60 days have come and gone!

It's so crazy! I can believe we've already been here for 60 days and no I'm not counting down, it's just time for us to refresh our visa. We realized yesterday that time was upon us and we had a mini freak out cuz we hadn't planned anything but luckily one of the other foreign teachers is going to Hong Kong the exact day we need to! So we're gonna have a girl's trip to Hong Kong! Yay!

Tonight we went to dinner with our neighbor, Catherina! Yeah that's right, a real Chinese friend outside of work and family. We met her all on our own. After dinner we walked through the underground mall to escape the rain and found a Dairy Queen! Yep awesomeness!! So we had lots of fun!

I also started my own class on Sat. I was a hit! Three kids signed up because of me and I get a second class this coming Saturday! I'm enjoying it more now that I have my own class. I feel more comfortable but I still hope I just make enough money with my book when I release it ;).

Pictures are of us with Catharina, and the medication is what they gave me at the hospital for my chest cold!

What is it about Garry Marshall that makes you feel better on a sick day?

So I am home sick today :(. Last night I got a terrible fever while shopping at IKEA (I know, a travesty!!) and now I am at home watching movies which isn't so bad but I'd rather not be sick.

Yesterday, as previously mentioned we went to IKEA which was pretty cool. I wish I hadn't been sick so that I could've fully enjoyed it. It's just like the IKEA's in the states except everything is cheaper. :D. We will definitely be going back!

Since the last time I posted we also had a gathering for Annaliisa's birthday with my bro and sis-in-law. That was fun but for some reason everyone eats dinner really late so even though they left at 1 they had only been here for a few hours. But we had a great time. Annaliisa made pork (cuz we couldn't find beef) burgers an we wrapped that in lettuce. She also made some potatoes (you know the kind you get for breakfast) and I made a cucumber salad. Delish!

We also found a foreign supermarket and while it was expensive we bought a few things and it was nice just to see familiar things :). Fun times! Now I gotta wrap this up and do some writing!

I know, I know!

I haven't posted in a while. Well, since we got back to work after new year break things have been busy. We spend our mornings doing school work and catching up on American tv then we go to work from 3 or 5-8ish and by the time we get home it's almost time for bed. So we've just been living life in china. Today marks the warmest day since we've been here. It's 77 with some humidity but from what I hear the humidity will get much worse. To day I (yes alone!) went to Carrefour (basically our target greatland) and got a few things including a hanging rack for clothes cuz we needed it! We've been doin a lot of cooking at home. Annaliisa's having fun coming up with new recipes and I tried my hand at fried rice which turned out pretty tasty. It's been fun just living in our very own place in a far away country. So grown up!

Annaliisa's birthday was last week and we celebrated with the staff at work. They got her a cake and everyone gave a little mini speech and wished her a happy birthday (I think that's a tradition I'm bringing home with me to the states :).

Included are pics of Annaliisa's birthday dinner (we went to a western restaurant), her bday cupcake (lol), our laundry, bday celebration, and our sweating walls!

Are you supposed to see your breath in your own apartment?

It's been so cold here and yes we can see our breath in our apartment...not cool. But we're dealing. We've been on vacation for over a week so we've just been hanging out and watching tv. We started by trying to go to ABC.com so we could watch Once Upon A Time but it only works in USA! Grr! Then I thought maybe we could use Hulu. Nope, that doesn't work in China either. Bummer. Now, if you know us then you know how much tv we watch and how big of a bummer this is. So we had to go through and hand pick six shows that we could not live without. Those of you who watch a lot of tv, which shows would you pick? It's hard to do! The rest is on a wait list that we'll get to when we can. Oh and we got a new tv to watch these shows on!

Yesterday we decided to get out of the apartment. We went to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial and Yuexiu Park. The memorial was amazing and the park was humongous. Mom, remind me to never take you to this park. There are so many stairs I thought I might die! But it was beautiful. We saw the five goats statue, and yes it's exactly as it sounds. We also saw a wall from the Ming dynasty. It was a cool park.

Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year started today! Last night at midnight there were fireworks all over the city but we were in bed cuz we had spent the whole day walking around in the rain. We went to the flower market on Beijing road. It was amazing!! There were flowers and people everywhere!! We ate KFC, it wasn't the same :(. I wish we could've stayed longer but the rain was making it kind of miserable. We ventured into a bookstore where I learned that even in another country, I am obsessed with books! The books ranged from ¥60-85 ($10-15). Which is comparable but I wanted to buy them, lots of them! They had beautiful Harry Potter sets (with the original Philosopher's Stone) and they had a stunning set of the twilight series and even though I already own both there was a yearning in my heart for them. Maybe one day.

The flower market was crazy! We only walked two streets and we were there nearly three hours! There were orchids, roses, mums, lilies, and many more. They were set up down the middle of the street and people walked on either sided depending on the direction they were going. It was like the most organized street fair ever. Then we went down stairs to the metro and there is a complete underground mall! It's amazing! The shops are funny here. They're about the size of walk-in closets. Not many stores are huge like in America. We had a donut, which was delicious, then we headed home.

On the way home we stopped by our favorite vegetable and fruit people (they're on a street on the way home from the metro). We got some apples and peas ad some noodles from the guy across the way and had a delicious dinner. Oh, BTW, we've decided that when you come visit us we'll take you to the noodle guy you can pick your own noodles and whatever you want in it and that'll be dinner! Fun!

Anyways, tomorrow we're doing something with the bro and sis-in-law. Not sure what's in store for us but stay tuned!

Dinner with the fam!

So we're at Crystal's uncles house getting ready to eat dinner. Everyone is here. I can still only post using my app on my iPhone so I can't add a tab for Annaliisa's food :(. I'll just try to add it with my post as often as I remember. Tonight we're having pizza and pasta. Yum! I wish I could be in contact with everyone better. Hopefully I'll find a way! Love you all. Now that we finally have Internet I'll be able to make better posts with many more pictures! Included are pics of Annaliisa buying some gloves, the crowds going to the metro, and our team at work!