Another Update from China

Dave sent the following via Skype:

Its been really cold here lately too. Everyone keeps saying that this is weather that we normally see in January. So hopefully it won't stay this cold too long. We stay pretty bundled up, but the classrooms are cold and not heated at all. They leave the windows open too. Students wear like three pairs of clothes and jackets in class.....kinda crazy.

But its funny. Our kids don't wear as much clothes as the rest of the students so their teachers are freaking out. They can't understand it. We try to explain that we are from Utah and they are used to colder weather than this but they still don't get it. A few kids wear the gloves but most don't. I usually have a sweatshirt on in class, so its not too cold, but way different than schools in america, and the whole leave the windows open thing is definitely different. They want to keep fresh air in the classrooms so the students don't get sick.

We celebrated Thanksgiving last week. There is a restaurant here that is owned by a chinese lady from Hawaii. She makes really good western food, and she wanted to do something big for the teachers. Alot of teachers are also from Canada and their thanksgiving is a few weeks before ours so she split the difference and did a big thanksgiving buffet. It was a lot of fun. And our friends said it was the best thanksgiving dinner they've had in the six years they have been here.

We had turkey and ham and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. I had never had sweet potato pie before but I had heard of it. It was really good. Much better than I would have thought. So after thanksgiving, we decorated for Christmas. The kids were way excited. Before we came out our friend bought a bunch of stuff from some other teachers who were leaving this year, and managed to get a christmas tree and ornaments and that kind of stuff. So we have a little four foot tree in our living room with lights and our stockings hung on the wall. We are definitely going to do Hong Kong Disney as part of christmas. Its not as big as other disneylands, and is mostly kid based so it works out perfectly. Shannon has a friend in Hong Kong who will let us stay at his place for a few nights and so we are going to go in two weeks. We only get Christmas day off from school for the holiday. We normally get two but one day falls on the weekend so they said that counts....funny. So it works out better to go early when we have a three day weekend.

The kids are getting really big. They have grown up a lot since we got here. Tyson is picking up more and more chinese. What we mistook for random gibberish from him one day was actually some chinese words. Alot of times he will just make stuff up so you never know what to believe, but the other day we were in a store and he was spouting off some stuff, and a chinese lady who spoke english was very impressed with him. He was saying "You are my little friend".

Savy's teachers were so excited the other day because they finally got her to eat something. For some party or whatever the kids got a big piece of cake and they were so excited to see she had eaten 3/4 of a piece. Savy told us later that she ate all the frosting off and hid the rest of the cake behind some books! Shannon and I laughed and laughed at that one. What kind of kid doesn't even eat cake?

So those are the highlights for the last couple of weeks.

Pics from China

Dave sent a couple of pictures from a visit to the zoo there in Guangzhou. Looks like their zoo is a little more "hands on" than we'd see in the States.

Election Day

Well, it's the general municipal election today. I was at the office at 6 a.m. (of course I woke up at 3:30 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep). If things go well we should be done about 11 p.m.

Yay for democracy! We had an 8.1% voter turnout for the primary, and we usually double that for the the general. Pathetic.

Erin's Gone

*sob*

Yesterday we saw Erin and her kids off to join hubby Spencer in Hawaii. It's been a crazy week trying to get the last of her belonging sorted, packed, and house cleaned, but it's done now. Her renters were bringing stuff over as we were pulling the last of her stuff out. Ed's driving the truck (with Sienna for company). They stayed last night in a hotel outside of Las Vegas. They'll drive on to Grampa Hanson's house in Beaumont and spend a few hours with him and sleep. Monday she'll take her stuff to the shipping company and turn her car in on Tuesday (I think?). Ed flies back Monday night. She's close to the airport but they don't fly out until Wednesday. Spencer, as a life flight nurse, is on call one week and off a week. His week off starts on Wednesday. He's found a duplex for them, but they'll have to wait a couple of weeks for their stuff to catch up with them. At least they will be together again.

We started the day out having breakfast at Kneaders (yum!)


Erin says goodbye to Robert


Last picture outside her house

Prayer for Your Man

Too funny not to share!

Dear Lord,

I pray for Wisdom to understand my man,
Love to forgive him,
and Patience for his moods.
Because, Lord,
if I pray for Strength,
I'll beat him to death.

Amen

Happy Halloween from the Grandkids

Jibjab is at it again!

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Erin's Moving

Spencer has been in Hawaii for a few weeks now. He's making friends and really enjoying his work. But it's killing him and Erin that they haven't been able to be together as a family. The real estate market is really slow right now, so they haven't been able to sell their house. So they've reached the decision to rent it. Looks like they may have someone lined up. She and the kids will be leaving on October 24th. Ed's going to drive a UHaul truck to L.A. (it will save a lot of money on the shipping of their belonging is she can get it there herself). Ed will fly back on Monday.

Wow. It's really happening. *sob*