Catchin' up!

So with this blog, I will officially be caught up! Hooray!

Monday, Monday (ba da ba da da da) ---Was completely normal, with one nose ring mishap...you can read about it in my blog entitled "nose bling."

Tuesday- Went to school...went to chinese class...went to dinner with friends...Then went to English corner for the first time!!! So english corner is a time when a few of us go to a college campus nearby and just talk to chinese students who are learning english. this gives them lots of good practice and is super awesome for us. They ask all kinds of questions which lead to awesome topics of discussion...It was really really fun, and I felt like I was really doing something good there...The people I talked to were all really sweet. They are usually given an english name by their professor, but some of them didn't have one...so, I named a few girls as well...Don't worry, I didn't name anyone anything crazy...Now there is a Suzanne, a Josie, an Emily, and an Emma...Usually what happens is I listen to their chinese name and pick something that sounds similar, but sometimes that is not possible, so then I just think about it for a while (10 minutes or so) and then pick something...

Wednesday- School as usual...Carrie B. is Pregnant!!! she is just a couple of weeks behind my cousin sarah so I will get to see what is going on with sarah too, kinda. Brad and I decided to use some gift certificates we had for a western restaurant (the village cafe). So we went and ate there, and found one of our new favorite things in xi'an...drinking hot chocolate and reading upstairs in the comfy chairs...only the comfy chairs will do. Their hot chocolate is probably the best I have ever had...maybe that is a stretch, but it is really awesome! The atmosphere is really nice when there are not too many people there...

Thursday...School...Chinese class...dinner in the hu tong...hot chocolate at the village cafe (again)...a trip to metro (a store similar to sam's or costco-sp?)...that was all for that day...

Friday-halloween-most people here don't do anything for halloween because it is not a chinese holiday, but a few of the classes at our school were doing things that made the day fun, so I decided to dress up...Because resources are limited as far as costumes go here in xi'an, I decided to be sleeping beauty...I wore my pajamas and a princess crown...One of my students asked me where my prince charming was....my response was "I don't know, but if you find him could you please give him my number?" It was funny, kinda...no worries...some day my prince will come...(sing it).
Friday night I had dinner with friends and then we watched...wait for it....Arsenic and Old Lace"...not sure if I spelled arsenic right...It was so funny...I won't ruin it for you, but it is an old movie/black and white, and it was the perfect movie for halloween...

Saturday in the park, I think it was the 4th of July...(pretend I was singing)...Ok, so saturday was intense... We drove to the mountains (took about an hour) and went on a two hour hike...the mountains were so beautiful...it almost felt like I was on Sealy Ann Mountain, but these were a little bit larger...I have lots of pictures don't worry...It was also a really beautiful day, so that just made everything better...After that we went and got some lunch...an adventure in itself...and went back for a few rounds of laser tag...I had never played laser tag before, but I knew about it...The field that we played on was awesome, and we could so do that by the barn at home...it would be an awesome way to do paintball too! My team definitely dominated, which was nice....In the first match there was an incident though. I took a pretty hard fall down a bank. Not a dirt bank, a bank made by large white round river rocks...I fell and then rolled a few times before stopping...I have a pretty large bruise on my right cheek (not on my face), but that was the only injury from the fall...it was a miracle that nothing else was hurt! Since I wasn't hurt really they made sure all of my equipment(AK-47, laser tag vest...) was okay and sent me back in to fight! It was soooo fun! Then we went downtown for dinner and a walk through some of downtown...

Sunday- today- Got up early (9:15) helped brad make a salad, made apple crumb dump for the meeting today, and then went to the meeting! came back home and took a nap!!!!

I am ready for another exciting week!!!

Pictures:
Mountains
Laser Tag
Duck for President!- another fun part of friday!

love from china