A Warm Heart Even in the Cold

Hello Everyone! Craig and I are working hard preparing for our final exams this week. This week will be very busy, but we will be finished at Christmas. My mom's package arrived so our house is fully decorated for Christmas. I'll take pictures this week and also take pictures of our Christmas parties this week. They are all so excited about it! My mom got me a Christmas tree cookie cutter so now they can all decorate their own Christmas tree! Thanks Mom! We even found a fake Christmas tree here! When we were buying our Christmas tree, I had a 3 year old little Chinese boy warm my heart like butter. He reached up his chubby little arms for me to pick him up. The kids here never do that, most of the time they are terrified of me. I am like a creature from another planet to them. This one was the cutest one ever. After I handed him to his mom, he said xie xie (which means thank you). It just made my day!
All of our groups have been going great! We are going to miss all of them during the break! I will let you know at the end of the week how all of our parties went and show pictures. I hope you are all remembering the reason for the season! We miss you!

Burr....It's cold outside!

I just realized it has been two weeks since I have posted anything. We both have been very busy and I have been sick for the past five days. I have a cold so one of my students gave me an herbal tea. The herbal tea gave me a bad stomach sickness for two days. Now, I have a sore throat. It's been one thing after another. I think the cold weather is taking it's toll on my body.
It is getting really cold here. Today I wore four layers of clothes, thick wool socks, my warm boots, gloves, a hat, and had my hot hands and I still froze! Since I have a cold, all my students are telling me I need to wear more clothes. I don't think it is physically possible for me to fit on any more clothes. I feel like a great big marshmallow. We have two wall heaters and three space heaters. We can't use both heaters at once or we trip the breaker and shut our electricity off. We also can't be on the internet and have the heat on because it uses too much power. If we have the internet on, we have the space heaters on. Since our apartment is concrete, it is really cold without any heat. All of my students tell my the heat makes me weak. They don't have heat in their dorm rooms so they are used to it. I think I would turn into a popsicle without it. Our classrooms don't have heat so I wear a lot of clothes. I look ridiculous, but I am warm. The other day in class I thought my toes were going to break off because they were so cold so today I started wearing my winter boots.
We had our Thanksgiving meal on Saturday. Our friend, Katie came to visit us from Yichang! We had a great time! We had 12 people at the big meal. I made mashed potatoes, homemade biscuits, macaroni and cheese, corn, and my first coconut cream pie! It wasn't quite as good as my Mom and Grandma's cooking, but it was good! Our friend, Dave made an unbelievable sweet potato pie! It was a great holiday together!
I am looking forward to Christmas. Mom is sending me some Christmas decorations and some Christmas movies. I can't wait to start decorating and to watch the movies with our friends. Our friend, Eva is so excited to watch Elf with us. I taught Eva the song, I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas. It is so funny listening to her singing it. I'll try to record it so you can hear it for yourself. I think Jess is ready to kill me for teaching it to her because she sings it all the time! I love it! Sorry Jess!
We are going to make sugar cookies and hot chocolate and watch a Christmas movie with our groups the week before Christmas. They are all so excited! The school is having a Christmas party for us on Christmas Eve. We have to do a performance for it! They love to hear us sing. Last week, Craig did the bunny hop with some of our students. Since I was sick, I didn't get to see it. I am sure there are many many pictures of it though. They gave us a Thanksgiving party and I think we had our picture taken at least 100 times. My face hurt from smiling so much! There is no telling how many pictures of us there are in Enshi.
We found out this past week, we will be finished with classes on January 1st. We will be off from January 1st until February 16th. We're going south to avoid the winter for a little while. I can't wait! I will miss all of my friends during this time! All of the students go home during this time, but a few of our friends live in Enshi and a few are staying for a short time. I will also not have Jess with me for one month. It's me and the boys for a month. It should be interesting!
I'll try not to forget about updating you on our life here in China. Sometimes I get really busy and forget. I think business is a good thing though! We didn't come all the way to China not to be busy!
We miss everyone very much! You are in our thoughts everyday! We love you all!

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!

Gifts from Above

This week has been an incredible week. We have had 3 days of beautiful sunshine and perfect weather. It has really lifted our spirits. Craig met two new first year students this week. Both are now coming to study English with him. They are really nice and open to learning. I also have two new girls coming to study English. They are both encouraging and I look forward to studying more with them. Our English Readings are also going very well. The groups we have are very interested and we are enjoying getting to spend time with them.
This past week I taught some of my students how to make pumpkin bread. They had a good time and next weekend they are teaching me how to make mán tou (steamed bread). I hope that I can learn to make several different Chinese dishes. A lot of my students are willing to teach me.
Craig and I have recently taken up the sport of badminton. We decided since we are residents of China, it is a must to learn how to play. Since we both have not played since we were 9 years old, we were just a little rusty. The first time we tried to play, it was not pretty. We played against one of the Japanese teachers and his students. I think they were holding back on us. We have improved a little, but we have a long way to go. We have also been playing volleyball with some of the teachers here. Our team won the championship! Craig starts playing team football(soccer) this week. He has been playing some, but the league games start this week.
This weekend is our school's sports meeting. It is like a mini-Olympics. They have basketball, football, and track games. We get out of school on Monday because of it. We have a four day weekend, which is great! It has been a perfect weekend of relaxation! We've studied, read, exercised, played badminton, enjoyed the beautiful sunshine, cleaned our apartment, and watched a few movies. We also found a new restaurant called Lem Hamburger. Granted they do not always have hamburgers. They do have chicken sandwiches and popcorn chicken and they have french fries! It is nice when you want some unhealthy American food.
It is starting to get cold here, but I am thankful that is not really cold yet. I do not know if I am ready for the winter here. We plan on traveling in the south of China over our winter break to avoid the cold weather. We will just do what all of the Chinese people do, wear lots and lots of layers.
We have posted some pictures recently. I hope you get the chance to look at them!

New Pictures

I just wanted to let you know that Craig and I both posted pictures on our picasa site. The website is http://www.picasaweb.google.com/jcd1983. There are pictures of Enshi and also some of our friends here.

Sunshine

We finally have sunshine. It has been raining for a week straight. I feel like I am in the rain forest. Today it finally stopped raining and the sun came through. When you finally see the sun after a week, it makes you so thankful. When you seen the sun, that means you get to do laundry! If you try to do laundry without sun, it takes forever to dry. I will never complain of doing laundry in America; it is so much more work here.
This has been a busy busy week. We had people over to our house every night this week! That's really a great thing though even though it makes you tired. Both of my studies were really great this week. My students are really thinking about things and it is really exciting. Craig has also met a few people recently that he is going to have English readings with. We asked him and he gave us people. It's amazing!
On Saturday, I went with my Chinese tutor to an English training school. It was not quite the experience I expected. We left Enshi at 6:30 and we did not return until 10:00. I am still exhausted today. I taught three lessons and helped her the rest of the time. The people in the town had never seen a foreigner so that is always tiring. Sometimes it makes you feel like a sideshow act in a circus. One little girl who was about 4 years old stared at me for 5 minutes, I think I terrified her. All of the students were really excited to have a foreigner at their school. It really made me miss my students in Russellville and really made me miss teaching elementary school. I cannot wait to have my own classroom. I hope so much to get a teaching job in Russellville. We have been asking Dad about our future plans and we have peace he will show us the way.
My Chinese is getting a little better. I need to study more. Some of the sounds I don't know that I will ever be able to pronounce, but hopefully I won't have to say those words often. I think I would get laughed at. It is so challenging!
This week I am going to try to post pictures of some our friends we have made here. We have done a bad job about doing that. We will try to do better.
Hope your all doing well. Please keep us in your thoughts. We miss you all! We would love to hear from you!

Ni Hao

This week and next week have provided us with a few unexpected vacation days . Every student in the university must work one week each semester. They have different jobs including sweeping the campus or being a guard. Our classes have had their work week either this past week or next week so we both have had a few days off.
Today we had planned to go out of town to a small town to go hiking and to explore in a cave, but the weather was cold and raining so we did not get to go. Instead, I spent the afternoon with my friend, Xiao Yu. We had an English lesson and then I taught her how to make pumpkin bread. I really enjoyed it. Later this week, I am having some students over to learn how to make it. They have never had pumpkin bread so I am making it for our English Reading Groups this week. I am hoping to find someone to teach me how to cook some Chinese food and I can teach them how to make some American food.
Tonight we went and had dinner at a teacher's house in town. We had a great time. We got to visit with her son and his friends. They are learning English and were very nervous about talking to us, but they became comfortable quickly. They had a rooftop garden with at least 100 bonsai trees. Her father had been working on the garden for 14 years. Craig loved it! We will hopefully get to go back in the day time to see it better.
Next Saturday, I am going to teach at an English school with my Chinese tutor. I am very excited! I will be helping her to teach ages 3-12. I will let you know all about it.
We are still enjoying our life here. It is hard to believe we have been here for 2 full months and we only have a little over 7 months until we go home. The time has gone by so quickly, but in some ways it feels like we have been here for so much longer.
I hope you are enjoying reading about our life here. I wish I was able to tell more, but I am sure you will here many stories when we return.
We miss you all!