more details on christmas... for those who sent the emails

OK, I know I wasn't too detailed in my last email I knew I had to get one out though. SO for those of you who keep asking questions about my holidays... here ya go!
Christmas was a great and very busy time for me. I came back from thanksgiving teaching the kids songs for our production. THat is what we worked on for 3 weeks. We sang and danced and learned about CHristmas and why it is celebrated. In the Da ban class we made a book on the story of CHristmas, the true meaning. Our production was Friday the 19th. Our schedule looked like this...

1. XiaoXiao (SH-ow SH-ow, 2 year olds) sang: The gift goes on
2. Xiao (SH-ow, 2 and 3 year olds) sang: Look at the gift and Jingle bell rock
3. Xiaoxiao and Xiao sang: We wish you a merry christmas
4. Dance specialty class danceed to: Little shepherd
5. Chinese teachers danced, Da Ban (rachel and jojo) gave intro Good fortune has come
6. international class did a play called The littlest christmas tree and sang a song ??? i don't know the name
7. Dance specialty class danced again to: happy darling
8. Chinese gongfu class did two displays: 'the drunken fist' and 'chinese GongFu'
9. Teacher Lele did a dance: Happy prairie
10. Da (sounds like it is spelled, 5 and 6 year olds) sang: Do you hear what I hear and Mary did you know
11. Zhong (J-ong, 4 years old) sang: We wanna wish you a merry christmas and Christmas day written by me
12. Da then did a dance to Edlwise and Jinglebells. *****It might sound like an odd comination, but it was actually really cute.
13.We all ended the show with Silent night in english, chinese and german

I think it all went very well.

We went out with all of the chinese teachers and drivers from my school to dinner. We ate so many amazing courses. The chinese also love to drink when celebrating something. So they would play drinking games and toast eachother. When toasting you want to have you glass lower than the person you are toasting. It shows that you respect that person. Then due to all the drinking there was a lot of singing and danceing. Everyone chanted to tell who they wanted to sing or dance next. We all had our turns. And if you like what a person sings you give them a flower. We had 3 flowers so they got passed around all night. When I was singing I got all 3 flowers and then people started bring up food, i got a dumpling, a fish, a glass of beer... it was really funny. That sunday it snowed... one of 2 days of snow thus far in Qingdao since i have been here. Monday it turned to ice and I had the day off, due to the bad roads. Tuesday all the snow was gone. SO I only taught 2 days that week.

Wens night there was a CHristmas Eve service at Fellowship. It was a lot of fun. We had a candle lighting ceremony like the ones we have back home. Made me a bit home sick. After the servie we headed back to the Birkenstocks. We all found a spots on the floor to lay out or sleeping gear. There were 11 of us on the floor and Kianna was in her crib. We all goofed off until it was time for Judy(the mom) to read us a story. It is tradition in her family for someone to read a story on Christmas Eve and this was a tradition she was eager to share with us. I love to be read to and quickly fell asleep. We got woken up at 7am by my phone alarm that went off even though the phone it self was turned off. Nobody seemed to mind. We took our time getting up. Judith Rose (another teacher) came over. We had breakfast and started the present opening process. I was incharge of passing out presents, as I love this position. With 11 people opening presents it took a while. So we took a few breaks. Chuck would read to us and we has a small discusion about the Nativity story. All is all we finished presents around 1pm. Mandy and I headed over to our boss's house. There we joined in the games of Crainium and Blockus. We played for a few hours til dinner. For our Christmas dinner Mandy made Philly Cheese Steaks. They were AMAZING! We went back to the Birks for desert, i had made Pumpkin cake and there were other various deserts. We watched a movie and then mandy and I headed home. We still had yet to open the gifts we had at home. By this time it was 10pm. We got home and opened the gifts our parents sent us. And then we opened our stocking. Mandy and I filled eachother stockings. I was told the the stocking is a western thing to do. It is not a custom in canada or Germany to fill stocking, olny in the states...? IDK the history of the stockings. We finished our day by calling home.

SO I had a very busy, and very blessed holiday. New Years I spent in town walking around. There were lots of fire works and one of the buildings was sending off chinee lanterns into the sky. It was all really cool. New years day I wasn't feeling well so i stayed at home, I i didn't want to take my chances in the cold. But that sat.was feeling better and needed to exersice a bit to get the germs out.. so I climbed FuShan Mountain. I sang at church that sunday... I love singing. This past wkend it snowed, we were supposed to climb WuShan Mountain. But we have plans to climbit this wkend.

Th chinese New Year is coming up in another wk and 1/2. We have been invited to spen it with my friend Jack and his family. So we will be spending this beloved chinese holiday with some authentic chinese. I don't know what traditions they have. I have asked some and mostly just get the anser eat. With as much as they eat over here I am amazed at how small they are, so I am very excited to see what all happens. It is just a new years celebration like our new years celebration, only this is on the chinese calandar. PLUS, my amazing friends Niki and Greg Funk are arriving on the 23rd to spend the New Year and 2 wks with us! I am very much looking forward to seeing familar faces.

My friend Toni was here for a semester teaching english and she has gone home to Australia. My friend Regina leaves thursday to go home for the New year and then is moving to Shanghi. I am sad to be losing friends, but I am excited to see what and who this next semester brings. I do love Qingdao. I still get fircely homesick at times, but I very glad I took this leap. I have amazing friends here and know without a doubt this is where I am supposed to be at this point in my life.

We are supposed to start a small group for singles after the new year which I am SUPER excited about. Other than that, not much is new. I will write again after the new year... prob after the Funks return home. I should have some good stories for you then.

again, i will continue to put my pics on...
http://s405.photobucket.com/albums/pp136/kjpics73/
bc uploading is becoming an issue. check out all the albums

2009!!!

SO it is a NEW YEAR! Wow. The international New Year went well. I was sick most of last week tho. But i think i am over it mostly. I am excited to be back at school working. I only have 2 more weeks til the Chinese New Year. I will be off for 2 weeks. I miss my kids when I am away from them for too long.

I do have a few goals for this year. I usually have 2 or 3.
There really is not much to write. I have friends coming from the states for the CHinese New Year. So I will have more pictures and stories then. Right now it is back to the day to day stuff.

I wish you all a very joyous and blessed New Year!

Christmas production

Hey guys!
Sorry it has been so long. It has been pretty nuts getting ready for the Christmas production at school and then Christmas and now New years is Wen/Thurs. And at the end of the month Jan 26th is Chinese New Years! So we have a lot going on over here... Here are some pics to show you what we have been up to.

Kat and I

Hyata was doing martial arts for us

Eveyone was waiting in anxious anticipation...

Sheena(boss and owner) and Shawna (director)

I am having issues uploading more photos so you can go to
http://s405.photobucket.com/albums/pp136/kjpics73/
to see ALL the photos I have for the rest of the year. I will try to upload some to the blog, but there are more at this site. I have 3 or 4 albums full right now.

The production was a lot of fun, but i think we are all glad it is over. All of the teachers went out to eat after wards. It was great bonding time.

As for Christmas day... Mandy and I spent it at the Birkenstocks. We ALL had a big sleep over on the living room floor. the whole fam., mandy, brooke, kat and I. It was a lot of fun. And it was great to wake up Christmas morning and have family all around.

I have been so blessed this year. He has been taking such good care of me.

Colors! Look at all the colors!!!

this is my park.... enjoy

My First Thanksgiving.... In China

Thanksgiving Day

I was blessed to have the opportunity to babysit baby kianna on thanksgiving day!

I want one...

All the hustle and bustle of Thanksgiving

Kat and Mandy

TURKEY!!! Oh yeah!

The table looks festive

The guests

Gary is cutting yum yummers

Our hosts Mary and Gary

Their kids Mark and Philip

After dinner the desserts were devoured

Game Time!

You did what?!? With who?!?! for HOW MANY COOKIES??!!!??!!

Ended the night at the Birkenstocks singing and hanging out.

All in all it was a pretty fantastic holiday

Opening your imagination...

Yesterday my friend Toni and I went to this huge park neither of us had been to yet. Walking into it reminded me of PA. When we got in a ways I closed my eyes and the smell of the trees this time of year brought back memories. I could imagine I was at Lutherlin, Cooks forest or the woods down behind the freshman lot at clarion. I wish I had my camera because the leaves were amazing! Magenta, orange, bright yellow this was fall in western PA. It reminded me so much of home. We came to a lake and sat down for a picnic. I made PB&J and brought apples and juice. It was so relaxing. There were so many paths to follow… paved roads, artistic stone walk ways and dirt paths leading in every direction. We found ourselves in the woods where the filming of a Chinese movie was taking place. We watched for a bit and Toni even spoke to the actors. They were really nice. A few yards away was an open lake surrounded by a stone walk way and a bridge leading out to a large gazebo in the middle of the lake. I could have sat there all day soaking in the colors and the listening to the music that was coming from some other part of the park. I started to sketch. I have never sketched anything in my life, but I have been finding release in so many other things, I thought why not. I have found release and comfort through singing, through writing, through dancing, through walking and praying, why not try drawing. It felt good to sketch; although I can not say what I drew was any good. I don’t think that was the point though.

After a while I heard an accordion and memories of Mark playing at Aunt Danettes filled my mind. The Adults gathered on the back porch singing old songs and laughing. I can see my GG singing along and at some point dancing. I think she loved to dance.

There was a giant statue, maybe a building, kind of like a space needle in park that we were trying to get to, but never seemed to find.

As we continued through the park we spotted some older folks playing clarinets and flutes. Some of them were singing. I remember trying to learn the clarinet when I was younger. I was never good at it. These men were amazing. They spotted us and pulled us into there group. They played Adel Vice, O Susanna and a few other widely know English songs. When they didn’t know the words they sang a lot of La’s in the tune of whatever the instrumentalists were playing.

When we left them we walk a fair bit and explored parts of the park that not many people go off the beaten path. In the more private areas we found many couples trying to find a private spot in the park to be alone… private spot in china is next to impossible.

On our way out we walked through the zoo and a wedding couple taking pictures by one of the many lakes in the park.

We left the park and headed for the beach. We ended up on beach 1, but needed to get to beach to so we started walking. On our way we saw an old German castle on the coast, painted mint green! We walked past a college stadium with familiar band sounds and cheering coming from within the walls. When we reached our beach we walked up the board walk and spotted a guy making a huge heart in the sand out of stones. He wrote some characters inside. It made me smile. We ended up having dinner at this restaurant that over looked the water. We sat on the upper deck and watched the sunset as we talked and had coffee.

It was a really fun day. I was excited when I got to use the little Chinese I did know to communicate with the locals. I am really feeling challenged and stretched; both are necessity in my life.

Well, I think I have written enough for now. I will try to do this more often for you so you can continue to have a taste of life here.

Brit's Ballet

Judy & Chuck
Brit, Kim-marie and Salem
(Ben, Bren and Jerry are ate play practice)

Brit is getting ready!

Snacks and fun Decor

Me and Brit. I am trying to keep salem from popping up in from of the camera

Me and Salem

Chuck and Judy relaxing at intermission...

i tried to upload video but it is not working...