Happy New Year

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and has had a great start to the new year! We had an interesting Christmas, at least an interesting Christmas Eve. To start, Craig and I were on the school radio that broadcasts over the whole campus. I was a little nervous at first, but after awhile it was not so bad. The show lasted for 30 minutes and we had an audience of about 15 to come watch us. Right after the radio show, we went to a Christmas party that the school had for us. There were 30 performances and we were one of them. We had rehearsed for about 30 minutes while everyone else had practiced for at least one month. We sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Santa Clause is Coming to Town. We were on stage with lights and around 2,000 people yelling and standing for us. It made me feel like a rock star, except we were singing children’s songs and we sounded pretty terrible. We have the video so we will show you when we get home. I wouldn’t dare put it on the internet, but there is no telling how many of the students have it on video though! After we performed, we had to go downtown to attend another Christmas party. On the way, our car got hit by a dump truck twice. Nothing serious and everyone was okay! It was pretty scary considering we were in a little Sedan car and it was a huge dump truck. I think our car was as tall as his wheel! All in all, the most eventful Christmas Eve I have ever had.

Katie, Zack, and Elizabeth (Friends from America living in Yichang) came to celebrate Christmas with us. We had a great time getting to spend several days with them! We had Christmas dinner on Sunday and exchanged some presents. I cooked my first ever chicken and dressing, homemade yeast rolls, and pumpkin pie! The meal turned out a lot better than Thanksgiving!

We have been on vacation for a week now! The time has already gone by so quickly. Our students do not leave until the 9th of January so we have been having meals and hanging out with some of them before they leave. Jess Turner has left for America and I must say I miss her. I am now the only American girl, and soon I will be the only girl here. Jess come back!!! While Jess is gone, I will be the cook so the boys do not starve! I will cook them one meal a day and being the dork that I am, I even made a menu for each day.

We have been enjoying our vacation; I am already feeling a renewed energy. We have been spending more time in the word and more time talking to Dad. He is giving us a new peace and energy. I have also been trying to study my Chinese everyday and have started exercising more!

We leave for Sanya on January 13th and we will return to Enshi on January 22nd. We are so excited about this trip! It is going to be around 70 or 80 degrees which is its main appeal for me! I am freezing here! Since we did not get to take a long honeymoon, this is going to be our honeymoon/1 year anniversary trip! We figure we could never afford a trip like this in America. It is so cheap to travel here! We will take a lot of pictures for you!

When Jess returns in February, we are wanting to travel to Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan province to hike in the Himalayas. Craig and I want to go to Chengdu to see the pandas on the way back. We do not have all the details, but we are pretty excited about it!

Continue to remember us in your thoughts as we travel and also as we prepare our hearts and minds for next term. We are really looking forward to next term! We have some new classes next term and we are pretty excited about getting to meet new students!

It is hard to believe, we are half way through our trip. We will miss all of the friends we have here, but we can’t wait to see all of you again!

We would love to hear from you!