I miss the family. I am in China for a week. Cell phone doesn’t get any service anywhere. Text messaging costs a bundle. And Chinese government firewalls all social networking sites, like Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, etc.

But, we have found that Face Time works, between my laptop and Elizabeth’s cell phone. The reception is not always the best (at least not in Hangzhou), but it is so wonderful to see the kids each day. This is the longest I have been away from the family since I was at Duke in 2009. At that time, I spent two weeks straight away from the family once when I had a conference in between two weeks at Duke, and I also was writing a chapter for a book.

This is the first time I think I have traveled away from the family since Jack was born.

Face Time – I can’t believe we’ve never used this before! I guess cuz we’re not a mac family. Then again, we never really like Skype either