August Already!

My week in a nutshell...

Sunday:
We met with our foreign friends and went over the playbook. It is so nice to meet with people you can talk to... in english. I still can not speak much chinese, so i can not carry on a long conversation with the locals yet. It was fun to just sit around, talking and learning about everyonae. Enjoying time with dad, he is so knowledgabe.


Monday:
Elizabeth took us to a vendors area where a bunch of vendors set up to seel food on the streets. We got our food then came back to our apartment to eat and hang out.

Elizabeth is 19 years old and from Germany. She is in Qingdao to help the Birkenstocks with their 6 kids.

Tuesday:
Mandy and i got to go through Ana and Stephs stuff they left behind and got to fix up our apartment somemore.
We also had Mac n Cheese for dinner. One of Mandys favorite dishes we found at a local grocery store for 7 yuan. Not bad.

Wednesday:
I got to teach a little. It is still summer fun, so nothing too hard. We went over body parts and then i taught them the Hokey Pokey.
We had Todd and the kids over for dinner since Sue was out of town. We got to share NiHao Kai-lan with them. 'NiHao Kai-lan' is a show in the US similar to 'Dora the Explorer', but teaches chinese instead of spanish.


Thursday:
This was the 2 &3 year olds day to go swimming. I was asked to accomapny Salem to the pool since his parents had to work. So although i did not get to teach i had a fun outing with Salem.

Salem

Our friend Alicia came to stay with us for a week. She has tickets to teh opening ceremonies for the Olympics in Beijing! She heads up there on Wens.

Alicia, i will try to get a better picture...

I also got pillows and a blanket for my bed! Very exciting!

Friday:
I got to teach a little more, but only 2 classes because one of the claases was moving rooms and two classes went swimming. I got to meet Judith rose, another foreigen teacher at Big Apple. She focuses on the Xiao Xiao Ben (Phonics: Sh-ow Sh-ow ben, 2&3 year olds) and the all day english class.
Chuch took us bike shopping! We had to ride them home from Decathlon, about 3-4 miles... it was super fun.

My bike!
I have an attachment on the back where I can strap my backpack and a nifty bell to let people know i am coming.

Saturday:
We got to babysit 2 of the Birkenstock kids, Brittney and Salem.

Lunch time!

Yum... SO cute!

Salem, is posing for the camera... after eating bread and nutella for lunch. Its all over his face.

Elizabeth and Mandy

Brittney standing in the tent we made...
Brit and Mandy hangin out in the tent

Salem, and I were playing catch with a huge stuffed dog...

Mandy and Salem

Me and my girl Brit!

Brit and Salem making funny faces... I love these kids!

When we finished babysitting, we took Judith Rose to the new Starbucks 2 blocks from our house. We made friends with Toni, the guy who runs the place. He is native Chinese, but went to Seattle Washing to to study Starbucks!

Very homey...

They sell Tiramisu! It's not Olive garden, but no bad...

This is the view from the ride home! Blue skies! We can see the Mountain peaks!

Sunday:
We had another team meeting and we got to babysit Jude, one of Kirk and Sheenas boys.

Jude

Aw, precious

Ok, so this was a big nutshell, but I have many requests for pictures along with the updates... so i am trying to supply the people what they want... Hopefully i will get to the point soon where it flows more smooth.