In his heart, a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. Proverbs 16:9

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Terra-Cotta Warriors

Before we returned to America we made a stop off at a very famous town in the country. It is the home of the Terra-cotta warriors who guard the tomb of Emperor Qin who united the country. The mountain in the pictures is actually the underground tomb. The city is full of history and we learned many things about the country from our visit. The only downside was the cold and snow. Here are a few pictures from our trip.

Interesting sightings

We see many interesting things as we walk/ride around town so we have started taking our camera everywhere. Here are a few of the things we have seen. We will continue to add to these throughout the year.

Cat nap in the spices at the market.

Sign at the zoo: The Breasts of Prayer Animal Region. Please take good care of your children.

Bricks in the middle of the road and the bricks remained there until the people had used all of them to build onto their house.

Birthday




Robyn celebrated her 2? birthday on January 5 so we took the opportunity to do some things we hadn't done yet. We went to lunch at a semi-western restaurant and did the paddle boats on the lake. some of our friends also made dinner and a cake to help us celebrate.

Lions, Tigers and Pandas! Oh My!

We had the week of Christmas off due to public exams, so we took the opportunity to visit the nearby city. During our free time we visited the pandas at the zoo, as well as other interesting animals.

Back Home

Just for all who have been keeping tabs with us--we're back in the States for a quick visit. We'll hopefully be catching up with our blogs while we're catching up with friends and family. So stay tuned!

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

The Christmas "Party"

Our party was a great success. The students enjoyed practicing and performing it. Many teachers and department heads were there and they all had great things to say. We hope that we will see more benefits of this performance in the months to come. Thanks to those of you who helped us pull this off!

Practice, practice, practice



The students were eager to make the Christmas "party" a success so they were willing to do whatever it took to get ready.

Kids & Cable Cars



One of our students invited us to her hometown to help her mother with an English program. We, along with some of our other foreign friends, agreed to help and it went pretty well--even with a made-up version of Happy Birthday in Russian by one of our friends. At the end, we took so many pictures with the kids we saw nothing but spots for a while. For the most part, neither the children nor their parents had ever seen Westerners in person before, so it was understandable.
Our hotel was "interesting." Let's leave it at that... The next day, we went to the mountain overlooking the city by cable car. I think Robyn might have to have the ability to fly before she rides it again because it seemed to only hang on by a thread, and the reassurance that it was inspected in 1997 didn't really do much to help...

Starry Night

You haven't lived until you have been woken up by hundreds of screaming (often drunken) college students at 1:00 in the morning. Ok, so it's not such a big deal? But what were they screaming about? It was the Geminide meteor shower that showed up on a very clear night in December. Our friend texted us to tell us about it about that same time. Normally we'd be upset, but it turned out to be pretty interesting--not just for the beauty of the shooting stars, but also for the antics of a few students who were 2.5 sheets to the wind.