Oh boy, do I have biiiiiiiiiig news.‏

WE. ARE. COMING. HOME!!!!!!!

Well, we are all coming home, but then Ben will return at some point. But not me and the kids.

Let me 'splain. No. There is too much. Let me sum up. (What movie??) So things have continued to stall at Ben's job site. They worked for, like, one day, maybe a month ago? But that's it. The executives at the Chinese company here continued to deal shadily with Ben's company. They haven't paid Ben's company yet - they've missed two payments; and they refuse to pay some customs charges and a few other charges which the contract that they signed clearly stated they were responsible for. Not only are they refusing to pay for anything, but they are acting like Ben's company is soooooooooo privileged to be working with them, they should just roll over and say, "Okay, don't pay us! We don't mind! Because we're so excited to have an opportunity for working with you, oh big, bad, powerful Chinese company." Ben's bosses were so incensed that two of them came over to have a big old meeting yesterday. I would call it a Come to Jesus meeting, but considering the circumstances, I'm calling it a Come to Buddha meeting. Ben's bosses basically said, "You pay us now or we walk." And they meant it. They have so many other projects going on around the world; they don't have time to be pussyfooting around with people.

I'm pretty sure it scared the Chinese guys, because they're all, "Okay, we'll pay you the thousands upon thousands that we owe you within ten days. And we'll get more going on the job site." So the plan is, my fam is coming home. We'll see if they really do pay. If they do, yay. But they still have to prepare the job site. So when or if they actually get it all ready, then Ben and probably his boss again will fly here, check it out, and make sure they're not lying. Because for REALS. They have been big liars. If they're not lying, and they have prepared the site, Ben will stay here and finish up with the project managing. The Chinese company were all, "Yeah, it will be three weeks, tops." But after looking at the job site today, Ben's boss and coworker said, "It will be a miracle if this is ready by February, even if they work every day on it." Sooooo, who knows??

As for me and my kids, we're done. Stick a fork in us. We're ready to get back home. Homeschooling is a nightmare - Sadie gives me major 'tude every day when it's school time for her - "I hate school! I hate you! I hate Math! I hate reading!!" It takes up too much of my time and energy, and everything else is getting neglected. Luckily, Ben has been here to help with the kids, cooking, housekeeping, etc. But I knew that I would be screwed when the project started in earnest. I got a taste of that yesterday and today. Dylan is supposed to do six hours of work per day; Sadie is supposed to do five. Yesterday, Sadie got her hours in, but Dylan got maybe 1 1/2 hours in. Today, vice versa. Dylan got all of his; Sadie got 1 1/2 hours in. Neat. But I have obligations, dude. For instance, today, breakfast had to be made (there isn't any cereal here, so we have oatmeal every other day and eggs and hash browns or eggs and toast every other day), served, and fed to the baby (I am NOT giving him a bowl of oatmeal and seeing how he does with it. That's just asking for trouble). I'm trying to teach the baby how to use a sippy cup and use it himself, but he doesn't get it quite yet, so I had to help him with his drinks. I had to change his diapers. I had to intervene when Micah and Sadie were slapping/punching/pulling each others' hair. I had to put movies into the computer (when we had offline parts of school) to keep Micah occupied. I had to run down and buy some vegetables to chop up and put in our Ramen for lunch. (We have Ramen every other day and peanut butter sandwiches every other day. There is no such thing as deli meat here. I put veggies in our Ramen to make it a teeny bit more healthy.) I had to run a load of laundry and hang it up. I had to do dishes and clean up, because Ben told me his boss and coworker were coming over after they saw the job site today, and my kitchen was gross. Does that leave 9 hours per day for instruction for the kids? Nope.

And the kids can do some parts of their lessons by themselves, but because they're so young, and because, for instance, Sadie needs more help with phonics and reading and stuff, they can really only do the independent reading and the handwriting practice by themselves. For everything else, they need my help.

So, yeah, the kids and I are sick of each other with the schooling thing. And I need to get Micah into preschool. I need to have some separation from him. For reals. He's killing me. And he needs more social interaction. He's more difficult to deal with and harder to understand with his speech than ever. I wonder if he hasn't regressed a bit since we've been here. It's been traumatic for him.

Ben has been really supportive of my thoughts on this and says that, though it will be hard for us to eventually be separated, it will probably be better for the majority of our family to get back to the states. And it will just be, like, maybe six months, tops.

There was some talk a few months back about having Ben head up a project in Korea. If they decide to assign Ben to that job site, again, I will probably send him on his merry way and stay at home with the kiddos. If the Korea project is a year or longer, though, I might just have to join him. That's just such a long time to be apart. And my bet is that Korea will be a bit easier for us - depending on where in Korea, hopefully there would be an international school where I could enroll the kids, a congregation for church that are allowed to meet together, etc. More of a support system for me as a busy mom.

There has also been talk of actually opening an office in London, and maybe of Ben working there. Again, if it's a year-long commitment or more, then we'll go with him and enroll the kids in British public school. I just know that I can't ever try to homeschool again. And I also know that I LOVE ENGLAND. And dude, there is a crepe stand on every corner, and a bakery on every other corner, and chocolate on every third corner....I think I'll be okay if we live in England. :) Verrrrrrry okay.

So that's that. We're leaving. And, honestly, I'm really glad. We have to be out of the country by Oct. 5th, because then we will have been here 90 days, and per our visas, we have to leave the country every ninety days, so we are flying out Oct. 4th, but like I told Ben tonight, now that I know we are going home, I want to leave YESTERDAY. You know? I want to get home and prepare for Halloween and enjoy what little there is left of autumn in Idaho Falls. My favorite time of year. But Ben and I both agree that we really should see the sights in Beijing before we go - it would be so dumb to have lived only 80 miles away and never toured Beijing. So we'll hit the big stuff. Ben booked this touring company and got us a hotel (a Holiday Inn Express) there in Beijing. We'll leave here Oct. 1st, do Beijing for three days, and fly out the fourth. And I'm SO EXCITED. Here's what we get to see - The Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, the Temple of Heaven, Tian'men Square, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the Olympic Park, a jade-carving factory (I'm so in love with jade and have a feeling that many souvenirs will be bought there by me), and a silk manufacturing factory. We will be totally exhausted, but dang. I cannot WAIT.

Soooooooooooo, lots of stuff to do. We'll have to load all of those books and school things, that took forever to get here, into our luggage and try to evenly distribute it. And cart it all back home. I'm not interested in homeschooling for the remainder of the school year. The kids miss their old friends at Hawthorne, so if they still have space, I'll be putting the kids back there. Maybe, with jetlag and everything, I might try to get them started Oct. 10th or so. We might have to buy a couple of more really big bags. Because not only do we have these infernal books, but dude, I want a few souvenirs, you know?? :)

So that's my story. And I'm sticking to it.

I'm jealous of teachers in China.

Kay. So, if you don't know, and you should if you are on my contacts list, but just in case, I taught junior high school for four years, right? And it was wonderful, because I truly love teaching and I love teenagers. I probably won't feel that way when I have my own. Hahaha! Anywho, I had tons and tons of really great experiences, but lots of frustrating ones. One of the hardest things about teaching in this day and age is the disrespect you have to deal with in the classroom. I had students say the F word to me...I routinely had to kick three or four kids out of my classroom per day for serious problems. Many of the parents of the students were mad at me that I didn't give their kids A's for not doing one iota of work in the classroom. I just think that the culture of students is different than it was when I was a teenager. I probably spent 99% of my time with classroom management and discipline, leaving very little time for real instruction or teaching.

So anyways, in talking with several teenagers here, I've discovered that I am breaking a commandment, for I am coveting the experience of these teachers here. Chinese kids have absolute and utter respect for their teachers. There isn't any swearing at the teacher. Kids don't even talk in class. At all. They prepare their work. They work hard.

Some interesting factoids about how school works here - you are at school from 7 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. Candy, the cute little teenager across the hall, has told me this, as has Professor Han's son and his nephew. I think they have class, then a break to study, then class, then a break to study, all day long. I guess that takes the pressure off from studying at home every night, right? You just stay there all day and all night. You take a lunch, and dinner is provided.

Professor Han's son's name, funnily, is Ha Han. If he was in the U.S., he would say, "Hi, my name is Ha Han Han." Here, he says, in Mandarin, "Hi, my name is Han Ha Han." Funny. And weird that he doesn't have an English name that he picked years ago in English class. Anyways, Ha Han is 18 and goes to college about an hour away. He was home last week (more on that in a minute), and we were over at their house, and he told me that in his high school, you have the same 30 kids in every single class. You stay in the same room, and the teachers are the ones who rotate. So you're in the room the whole day and evening. He told me there were 5,000 kids in his school, but he only knows his 30 classmates, obviously. And there are 200 teachers just at his school.

Mike, Professor Han's nephew, is 14. In his junior high school, there are actually 89 kids in each class, again, with the teachers rotating. There is no talking, there are no group projects, there is no conversation. I've met some American teachers who just got here to teach at the university (again, more on that in a sec), and they told me that, as far as reading and writing English, the Chinese are pros. But ask them to speak it or understand it when it's spoken, and they are lost. Because there is no interaction in the classroom. This is where I think the Chinese kids are at a disadvantage compared to American kids. In high school and college, we did tons of group projects, presentations, etc., the idea being that it would better prepare us for the real world - in work environments, you work with other people, together. Not by yourself. Which is true. I guess I just envy the nice, quiet respect that the teachers get here.

Mike showed me his English class textbooks. I was BLOWN AWAY. The things he's learning are at the same level as NATIVE ENGLISH-SPEAKING 14-YEAR-OLDS IN THE U.S. I couldn't get over it. In fact, I read lots of the questions and exercises and worksheets and whatnot, and I thought to myself, "Okay, so half of my students would be like, 'Huh?????? I don't get it.........'" After four years of teaching, you kind of know what your students can and cannot do.

In Mike's English class, they do listen to language a little bit - they watch these movies and then fill in worksheets that ask questions about "typical American life" from these movies. Mike was like, "Here are some pictures from the movies. Are these famous movies in your country???" I looked at the pictures - stills taken from movies - of actors I don't know, with early eighties hair and clothing. I laughed and said, "Uh, no. I don't think these have been seen by anyone except Chinese students!" I also was sure to let him know that we don't dress like that in the U.S. anymore, nor have hair like that anymore. It made me chuckle.

Free Stuff Micah Has Gotten This Week

1. A toy car and launcher from our neighbors
2. Little circular cards that pop when you throw them down. They have pictures of Plants vs. Zombies characters on them. He got those for free from the Hans.

People looooooooooove him. The more he is shy and refuses to speak to them or look at them, the more they want his approval. It's weird. Sadie is really jealous of this ability he has to get free stuff from people. She says people don't like her as much as they like Micah, but I don't think that's true. Yesterday, we were buying some fake UGGs on the street (more on that in a minute), and the saleslady was so thrilled to meet Sadie that she embraced her in a huge bear hug while shouting joyously. Sadie took it like a man. She's getting used to the constant touching and grabbing. She's so cute.

Mooncake Mania!

Okay, so Sept. 12th was mid-autumn festival here - a big deal. I was telling my dad that it reminds me of Thanksgiving. People go home to be with their families, always. And they have certain traditional foods, the most prominent being the mooncake, because mid-autumn festival is always on the day that the moon will be full. So the date changes every year. So it reminded me of Thanksgiving, because in the U.S., it's all about getting together and eating, and because what dessert do you always have? Pumpkin pie. We have these traditional foods that we eat at Thanksgiving - same with mid-autumn festival here.

Mooncakes - what can I compare them to? Like pasties from England. But filled with mystery datey, figgy stuff of different flavors. And the pastry part is thin and many-layered, kind of like Baklava. You're not missing anything, I promise. Our cute neighbors bought us a box of them. People exchange boxes of mooncakes like gifts at Christmastime. They had hundreds of vendors on the streets for the whole week before the festival, selling all different kinds of mooncakes. Some of them have edible red stamped patterns on the top of them. Some of them have carvings stamped into them, kind of like they used to do with signet rings and wax in the olden days in Europe. It reminds me of that. But you know, instead of wax, it's mooncake dough. :)

We weren't sure what we were going to do that day - it wasn't a holiday for my kids, as far as school was concerned, so it was just going to be business as usual. And before our neighbors got us mooncakes, I thought maybe we'd buy a few and try them. But then sweet Professor Han's family invited us over. We had a BLAST.

So like I told ya, Professor Han has three sisters, because that was the era before the one-child policy here. And, parenthetically, he told me another provision for the one-child policy - if you live in the country, you can have two kids. If you live in the city, though, just one. And one of my new American friends (more on that in a minute) told me that you can also have more children if you can pay for them. You have to pay some kind of fee.

One of his sisters actually lives right across the hall from him; her son is Mike, the 14-year-old. I can't remember her name or her husband's name. I so wish everyone had English names. The native names are just wayyyy too hard for me to remember. Then Professor Han has another sister who lives on the outskirts of Baoding. She brought her son, Andy. I didn't meet her husband - not sure the story there. Andy is actually 7 years old, so he played really good with the kids. I really, really liked Prof. Han's sisters. Sooo sweet. His mom came over, as well. And then Ha Han came home for the holiday, as well as the third sister's daughter - the third sister lives far away, but her daughter goes to the university here in town. She was adorable. She couldn't get enough of my kids. And Prof. Han's wife completely took over the care of Gage, as usual. When she's around, I don't have to worry about keeping him out of stuff, baby-proofing the area, feeding him, giving him his bottle, changing him - she wants him the whole time. She adores him. And he actually adores her.

So the ladies were making traditional Chinese dumplings, and it was very important to Prof. Han to have me learn this. They make the dough with only water and flour. They don't use any kind of measuring spoons. (I actually have never found any measuring spoons or cups of any sort here. When I make oatmeal, I just measure quantities by eyeballing things in a drinking cup; same with when I make rice.) They just grab the flour with their hands, add tap water, and moosh it around to make a dough. Then they roll it out like a snake, slice it like you would a cinnamon roll, into several small discs, then roll each disk out into a small circle. Then they fill it with the teeniest amount of filling, and then they seal it up in the most artful of ways. The sisters tried to teach me all of these ways of folding the dumplings up. It was fascinating and really fun. And mine were the ugliest. They were so surprised that I know how to work with dough. I was like, "Oh, honey, if you gave me some shortening and a cookie sheet, I could show you my famous apple dumplings." Which have a similar name to the dumplings here, but are nothing alike!! The filling, as far as I could understand through their halting English, and my non-existant Mandarin, was some kind of squash. (They kept calling it a melon, but then they showed me one, and I was like, "Oh! Squash!" They thought that was the funniest word they have ever heard.) It wasn't a squash that I'm familiar with. In addition to squash, there was...some kind of date? And that's about it.

So, after we folded like a million of these dumplings in artistic ways, they steamed them up. Professor Han's mom refused to sit at the table and eat with everyone else. She wanted to man the steamer, and nobody else was allowed near. I felt disrespectful, sitting there eating while she cooked. As far as dumplings go, they were alright. Better than any I've had in restaurants so far. But still weird to me. I kept thinking, "This would be so much better baked!!" They dip their dumplings in vinegar. Their vinegar is dark brown, as is their rice vinegar. Both kinds of vinegar I've used in the states have always been white, so that's interesting to me. They had tons of watermelon, which was good. And grapes, none of which are seeded, so you have to be careful when you eat them. The kids used to love grapes, but after many traumatic seed incidents, they sure don't like them anymore. But they ate like ten pieces each of watermelon, so that was good. It's also traditional, in addition to mooncakes, to serve pita bread with sugar stuffed inside of it. Kind of strange. Like I've said, I'm a fan of the pita bread here, but I haven't yet found any stuffings that Iike. Ben brought some pitas home the other day with donkey meat in them, which is a local Baoding specialty. Barf me.

Gage ate two dumplings, which impressed everyone there. He's a fan of any kind of food. The kid can pack it AWAY. Oh, how I love him.

Professor Han also insisted that Ben play Chinese chess with Mike and with Ha Han. I noticed, while they were playing, that Ha Han was wearing Barack Obama socks. I laughed so hard and took a picture. His mom and dad laughed, too. They must have been a recent college purchase. :) My American friends say that people here love Obama. I thought it was interesting. And it made me ashamed. Do I know the president, or dictator, or whatever they are calling it nowadays, in China? Uh, no..... How dumb. I need to read up on my Chinese politics and history. I'm going to read a book after I'm done with the one I'm reading now, called White Swans. My mom just read it and raves about it, as does my virtual branch relief society president. It's about three generations of Chinese women in this Chinese emigre's family history - her grandma, her mom, and her. It's non-fiction and it's supposed to be just fascinating. I've been kind of avoiding it - I've been kind of Chinese-d out. But maybe once I'm home I'll be in the mood. It's supposed to talk a lot about that time of the 1950's when Chairman Mao took over and all that - I guess this lady's mom and dad were high up in the communist government at that time.

Needless to say, White Swans has been banned in China. Hahaha!

There is a coffee shop across Stinky Street that also sells ice cream - ISH. Pretty close to ice cream. Anyways, I so badly want to take a picture of a sign in there that has a picture of Stalin, Lenin, Marx, Mao, etc., sitting at tables at a party, and at the top, it says, "Welcome to the Party!" I think it's really funny.

Sorry for the giant tangent.

Professor Han was sure to show Ben and I his bed and to assert that firm beds are better for you than soft beds. And he made us walk on this..rug made of rocks. I don't know how else to explain it. He says it's good for the circulation. Whatev, Professor. Whatev.

Often, when Sadie is tired of standing, she crouches, like a true native. They saw her doing that there and were so pleased that she was relaxing like the locals. They encouraged me to try to do it, but my stomach fat got in the way, or I was unbalanced, or something. I'm not sure. I was grunting and almost fell over. Neat.

Professor Han kept making me try all of these Chinese snacks before and after our meal. One was a dried date. It was gross. One of the other things he had me try, which was soooo funny, but also made me throw up in my mouth a little, was this chocolate-covered who knows what. I cautiously bit into it, and guess what it was? A GARBANZO BEAN. Dipped in chocolate. If you were to buy a can of garbanzo beans at the store, drain them, and dip each bean in chocolate, that is what this was. I laughed and laughed. They have the weirdest foods here!

We asked them how they felt about cheese. They weren't sure what we were talking about. Mrs. Han pulled from her fridge a sample of margarine that she had clearly gotten from a hotel somewhere. It was very old. "Cheese?" she said, pointing to it. "No, butter," we said. We explained what cheese was. They finally realized what we were talking about and made faces. "Cheese is disgusting," they said. They asked how to make it. Neither Ben nor I had any idea. Hahaha!

After a few hours, I told them that we really needed to do schooling. And Gage had had it. He needed a nap. I was going to start with Dylan anyways, so they offered to watch Sadie and Micah and have them play there, and then said they'd bring them home in an hour or two. The kids have been over there a ton, and they love it. And the Hans love them. So we felt totally comfortable leaving them there. And they felt totally comfortable there. Which is weird, for Micah. He very much trusts the Hans. And that's saying something. Plus, they have an adorable little dog that the kids love. Ha Han, Mike, and the adorable neice brought them home in a couple of hours.

When Dylan, the baby, Ben, and I left, Sadie and Micah were pretending to play Chinese chess, making up their own game, and saying, "I got your guy!" and then stealing each others' playing pieces. The Hans thought that was the funniest thing ever.

I've just been so grateful to people like the Hans who have been so kind to us here. It's made things much easier. And we'll miss them.

Oh, and something I've noticed that's funny - when the Chinese get people into a group to take their picture, they say, "Chezzzzzz-uhhhhh!!" Like our "Cheeeeeeeeeese!" Funny.

Grandpa's Other Job

The kids were doing a history lesson online the other day - it was like a memory game, but with pictures of land forms and their names. So, like, glaciers, peninsulas, islands, deserts, etc., and their names. Each time a kid would virtually turn two cards over, the dude on the recording would say, "Is this a match?" and the kids had to click "yes" or "no." Dylan was convinced that the man who voiced this question that was repeated over and over, was my dad. "Did you HEAR that, Mom? Grandpa Hale did the voice for this game!" I chuckled and said, "Um, I don't hear the resemblance, but I can assure you that he didn't." Dylan, being Dylan, insisted upon this for hours and hours. I finally said, "Well, Dyl, you'll have to ask him yourself when you see him." That kid never says never. Kind of like Jaedan Smith on Karate Kid. "I will never say neverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....I will fight 'til foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrr....." By the way, that movie should NOT be called Karate Kid. It's set in China, dude. Not in Japan. My heck. That really bothers me. It should be called Kung Fu Kid.

So I found out the name of the Justin Timberlake-type of guy - Jin Chow. Oh, he's big time here. His face is on everything.

The Seamstress on Bombed-Out Road

Before we knew we were coming home, we had started to buy some cold-winter clothes for the kids. And Ben had bought some slacks at a cheapo store. I wasn't too impressed with the prices, but they were comparable to what you would pay at Old Navy, so whatever. I wasn't about to spend double that in the department stores. Kids grow out of stuff too quickly to spend lots of money on their clothes, in my humble Kar opinion.

Well, after just one washing, one of Sadie's shirts' seams came undone, as did one of Dylan's hoodie seams, and Ben's pants seams. Just really shoddy workmanship. Ben wanted his slacks mended in time for his trip to Beijing last weekend, so I suggested that he go to this lady I've seen on Bombed-Out road. She sits on one side of a canal, her sewing machine right there on the sidewalk, a long extension cord running to the building behind her. She has hundreds of colors of thread. I made a mental note when I saw her a few times, so while I was teaching the kids one day, I sent Ben down there to see if she could fix our stuff. I think he had, like, two other things that needed mending, too. So he went there, and she fixed them up really nicely!!! She matched the thread really well and did backstitching and everything that a proper seamstress should be doing. It cost the equivalent of $5 for her to fix all five things. I'm a fan.

I'm sure she doesn't make very much, but I love the idea that, if you need something mended, you go to the seamstress at the side of the canal to do it. The keymaker is behind the Nut Guy on Stinky Street. You need a key made? That's where you go. Not to Home Depot. To the Key Guy behind the Nut Guy. If you need your shoes repaired, you go to the, ironically, legless man in front of the internet bar. He sits there on the sidewalk and fixes shoes for you. If you need your bicycle wheel pumped up, go to the guy beside the newspaper stand. He just pumps up tires, all day long. I just think it's so cool, though I really feel badly for these people, and for the vendors on Stinky Street and Party street. They work every single day, from 8 in the morning until 10 at night. No weekends off. No breaks. They are out there in the infernal heat, no matter what. If it's raining, they put tarps up above them. I just don't know how they can stand it.

Cowboys and Aliens

My hair was getting really nasty, unbearably so - just so shaggy and gross. So I took Micah and Dylan, who also needed cuts, and headed back down to the non-PTSD-inducing hair salon farther down on Stinky Street. The guy who so harshly sent me away, telling me to come back in three weeks, wasn't there, but it had been three weeks, so I felt justified going. Summer came, and I'm glad. She explained to the gal what I wanted done, and the gal did a good job. Not as good a job as my lady in I.F., but okay. While the kids and I were getting our hair cut, there was a movie playing in the waiting area. And the movie was an American movie I had seen previews for before we left - something about Cowboys and Aliens? It had 13 from House on it, and Daniel Craig, the James Bond guy. I laughed so hard. It's my guess that that movie is still in theaters in the U.S. So there has GOT to be somewhere you can buy these black market movies here! I just can't get anyone to tell me where. But do I want a movie with Chinese subtitles and horrible lighting, that looks like it was filmed literally in an American movie theater, even though it's only $5? Naw. I'd rather get the one I can see and actually hear. That's how I feel about it.

Dude, I've been working on this letter for three days, and it looks like I'm going to have to finish it up tomorrow - it's so late, and I'm bushed.

Americans!!!

So last week, Dyl, Micah, and I were walking down Stinky Street, and this Chinese lady yells, "Hello!" I just nodded and said Hello back, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because people just shout hello to us left and right while we walk down the street. It's so funny. So I kept going, and she stops me and goes, "No, I'm American!!! I'm American!" I go, "Whaaaaaaaaaaa???????????????" I was so excited that I practically hugged her! My first American in 2 1/2 months! Her parents are both from Hong Kong, but she was born in the U.S. Her name is Felice. She's teaching English at the university for this school year. It was so fantastic to see her. We exchanged phone numbers and promised to call each other. Later that night, I was going to get some drinks at the corner store and I ran into Felice again, this time with a blonde gal named Hannah, also a teacher. And then two American guys came up and chatted, too!!! Their names are George and John. Those two have come and taught for a couple of years now. They go home every summer, all summer, and then return again. George can actually speak Mandarin now, pretty well. This is Felice's and Hannah's first time. They say there are two other Americans at the other university in town, and then two in another town nearby. I told them we should have them over for dinner, and they got really excited - "We haven't had decent food in two weeks!" they said.

I decided to have them over last weekend. I was feeling sad and lonely, with Ben gone, so I got tons of food prepared. I was planning to make marinated Asian chicken, rice, and five-spice carrots - all recipes from, well, allrecipes.com. That website has saved my life. Because honestly, you can't really cook anything western here. The ingredients just are not here for it. I planned to have them over on Sunday night, all eight of them. But then I got horrifically sick - just a really bad cold, and I canceled.

A couple of nights later, the girls called and offered to bring me medicine. I readily accepted, since we were out of Nyquil, and I hadn't slept well for three nights. It was just Felice and Hannah. It was so fun to talk to them and have them play with my kids. They are total sweethearts. Felice grew up speaking Cantonese in her home. I asked her what the difference was between Cantonese and Mandarin - was it like the southern drawl in the southern United States vs. the accent in, say, Boston, Massachusetts? She said that the writing, the Chinese characters, are identical. But that the spoken language is completely, totally different. She took Mandarin in college, so she can get around pretty well.

Hannah has lived in, like, 27 different countries. All over the place. Many third-world places. She says she just really loves to learn new languages and new cultures. It's her first time in China, and she said that it's been a struggle for her to adjust to life here. I thought it was telling, that she has lived in a lot of impoverished, tough areas, but that this has been the hardest adjustment for her. It made me feel a little bit more justified in my discomfort. :)

They came over again last night - I think they like us. And I like them. And it sounds like their apartments are truly horrific. So we welcome them to our apartment, which really is luxurious, by Chinese standards. I ended up making that meal the night before, and I had leftovers for last night and offered some to them. They gobbled it up. Then Ben was still hungry and made pancakes with his own made-up syrup recipe. He and the girls gobbled up a whole bunch of pancakes, too. They were so excited. They only have one electronic hot plate in their apartments, so I honestly don't know if they'll be able to cook with any butter. You have to have the teflon pans here to cook with butter, and the electronic hot plates don't work with teflon pans. They have microwaves and toaster ovens, so that's good. I told them that they could have my cooking ingredients when we leave. And then I'll send Ben, when he comes back, with baking powder, baking soda, etc. to replace what the girls use.

Hannah has told me the funniest stories about her students. She says they all ask her personal questions, all the time: "Why aren't you married??" "Do you have a boyfriend?" "Are you looking to marry a Chinese man??" It's all about romance. Oh, and they all want to know if she thinks Jay Chow is handsome. [Parenthetically, I think he's really cute. Just my own personal opinion.] There is no garbage can in her classroom - just a corner where people throw garbage. It matches the rest of the city. :)

The other day, Hannah was teaching, and she was saying something about somebody who was Taiwanese. Her students stopped her. "Wait, wait, wait. Taiwanese??? You mean CHINESE."

"No," said Hannah, with a little smile, "I mean Taiwanese."

"Taiwan is a province of China. They are Chinese."

"I'm pretty sure most of the world, and Taiwan, would disagree with that statement."

"Well, it's true."

"Let me ask you a question. Do you have to use a passport when you go to Taiwan?"

Uncomfortable mumbles of assent.

"Mmm-hmmm. I'll take that as a 'yes.' Do you have to have a passport to visit any other provinces in China?"

Silence.

"Gosh, I wonder why you would need a passport to go to just another province in China..."

It makes me laugh.

I'm sad that, when I finally meet some cute little American friends, I have to leave. But it still feels like the right decision to go, and I'm getting really antsy to get outta here. But I want to hang out with them a ton before we go. They're sweethearts.

Lasagne???

We met a dude who is refurbishing the apartment one stairwell over from ours. He is a Chinese national; his name is Eric. He has actually been living in New Zealand for ten years and just returned, so his English is impeccable. And he has that cute little New Zealander accent. He told me that he wanted to have my family over for lasagne after his apartment is finished. I said, "Now waiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit a minute. Where did you get lasagne??" He said he had to order it online and have it shipped over. I laughed.

But then he told me that there is some other grocery store, a little farther away then the 10-minutes-away Da Fu Yuen supermarket, that has a "huge" imports section. I was like, you have got to be kidding me. After all this time, NOW I find out there is a place with more imported food. Sheesh. Will I get a chance to head over there before we leave? Probably not. And it's okay. It's just ironic, I guess.

Chicken Noises in the Market

When I picked up some stuff in the supermarket for our American party that never happened, I wanted to get some chicken breasts. I just wasn't quite sure if I was looking at the right kind of meat. Yes, meat is very mysterious here. I obviously cook enough to recognize chicken breasts, but I really, really didn't want duck breasts. Duck is a big deal here, but I'm not a fan. I saw something that looked like chicken breasts, but I was nervous. The ladies behind the meat counter looked like they wanted to help. (The customer service in markets here is AMAZING. They hire wayyyyyyyy too many people, and they all just mainly stand around and wait to help you. And they get really excited if someone needs their help. It's a nice change from Wal-Mart.) I didn't know how to say "chicken," so I pointed to the breasts and made wings and went, "bock, bock, bock, ba-gock?" They nodded enthusiastically, then adding gestures to indicate those red things that hens have on their heads - what on earth are those called? I've never known. I nodded enthusiastically in return. So they wrapped the chicken up for me and sent me on my way. It was funny.

More Furniture

Those cute Hans brought some more furniture over the other day. It was before we knew we were leaving, and now I feel badly. But Ben's company is going to continue paying rent on the apartment here to hold it until Ben and his coworkers return. Then he'll get three roommates or so.

They brought two large lounge chairs and a desk for the boys' room. It was so sweet. Mrs. Han, of course, wanted to have some quality time with Gage. He loves her, so he didn't mind. And she learned something new to say to Sadie, "Hey, Sadie - WHAT'S UP???" Sadie and I laughed and said, "Good job!"

Professor Han said, "These from my HOME! Put clothes on them!" I was like, huh? And then I realized what he was saying. He wants us to take care of the chairs by putting sheets over them to protect them. I said, "Oh, sheets??" "Yes!" both he and his brother-in-law echoed at the same time, "SHEETS!!" I've noticed, in every home I've visited, the Chinese cover their furniture with sheets to keep it nice. And everyone but us has cool, comfortable couches. Big, Ikea-ish, very modern. I like them. They're cozy. So they have cozy couches and unforgiving beds. :) I would sleep on the couch every night if I had a bed like that.

UGG Mania

So Ben went down Stinky Street the other night, and there was a new booth in front of the post office. The gal was selling UGGs, for only 78 yuen a pair - that's around twelve dollars. He came home and told me about it, and I shrieked, because I had just been talking to my sis, Lex, about this. She and I had heard that you can get UGGs for really cheap here, and here was my opportunity. I knew what size she wanted and what colors, so I ran down there. They had four or five different colors and styles, but only one in the color Lex wanted. I bought them, took pictures of them, and sent the pictures to her. She was so stoked and told me to get another pair in another color for her. And then my mom asked for a pair. So I've been keeping this lady in business.

But then, last night, Hannah, a self-proclaimed UGG expert, examined them, and they're fake!!! Hahaha! They tricked me! On the heel, it looks like it says "UGG", with the authentic "Australia" underneath, but upon closer examination, it actually says, "UGC," but it's written kind of weird to lead you to think that it has a double g. And it says underneath, "Austkalia." They tricked me! Hahaha! But at least my mom and Lex got some warm, cute boots to wear this winter, right? And for only 12 bucks a pair. Not bad. Hannah has a friend in Beijing; she texted her, asking where to buy the cheap, REAL UGGs. She got a text immediately back, and I wrote the name of the market down in my China tourism book. When we get up to Beijing on Oct. 1st, we'll have all that first afternoon to do whatever we want, so Ben and I are thinking we will take a trip to this market and see what we can see.

Did I get some fake UGGs for myself, you ask? Nope. My feet are too big. I wear a size nine in the U.S., which is a size 41 here, and the buck stops at size 40. Sad, eh?

What's On TV

We really don't watch much local television. I've noticed that there are always two things on - cheesy soap operas, or dating game shows. There are, like, 12 dating game shows, and according to Hannah and Felice's students, everyone and their dog watches them. I think that's so funny.

We actually saw a claymation show for kids the other day. It had these animals from a few different countries. The cow was from France, wore a Napoleonic hat, and one hoof was a fork and one was a knife. I thought that was funny. He was leaning against a clay Arc de Triomph and chatting with another character.

If it's not smoked, it's crrrrrrrrrrrap.

I found this amazing salad on allrecipes.com a few weeks back - an Asian-style potato salad. I la-hoved it. One ingredient was bacon. I saw slabs of what looked like it could be bacon....ish, at Hui Mart. It just looked like it needed slicing. So I set out to do it, and to cook it in my frying pan.

So when you buy pork here, it comes with the skin on. You have to kind of be your own butcher. So it took forever to seperate the skin from the pork. And then to slice it really thin. So then I cooked it up in the frying pan, hoping to get that wonderful smell of cooking bacon into my nostrils, but it just smelled....really weird. I asked Ben what on earth was wrong with this bacon. He told me that it wasn't smoked beforehand. Ohhhhhhhhh. So that's the deal. I ended up still putting the cooked bacon in the potato salad, but it really didn't add much. I'm excited to try that recipe again when we get home, with nice, normal bacon.

We had a home-run recipe tonight - an Asian noodle salad from allrecipes.com. It had this peanut butter sauce, tossed with noodles and stir-fried broccoli, red peppers, and onions. It was fantastic. That's another keeper.

But let's be honest - I'm not going to cook Asian food again for several months. I'm all Asian fooded out. :)

It's Time to Graft in a New Head

Sooooooo, Dylan lost his afternoon pills that he takes for his ADHD. He still has his morning pills - the long-acting, gradual release ones. But they wear off about 3 p.m., and heaven help us when that happens. We used to have a respite, giving him his "homework dose," and now that those are gone, oh mama. Life is hard. Schooling is even harder, which didn't seem possible. There are many, many times per day that I really could punch him right in the face and feel good about it.

Tonight, we were attempting to read scriptures - we were reading in the Book of Mormon, in Jacob - is it chapter 4? That enormous chapter that has, like, 75 verses. The chapter about the olive tree. I've always thought that chapter could be whittled down to, like, 10 verses, and still say the same thing. It really would help.

Anyways, we decided only to read half the chapter tonight, because Dylan was literally climbing all over the couch. Ben muttered something like, "I wish we could graft a new head on Dylan's body...." I laughed and laughed. Ben's funny. It's true - the fruit of his head has gone wild and needs to be cut off and cast into the fire. Totally joking. I love the kid. I'm just trying to survive through one more week of schooling with him. And looking forward to when we can get his pills refilled. Like, the day we get home. Hahaha!

A Familial Epidemic

I don't know what the deal is, but we have been the Canker Sore Family for the past three months. Each of us constantly has a canker sore or two in his mouth. I cannot figure it out. In Idaho, I got maybe one per year? If that? What is the deal??? Poor Ben and I can't even peck each other on the lips right now, because we're both suffering with canker sores inside our front, lower lips. And Dylan and Sadie are always complaining of them. I have no idea what the deal is. Any thoughts??

What We've Learned

Last night, during family prayer, Ben was praying, and he said, "We thank Thee for the experiences that we've had here in China that have helped us learn more about ourselves." Later, I asked him what his deeper thoughts on that were, if there was anything in particular he has learned about himself, or about the kids or me. Here are the things he feels he has learned: 1) He says he has learned that it is a good thing for him to go to work and be away from the kids, that he needs a separation from them to be a better dad, that he doesn't have enough patience. 2) He says he has learned that our kids are not self-starters, as far as school goes. They are definitely not motivated students. That they need to be sent to a school and never, ever, ever homeschooled again. I concur.

This, of course, got me to thinking about what I've learned from my experiences here. The things I've learned here are humbling: 1) I'm more of a fuddy-duddy than I thought. I thought I was a bit of an adventuress. Turns out, I'm more of a homebody than I thought. I like to plant some roots and watch them grow, you know?? 2) I'm more high-maintenance than I thought. I'm picky. And a bit of a food snob. I'm snobby. Weird. I never knew I was snobby, but I guess I am.

So, um, this whole experience has made my opinion of myself much lower. Hahaha! But hey, it's good to be made aware of one's weaknesses, right? So that we can work on them.

Sooooo, that's what's been going on here in Baoding. We leave in about a week for Beijing, and I am thrilled. When people ask of me, "How was China?" I think the best response will be, "It was interesting." Because it really has been interesting. Has it been wonderful? Um, no. Has it been awful? Sometimes. Has it been great? Every now and then. So I think "interesting" will be a good response. :)

Oh, and when we're in Beijing, who will be eating at T.G.I. Friday's? And at the Hard Rock Cafe? That's right. Me.

Here are some picture-poohs of our recent adventures:

Mid-Autumn Festival at the Hans' house: http://utahben.smugmug.com/Travel/Mid-Autumn-Festival/19174889_HxjKzh#1494349561_bvjtw9t

Sadie's ca-razy morning hair: http://utahben.smugmug.com/Travel/Medusa/19175101_NVxn9N#1494371198_6CkVX8x

The seamstress on Bombed-Out Road, locals playing dominoes, and a rare glimpse at the mountains near Baoding: http://utahben.smugmug.com/Travel/Our-Neighborhood/18427834_JKNSgC#1494380269_Z56Nh97

More homeschooling science experiments and art projects: http://utahben.smugmug.com/Travel/Homeschooling-Adventures/18971928_L5Lbt6#1473142271_MsB3zsf

More furniture for our apartment, and funny signs Sadie made for the doors: http://utahben.smugmug.com/Travel/Our-Apartment/18427321_wQ6pj3#1494406636_zxpr7XW

A picture of Hannah - we'll add more pics of her and Felice soon: http://utahben.smugmug.com/Travel/Our-American-Friends/19175557_5WbDbg#1494416173_HfsZ4PP

The fakey UGGS - pretty convincing, if you ask me: http://utahben.smugmug.com/Travel/Shopping-Finds/18864864_jbZbP7#1494419393_9DQ4dsZ


Love,
Kar