A bit of what's been going on...

Welcome to my new blog! Since I can't post pictures to xanga anymore from China, I finally broke down and decided to create a new one here to keep you all updated on my life. :) Hope you enjoy it! Here's a taste of what's been going on lately since we started the spring semester...

Also... if you do leave a comment, don't forget to put your name too- otherwise it just comes up as anonymous! :)


Here I am looking over some of the penpal letters my kids were working on- they've really enjoyed writing to the kids at the Boys and Girls Club and Union Valley. It's a great way for them to practice their English!




I am amazed by how perfect their handwriting is at the age of 8!!! But then again, if my first language involved creating intricately detailed pictorial symbols for each word, I suppose my English alphabet would look perfect too!





David beams as he finishes his monster drawing on the back of his penpal letter! I love David! He's bursting with crazy energy and full of mischief...







Our team has way too much fun eating Chinese--Bob enjoys a chance to give Eskimo kisses to a bodyless chicken head! Yummy!














I always love it when my kids stop by my office after school. Jasmine came by one day to practice new vocab.










Claudia and I enjoyed going shopping with Gloria at the Pearl Market one Saturday. Gloria is a university student who interned at our school last semester. It's been fun to hang out with her.

One day after school a group of my students taught me a new game-- everyone puts their leg on the person's leg next to them and hops in a circle on one foot! They then count to see how long they can go until someone loses balance!














We all got to see Ben's family give an olympics promotion concert at a university in Beijing. The amazing part is that his dad wrote an opening and closing song that he's hoping they'll use for the olympics next year!! Best of all, they are free to sing any songs they want at their concerts, so a lot of them are songs about the Father! Amazing to see the way He is moving here!






A couple weeks ago, I got to go to one of the Chinese teachers' houses to meet her husband and little 10 month old baby boy!! SO sweet!

She invited me to go out for hot pot with her husband and mother and father in law that night. The food was delicious and I loved a chance to meet her family! Baby Michael is adorable, too. It cracks me up how they dress their babies for winter weather- piles upon piles of layers until they can hardly bend their little arms and legs! But then again, they're always getting after me for not wearing my jacket!



















Bobby and David had fun playing a board game I made to practice the phrase, "Where are you going?" "I'm going to the (park, restaurant, post office, etc)"

















This past week or so has been beautiful! With all the smog here, I've never had such appreciation for sunshine and blue sky in my life! It is amazing and makes me very happy! All the flowering trees are in bloom and the trees and grass are turning green all around campus! Spring is officially here!










Bob bought a BBQ grill for our team and last Friday, we invited a bunch of the Chinese teachers over for American BBQ- hamburgers and chicken wings! For most of them, it was their first genuine American grilled food outside of McDonalds! They enjoyed trying brownies for the first time too!






Here I am at the BBQ with Traci, another foreign teacher from Chicago and Amy.
















We also recently celebrated Alicia's birthday at an Italian restaurant in Beijing! She is a university teacher with our organization teaching at a school in Beijing. All of us CTFers gathered together to celebrate with her.









Here I am with Alicia :)















Well, I hope you enjoyed my pictures. The nice thing about this blog is that anyone can leave comments, not just people with blogs! I hope to update this regularly. Have a great week everyone!