange my schedule to their liking and so I couldn't make it to this "training" session thing. To make a long story short...our 'Executive Office', Gladys, wasn't too happy about this and barged into my office, picked up my phone and called my boss. Then preceded to yell IN CANTONESE about me to my boss. She didn't even bother to speak to me about the situation first.

Then my boss calls me and tells me to go to the training thing for an hour or so before my first appointment and just to tell them I had to leave early. So I tell them, and Gladys snaps at me "AN HOUR IS NOT GOING TO CUT IT, I WILL BE CALLING DAN AND YOU CAN JUST LEAVE!!!!!!" oh. no. she. didn't.

So I smiled and said "Okay, thank you, Gladys. See you all later." (Kill 'em with kindness, right?) Anywho..the situation only escalated and I eventually got an email blaming me for the whole situation and that I have much to learn. Okay, granted, I might have been able to communicate more effectively.........GIVEN I HAD MORE TIME. However, no matter what I did, I didn't deserve to be belittled and embarrassed by a colleague like that. But apparently, "there's nothing they can do about that." I slept on it and was fine as I came to work today. Forgiven..over it.

THEN, another email from my supervisor going on and on about how I'm the one to blame.I know I probably sound like a spoilt brat, but I honestly don't understand the situation and I think it was just all a big misunderstanding. I'm just going to let it be and not fight back..even though my aggressive personality is compelling me!!!

April couldn't get here fast enough....luckily I'm taking my vacation in 3 weeks. These people are going to make me go mad.

It's beginning to look a lot like...

CHRISTMAS!! Even though it's December and I'm still wearing shorts, it's that season!! It will also be my first Christmas season away from Texas! I've learned to embrace this harsh reality and have made the most of my situation. Back in August I begged Ellison to go buy this second hand Crate and Barrel Christmas tree that this lady was selling and I'm certainly glad I did. We saved so much money, because those things are NOT cheap! Little by little I'm decorating the house and more and more I'm annoying El with my Christmas music.

Although I'll be away from most of my family..we have the most awesome opportunity to bring my mom and brother to Hong Kong for Christmas!!! It's going to be such a special time, because in the 2 years I've lived here, I've never had family visit! They arrive on the 22nd and will be staying until the 3rd of January. Only 20 more days!!

On top of celebrating Christmas we will be celebrating our FIRST ANNIVERSARY on the 19th of December (or 2nd of January, depends on which wedding, ha!) !!! Ellison will also be turning the big 26 on December 23rd! More importantly, on Christmas Day we will be having a baptizing service where Ellison will be baptizing 7 of his youth! Really awesome. We have so much to be thankful for and it will be an exciting, chaotic time for celebrating!!

Here's a few of our Christmas decorations! The most awesome thing about our decorations is they were all free. :) I love getting things for free (or really cheap) and making the most out of them!!

Hello. My name is: NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS

I wouldn't usually consider church name tags to be a blog-worthy subject but I was thinking the other day about our church's plan to create name tags. Some members including staff, deacons and their wives have already received their name tags, lucky me. I'm not exactly sure when "church name-tag launch day" will take place but as you can tell from my tone, I'm not too thrilled. To top things off, I just received a message that my name badge will be needed for our marriage retreat this weekend. I'll be leaving mine at home on purpose.

Upon receiving my name badge a couple of weeks ago I immediately thought, "HOW DARE WE STEAL THIS IDEA FROM THE MORMONS!" Our church even bought a machine specifically for making name badges on the spot so no one would miss out on the fun. I typically would feel uncomfortable at a church where everyone had a name tag on.

Regardless of my bitter rage and sarcastic tone, I do have legitimate justification for my negative opinion. But so far I think I'm the only person at our church that has any real problem with the idea. However, it's possible that none of my problems with name tags would even make sense to most of our members who are older than me (which comprise the vast majority of our membership). Our generations simply interpret things differently.

I'm sure my church sees this as an opportunity to embody the whole idea of "loving relationships" and granted learning everyone's name could be a start. I'll be the first to admit our church is quite big and with the mixture of diversity remembering 16 different Chan's, Li's and Tsang's can be quite challenging. There are people I speak to every Sunday and it's hard for me to recall their name. But whatever happened to asking someone's name and remembering it? I'm not saying I'm a rockstar at name memorization, but the principle is pretty universal. If you care enough, you'll remember it.

I think the majority of my church doesn't have a problem with wearing a name tag because they would probably just appreciate people being able to call them by name without knowing them at all. And that is precisely what I don't appreciate. Of all the things people go to church for, the most important thing to my generation is authenticity. I'm really tired of the stale taste of dishonesty and the masks people so often wear when they go to church. I'm really hungry for authentic community where people are honest about their faith and honest in their relationships. If we really cared enough and truly knew each other, why would we need name tags?

I'm truly hungry for a church that is real, one that extends further than Sunday morning. I'm guilty as charged, but am I really the only one who is hungry for relationships that go beyond the shaking of hands and reading of name tags? I don't want you to know my name unless you're interested in getting to know me. I want authenticity, so please ask for my name.

Lovin' from My Oven

Made these for a friend's birthday last week..Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. They definitely didn't turn out to be the prettiest shaped things, not sure what happened. But from what I hear, they tasted great!! :)




Then for one of our youth's going away party I made some Funfetti cupcakes. Slapped some homemade frosting on those bad boys and they were GONE! Thank goodness..I didn't know what I was going to do with 24 cupcakes...



I'm not sure what my obsession is with cupcakes..they are cute, personalized, and just the right amount! They are also super fun to decorate. Maybe soon I'll try something different... but I don't know.. I love cupcakes...Ellison even recently bought me this magnetic mini cupcake recipe book! :)

Sometimes I want to scream, "Get a real job!!"

Today, I was having a talk with a friend on Facebook Chat. Her and her husband also graduated from ETBU and in 3 weeks are expecting their first child. I often read Kristen's blog as she expresses the joys and frustrations of pregnancy. I told her that her blog has never made me want to be pregnant and not want to be pregnant so much at the same time!! But I guess we'll wait a few more years unless the Lord has another plan..but Kristen and I got to chatting about our husband's jobs. Kristen's husband, Mark, is also a youth minister and so we instantly connected on the pros and cons of being "the youth minister's wife". So Kristen, this blog is for you...

On Sunday, at church, Ellison and I were walking down to the youth sunday school rooms when a person passed us and said, "Hello, Pastor Ellison."..."Hello, Ellison's wife."....... WHAT?

After marrying Ellison, I lost my own identity. I get "Ellison's wife, youth pastor's wife, that girl with Ellison, Mrs. Ellison, Tsang tai"..literally everything except, Brittney. Now although at times in my life I've cursed my mother and regretted having the same name as a scantly dressed teen pop-star, but I've never wanted to hear my actual name so badly in my life!!

Life in ministry is definitely difficult. I think I often don't give Ellison enough credit. The Lord has blessed him in tremendous ways and he is really great at what he does. And sometimes, if I don’t watch my attitude, I find myself saying to him, “I’ve had a hard day at work. All you did was take teenagers out for ice cream and plan a lesson.”

I saw a chapter in a book once that read...

As youth pastor's wives we often think.. "My spouse gets to go to amusement parks and take kids out for pizza during his workday, while I’m lucky if I get to eat a granola bar at my desk in between phone calls, e-mails, and my boss’s increasingly idiotic requests upon my time. I don’t see how I can even pretend that his job is harder."

Yes, but I guess he's not really going to an amusement park for his amusement. He’s balancing 25 permission slips, trying to keep PDA to a minimum, making sure no one gets kidnapped, trying to figure out what to do with a kid who just puked on a roller coaster, and trialing phone calls from parents whose children aren’t answering their cell phones.

Oh, and two kids forgot towels and will have to ride on the bus home for 2 hours in smelly clothes, and that kid with ADHD drank five energy drinks on a dare, and the “it couple” in youth group broke up at the amusement park so the whole youth group is taking sides, and the kids are complaining that the PG movie playing on the bus is for babies, and the bus driver is warning your spouse that if anyone else spills on the bus he is leaving the entire youth group in a ditch and driving away. And parents are calling because the youth group is running thirty minutes late thanks to the ADHD kid; one parent is charging your spouse for their child’s canceled piano lesson and complaining to the board of elders that the youth pastor doesn’t keep his promises.

When it's put that way, I see that being a youth pastor is exciting at times, but it's not always fun and games. I'm finding there are many ups and downs to being a minister's wife and I'm surviving..possibly even thriving. And although I don't always have the energy of a 12 year old, at the end of the day I still count my blessings and am truly thankful for a man who is working hard for the glory of His kingdom and I'm happy to join with him in that purpose.

More Lovin' from My Oven

I really love to bake, however here lately I've run out of reasons to make things. It's dangerous to just make things for the fun of it because we'll just sit around and eat them all ourselves and for the simple fact that my Nana told me "You're going to be waddling..." But here are a few things I have baked over the past month...

Maltesers Cupcakes (British version of Whoppers)

My Great-Grandmother's Peanut Butter Cookies

Blueberry Cream Muffins

YUMMMMMMMMYYY!! I'm going to be baking something for a friends birthday this week as well..we'll see what I come up with.

Much Needed Update (1 of 1237 for September)

I can't believe I've become one of those people who let you wonder what's been going on for weeks...geez. I'll fill you in with a few pictures. Sorry it's been so long..

Work has been super busy, a nice change from my previous post. I've been having to work late on Tuesdays in order to organize English related learning events in the Library. This was my first event, English Board Game Night. I had 6 students and I even was able about to talk about Christ to 3 girls from the mainland. I love using my job as a ministry opportunity..

We've been super busy with the youth as well. Every Friday in September we've had an event. This past week's event was really amazing. Ellison rented an open-top double decker bus and we rode around Hong Kong going to the difficult schools of the youth on board. At each school we stopped outside to pray for this school year. It was a really amazing experience. To top the night off the driver drove us down by the harbour for an incredible night view (view picture below).

We recently were hit by a typhoon, although it wasn't a direct hit we got rain and wind for days! (My kind of
weather...)

Speaking of weather..it's been super hot this past month. Here's a disgusting picture of Ellison covered in sweat to prove that. He only had gone for a short walk outside.

Saw this car as we were leaving Ruby Tuesday's...I think this person likes Hello Kitty a bit too much. It's even on the license plate!!

Since I've moved back to Hong Kong I've been begging for a Christmas tree. I love Christmas time and enjoy decorating for the holiday. I had been searching on a website for a second hand on for months and finally found the perfect one!! It's 7 foot and actually from Crate and Barrel in the US. A lady was selling it here in HK and it also came with a whole HUGE box of Crate and Barrel decorations. I got the whole lot for $500HK (or $63US)!! I put the bottom part together just to get a feel of how big it would be! YAY!

A lot more things have been going on, but I'll make separate posts for them as they are definitely blog worthy! :)

Perks of being Uni Staff

Lately, I've been day dreaming about what it would be like to be in university again. With Jud and Cassy being here, I'm often jealous of their late nights and sleeping in routines. I feel old when I want to go to bed by 10 and don't want to go out on the weekends because I FINALLY get to sleep in one day. I guess that's what they call being an adult. I'm married and have a job now, which I guess calls for higher priorities...

My job has been pretty stressful lately. My boss just keeps laying it on me and one of these days I'm going to be so overloaded I'll crack...just waiting for the day! But as stressful as my job has been lately, I do get some pretty awesome perks. Students and staff members of HKBU get discounts at Festival Walk (the mall located closest to campus.) We not only get discounts at most stores but also at some restaurants near by as well. I also get full access to the library and gym here on campus. Working accross the street from Ellison, we get to come to work together every morning and have lunch together most days as well. Seeing him at times through the day really helps when things get chaotic. But one of the greatest perks of all came to us the other day..

We've been needing a new computer. We have a desktop, which is in the office, which is serving as a storage room right now. But even if it was plugged up...it's all in German. I can't even begin to change the German windows because I can't read enough German to even know where to CLICK! Then there's Ellison's laptop, or lack there of..it died on us about 3 months ago. Oh, and then there's my laptop. I bought it about 4 or 5 years ago and recently had to delete everything and restore the computer back to factory settings. It's still decent, but needs a lot of work. It doesn't even have Microsoft Office anymore. So Ellison has been using the church's laptop for studies and work, but it's about time we give that one back. We talked about getting a Macbook because it would allow Ellison to design things for his ministry with ease. Neither of us know much about using a Mac, but we checked into it. We looked at them in some of the electronic stores around Hong Kong and then checked out the Apple store online. We finally decided to get a Macbook Pro and found out that even STAFF MEMBERS qualify for the Education discount. So not only did we get the computer for a couple hundred (US) dollars cheaper, Apple is having a back to school promo and we got a free Ipod touch. On top of that, we also got a free printer/copier/scanner. And we were able to get incredibly great deals on the Iworks software and Microsoft Office with the discount as well. Altogether we saved about $600US on our new computer and components! Pretty sweet perks I think...

Thanks Apple for great service and awesome promotions and Thank you HKBU for giving me a staff card.

Santa came early this year...

Well, we picked Jud up from the airport on Thursday night. He will be studying at HKBU this semester but couldn't move into the dorms until Monday so we let him crash at our place for a couple of days. Katrina (our summer house guest) left on Thursday and so Jud's had a room all to himself (not sure if he'll want to leave anytime soon..!!)

Before Jud left Texas he asked if there were a few things I wanted him to bring over from the US. It started with one thing..and then another..and another. The list kept growing and growing and growing. I'm pretty sure I'm the one to blame for his overweight luggage!! Here are a few things he brought El and I..well, me really.


We've got Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch (my favorite cereal.) It's practically already gone. There's 3 boxes of Funfetti cake mix. I've already made a batch of cookies and cupcakes. There's 7 bottles of B&BW hand soaps! A container of REAL vanilla from Mexico. AND 2 new red plates (since 2 of mine had chipped!) I love great friends! It was like Christmas Thursday night.

Since Jud arrived our hours have been jammed packed. Friday night we went up to The Peak for dinner and desert. Did a little shopping and rode the ferry back across the harbour. Then we went to our favorite Jazz pub for some great music before hoping on the bus to take Katrina to the airport for her midnight flight. However, on the way down from The Peak our minibus pulled up on an accident that had just happened. A speeding taxi going down the hill had just hit a pedestrian. The guy was laying there with blood pouring out and he wasn't moving at all. Lucky the ambulance pulled up behind us and the paramedics didn't even start CPR they went straight for the defibrillator..add that to the firsts. I've never really seen a dead body before.

Anywho, it's been a great weekend and I'm now back at work. Even busier than usual. It's going to be a fun semester having Jud here!! :)