Home Sweet Home

Finally made it back to the good ol' US of A late December 19th, longest day ever!! Sleep and luggage deprived, but luckily I gained the luggage back. The sleep...still trying to catch up on. 
Carmen, Allison and I said our goodbyes in the LA airport, shed a few tears, and headed to our plane to catch our flight to Phoenix. When we got up to the front the ticket taker told us that we weren't on the flight, and that our tickets weren't working. I had a little freak attack inside. I was getting on that plane. We were so close to home; only a one hour flight between me, my soft bed, and some mexican food, and we somehow didn't have working tickets?! Luckily he was very nice and let us on, I don't know what we would have done.
Being home is weird...I adapted much better than I thought I would. China really isn't that different of a world. I definitely miss it. I miss my kids, I miss the beautiful greenery outside our school, I miss the meals that our cook Michael would make us for lunch, I even miss the rice.. Just kidding, I hate rice. I would be fine with not eating it again.
I am definitely thankful for everything I have here though. My bed feels like a pile of clouds. I feel like I have never felt something so soft. I forgot that people have actual mattresses here in America. I'm also thankful for my family. They have been so supportive and loving, and my sisters even tried to clean up my room to hide the fact that they have been stealing all my clothes while I have been gone, actually Correction: Mom made them clean up my room :P
I am so thankful for the chance I had to go to China!

Zai Jian! 

Day 103: Monday: White Headbands

So apparently you are not supposed to wear white headbands in China. Or anything white on your head. My Chinese teacher and coordinator were laughing and talking about me today because of it. They said that it was very "furniture" which I finally deciphered to mean "unfortunate" and that people only wear that to funerals.
They just kept poking my head all day, giggling and calling me funny. So many things represent death here. You can't leave your chopsticks sticking straight up in your bowl because that represents death...you can't give watches to people because that means that they are going to die...you can't wear white headbands because that means you are going to a funeral... Crazy China :P

You can't see it too well, but this little kids jacket says "Got Girls?" Haha typical China.

The snowmen we made for class today :)

Shenzhen Christmas Party: (Day 101)

We went to Shenzhen for the Branch Christmas party on Saturday. The food was definitely a highlight. We got ham, mashed potatoes, rolls, (with butter!!) and tons of pie and cookies :) They feed us well when we come. 

Enjoying our food :)

Family pictures ;)

Helping out with the piñata

We like whipped cream ;)

The cutest little Asian girl named Jade :)

 Santa! He wasn't as excited to see us as we were to see him...

Day 102: Tennis searching

Sometimes I just can't wait to get back to America.  The language barrier can become a bit frustrating. We"talked" with some lady for about 20 minutes just trying to get some balls to play tennis. I guess you had to schedule ahead of time to play and also pay to get in, so we ended up taking a bus to the college and found some more courts. I am not going to miss the buses here, thats for sure. It is so annoying having to wait for them. We had to wait an hour today because one of the buses broke down.
Kaiyin had delicous food at dinner for once. It was pretty much the best they have had so far, hopefully they keep that food coming... We played some card games at Anna and Britt's apartment afterwards. Allison and I are unbeatable together. I guess its not really fair to play games when we have our telepathy ;)

Day 97: Buddhist temple

One of the friends of the owner of Bond took us out to eat at a Buddhist temple today. It was a really neat experience. We got to see the inside of their temple and walk through it all; it was really pretty. We also got to eat with the female Buddha. I guess it was an honor. The food was seriously some of the grossest I've had in China though. They don't eat meat either, so it was just tofu, mushrooms, bean paste, roots, and cabbage. At least if they had a good flavor it would have been bearable, but it was seriously disgusting. It was also Brittany's Birthday, so we went to Ginas Pizza to celebrate after which was good, because I didn't eat much for lunch.

Roots...

The group

Anna the cake master

Brittany was pretty excited ;)

Days 94-95 Sleepover in Xiaolan!

We played some sports this morning. My favorite part of the week :) We played some soccer, frisbee, and football. After that Allison , Carmen, Brooke and I went over to the Xiaolan School. It was about an hour and a half away, but ended up taking a lot longer because of the traffic. We got stopped and the bus driver even got off the bus at one point. Kids were taking potty breaks out the front door. I even got to drive the bus ;)

We got to see the flower festival while we were there. We went to the park near their school, it was beautiful. We also climbed up to the pagoda to look out above the city, which was really neat. We were the last ones to be able to go up to the top, luckily they like us foreigners a little more than most people so they let me go up. They were trying to close it off :P 

Candice, Mindy, Me, Allison, Carmen, Brooke

We even got our pictures taken with these guys, and then saw them looking at it on the way back :P We were making some pretty crazy faces in some of them. Its a little game we play now, who can make the ugliest face in their pictures ;P

Our delicious fruit salad :)

Christmas!!

Our treats and games of the night. 

We stayed up way too late talking and playing around, especially considering we had to wake up at 6:45 to leave on the bus to church. We only got about 2 hours of sleep :o 

The next day was Sunday so it was a bit more relaxing which was nice. We had church in the morning and then played some games. It was freezing cold all day long.

Day 93: Friday! Scooter Time!

We decorated our apartments with a little bit of Christmas today. It is officially Christmas season now, so we have to start. We watched a few Christmas movies to get us in the spirit.

We also borrowed some little scooters from the school and went riding down the hills around our apartments. It was way fun :P We had more fun on those things than the kids do at school.

Night races

Our Scooter Gang