A Skip and a Hop to China!
Friday, March 27, 2009
Doing Well
I'm so sorry that I haven't posted anything new lately. I have been really busy with teaching. Also our internet has been acting up and sometimes won't work the whole day and even then it is very slow. Things are going great here in Shuangpai. I love it here! The people are so kind and are so willing to help. I have made many friends with the students and some people around the town. I might go shopping tomorrow with a girl that Sam and I met the first week we were here in Shuangpai. I am excited! She is such a sweetheart! Two Sundays ago I went hiking with Sam and one of his classes up a mountain close to the school. It was a lot of fun!! I will put up pictures of it tomorrow and tell ya'll more about it. Other than hiking and classes not much has been going on. I hope that all is well at home and that everyone is doing great!! Love ya!!
Monday, March 9, 2009
Oh What a Beautiful Day!!!
Today was so fantastic!!! It rained all last week and was really cold so I was so ready for a change in the weather. When I looked outside it was sunny and warm without a cloud in the sky!
I woke up in a great mood too!! You know those days where you wake up in a great mood for really no reason? That was today! I think it partly could be that my birthday is on Thursday but also because the weather was so great. For some reason I just felt like today and this week was going to be great! As I got ready for the day I started to sing really loud "Oh, What a Beautiful Day" from Oklahoma. I have always liked this song and the words fit perfectly to today. Everything was going my way!My 10:30am class in room 229 was amazing!!
When I walked into class there was a gift sitting on the desk with a card. My students had bought me a gift!!!!
They also had on the computer the Happy Birthday song and
they sang it for me!! By the end of them singing I was teary eyed! It was so sweet of them to get me a gift! I didn't expect any of my classes to do anything for my birthday. I opened the card, which was funny because on the front it said "Happy Birthday!! We always wondered if we were cut out to be parents."
I don't know what that means coming from my students but it was very sweet. The gift was a snowglobe! It has little angels in it. It is so cute!!! After I thanked them for their gift we had class. I taught my students about adjectives and we played a game. We played Catch Phrase. They really liked it.
My next class didn't start until 2:30 and the weather was so beautiful I decided to go on a bike ride. Sam played basketball so I went by myself. 
It was great! I headed out of town the same way that Sam and I went on a bike ride before. The scenery is so amazing! Not even 15 feet out of town and it is country. The mountains are close to the road. All along the road are rice fields and some old houses. Trees line the road and there are little patches of trees here and there but it isn't until the montains that there are more. Right now the fields are green with the sprouts of rice. There are also yellow flowers growing. A little bit past t
he bridge in the picture on the right there is a road that goes to the left. I saw a few cars go on it today and I decided to see where it went. I also wanted to get away from the cars on the road. It is scary to be riding my bike as they pass! I'm so afraid that one will hit me! Once I turned onto this little road to the left everything seemed to go quiet. I turned off my ipod and just listened. There was nothing! Just the rippling sound of stream close to the road and the wind in the trees 
but nothing else. As I took in this beautiful sight I realized how much people miss. We go about our day to day lives with ipods on and phones to our ears, that rarely do we stop and just take in what is around us. I couldn't believe just how peaceful it was when the busy road was just 100 feet away. 
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Why I am Here
There are many parents following my blog who have daughters adopted from Shuangpai. I am so excited to be able to share with you my experiences and pictures from the city where your daughters were born. I hope that through my blog you will be able share with your daughters when they are older where they are from. I have such a deep love for China. It is not just from studying the rich history or culture that China has. Rather, it is from these two little girls in the picture above.My family adopted two gems from China. Alaina, at the top of the slide, is 6 years old from Jaingsu province and Abby, at the bottom, is almost 3 and is from Fujian province. My family started the long adoption process about 6 years ago when
my parents knew that our family wasn't quite complete. They had heard about how girls were being abandoned all over China and knew that there were two who were meant to be in our family.
The whole process was long and both times were delayed but in the end, my family received the greatest gifts ever. My 3 biological siblings and I love these girls and cannot see our family without them. We love them just as if my mom gave birth to them. From the first moment we saw their tiny passport size picture with our referral we were in love!! Everyday I look at these girls and just think of what there life would have been like in China. I am so grateful to have these girls in my life. When the opportunity came that I could live in China teaching English I thought of my sisters. I knew that it would be a once in a lifetime chance for me to be able to live where they lived. I want to be able to go home and tell them about how amazing the people are and how rich the culture is. I am excited to be able to show them pictures of their homeland and to tell them about it. I can't wait to experience more that China has to offer so I can tell my sisters about it. I hope that by living here and telling them my story it will help them somehow with understanding their past which will make their future all the better.
