A Beautiful Week of No Rain

This is the first week since we have been here where there has been no rain for an entire week. It has been great! It rained Monday, but only for a little while. Today the sun is shining again. There was one day last week you could see the mountains that surround our city perfectly. It was breathtaking. Craig took some pictures and posted them on our picasa site. The colder weather is starting to come. I'm learning to wear lots and lots of layers and my Chinese friends are telling me I need to wear more clothes so I do not get cold. They do not have heat in their rooms or in the classrooms so they are always bundled up. They do not understand why we keep our heat on and do not bundle up in our house. It is nice that they are so concerned about my health.
Last week, we had our first funeral cultural experience. Behind our apartment is a a few houses and a country road that is often very noisy. From Thursday through Monday morning, there was a funeral. They played the same sad music for four days straight accompanied by the loudest fireworks I have ever heard. We had to yell to talk to one another if they were shooting the explosives. We live on the third floor and they were shooting them right behind our house so they were exploding right by our windows. It was shaking our windows and lighting up our house at night. On Saturday and Sunday night, they had even louder music with drums and the loudest and longest fireworks that I have ever heard all night long. Sunday night, Nate and Jess let us sleep in the spare room to avoid all of the noise. Thanks guys! On Monday, it was finally over. The silence was the best thing I have ever heard!
On Saturday, we got to escape the noise and we traveled to a small town called Baijiao. A teacher from the school took Jess, Craig, and I. It was a great day! It is a 40 minute bus ride to the town. It is a quiet town and the people there were wonderful. The town is known for it's tea so there are tea bushes everywhere. We got to explore a cave in the town. Craig was excited because he found a few cave creatures. It was nice to get away from the city and be in a town with no honking and loud noises. We went a long walk around the town and got to see some new buildings they are building. They are actually made of wood, which you do not see here often. They were incredible! Craig put pictures of those on the website too. We went and ate lunch on top of the town at a little restaurant. It was delicious and we ate wild pigeon. On the walk back down, we saw a SQUIRREL! I know you seen them all the time in Arkansas, but that is the first animal we have seen that is not a bug or a bird in 3 months! It was pretty exciting! The children in that village were adorable and very interested in us. We had our picture taken with some of them and a few wanted our autographs. We had some kids chase us up the road so they could get their picture with us. One little boy was about 3 years old and he was terrified of Craig. He wouldn't let Craig hold him, but he let me eventually. It was funny because he picked his nose the whole time. I think he was nervous.
Last week, we got a surprise visit from some American friends. It was great to see Tony and Janet! It was really encouraging to visit with them. They also brought us AMERICAN FOOD! I have been doing a lot of cooking and soon I will be doing a lot of baking. We took pictures of all the food. We will post them soon. I think it was better than Christmas to see that much American food! It came just in time for Thanksgiving. I plan to make a big Thanksgiving meal for everyone. It probably will not be close to ours at home, but hopefully I will be able to make a few things. Grandma, I'll miss you're pumpkin roll!
This Thursday and Saturday we are having some students over to teach me how to cook some Chinese food and I am teaching them how to make garlic mashed potatoes and cookies. I'm pretty excited about it.
All of our English Readings are continuing to get better. We are also studying English with even more students now individually. It is a great experience to get to know those students!
I hope you get the chance to look at our new pictures! I know the next month is going to be a hard month for us because of the holidays so please lift us up.
We miss you all and we love you!