Thursday, April 17, 2008

I will return

I have stepped away again but only for a moment. We have our third foster baby this week along with a party on sat. I am a little busy. My goal is to be all caught up by the time I leave for Disney, we shall se if that goal is met!

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

more, more ,more

I am finally feeling human again praise God! So since I have been in bed for a week straight I don't want to go to bed right now. BUT my blogger only let me post one set of pictures so maybe it's Gods way of saying he doesn't want me to stay up all night. I still have about 4 days left to post and then what the kids did with David so keep checking back. oh FYI mt. Melrose was officially gone on April 1st no foolin' which mean I think Brixton was the winner he said his birthday. I am glad to say snow is gone even my snow flake shower curtain came down yesterday... hello spring!

I have to show it!

here are the eastern toilets. some have paper, most don't. and if given a choice the locals will chose this one over a western toilet. truth be told I got very good at using them, wendy on the other hand was much less of a fan.
the chinese love mickey, and along with everything else even mickey has a fake.
one of the days we went to seaside park, a sort of small sea world I imagine. it was amusing.this was the "pole room" rather than polar and really all it was is a big cold room, weird.
"one of these things is not like the other" we really were kind of a spectacle everywhere we went in Dalian, but I liked it!
if you could look closely you would see 99% of the crowd is adults, there just aren't that many kids , which I knew but when you are at a dolphin show and look around to see that it's really strange, no babies crying, or kids singing along, which by the way all the music at this show(narrated in all chinese)was english. From Michael Jackson to the Beatles to nursery rhymes to contemporary christian songs. so strange, but you know our family lives on music so it was welcome listening to familiar songs to me.

part 2 of China Dalian,( remember I am going backwards)

now these pictures are not in order but the only person that will frustrate is wendy so I'm sorry. This day was your Easter( we were already to monday) but it was Easter to me since my heart was at home. this is important info because this was one of the most beautiful worship experiences I have ever had. God is so creative, so big, and loving I don't want to sound crazy but this was my most powerful Easters ever seeing all these people he made and died for my eyes were full of tears many times today. this picture is a preschool doing there morning exercises. one way their school surpasses our, the kids actually play and exercise 3x a day outside imagine that!
they played little kiddie chinese music (like our raffi) and did their little routine, so cute

we counted and the boys only out numbered the girls by 5 in each class.This was a bonus for us to stumble upon.
Oh I am ahead of myself, on this day we were free until 2pm so a group of us walked over to labor square(park to us) we meet at 7am stopped at some street vendors for breakfast, I'll shoe then later, and continued on to this park that Brad, the leader of our group had found days earlier. the people just meet here and do their thing, many time they were gracious enough to let us join in with them. this was little old men playing a Chinese instrument and this younger man just stopped by to sing with them. Wendy was in tears. This is real life right here
now this is a grandma, WOW!!
they love pigeons for some reason, there was even a bird lady selling food just like ON Mary Poppins!
here is Dalian park district hard at work. This was crazy the one man is holding the brace up, one using a huge tin snip cutting down the roof panels,one on top of what they are cutting down, and one holding the scaffold steady. It was like something in a comedy
more park dist. workers this was their ladder, look closely
we spyed a ferris wheel on top of the hill and went to check it out and hey it was open! it cost 10 yuan to ride =14 cents.
so beautiful
no comment needed

this was a group of grandmas and grandpas just singing together for hours. when they were done wendy and I clapped and they all waved at us. again extraordinary


after the park some went back but 5 of us kept exploring and we ran across this lady selling crab apples. Brad asked her what she had, she spoke no English but pulled this scale out of her shirt and weighed him out an amount
and he bought crab apples, now this is china
I liked this picture I turned around and saw them all hovered over the map and said you guys look like tourists! we ended up catching a cab to take us.




this is me and alex she is 13 years old and Brads daughter. I was so glad she came. we kept each other company while they did business and also let me play mom while away from my own kids. Her and Brixton would have gotten along so well she was a real blessing to have along. by the way we are standing in front of this male lion, you can tell because of the ball under his paw, a female has a lion cub, every building has them to keep evil out or protect the place.
this was at the university museum, out of order, but it was like a fun house but a scientific kind cool hua I am standing straight. Now this was interesting to me because many people, the ones who get motion sick, got really sick from walking threw this 1 room house. I however did not feel it or understand why they would feel sick anyway it's a cool picture!
this is an example of the VIP treatment we received in Dalian
these are high school students and I have to say that me and wendy got the most attention, her because of her size "very strong" and me because of the big camera around my neck when I would look their way they would wave or giggle or do some cool trick like pull ups, just after this photo was taken.
Now we are in Beijing. we landed got on our bus and immediately began touring. This is the temple of heaven





Tuesday, April 08, 2008

yes I am back!

sadly the day after getting home I became sick, so sick, so so sick. this is why you haven't heard from me in a weeks time. All because I brushed my teeth, with contaminated water, I have talked to the Dr. and taken antibiotics but let me assure you that anywhere outside the USA it's bottled water for me, even just to bush my teeth. Greatfully I was home in my own bed, sadly David says he still misses me .

Monday, April 07, 2008

starting from the middle

sadly I am getting tired waiting for all of these pictures to down load so you'll have to get the trip in pieces. This is Beijing the second part of the trip. What struck me here , in this photo, is how can something so awful look so beautiful? All part of the governments plan I suppose
now the forbidden city we are told gets 1 million people come through a day in the "slack" season, many more during the high. And FYI, every chinese person can get a chance to tour the city if you can't afford it the government will pay to send you, hum ?
this is it, what I was waiting for !!! I could wait see the Great wall of China, which we learned the west gave it that name, who would have guessed that 3" of snow would keep me from seeing much! This was unbelievable! our guide said in the 5 years of being a guide she has never saw such a thing " you are very lucky" I was sad not to "see" it however it was awesome, how many people can say they had a snow ball fight or skitched down the rails of the great wall, according to lily not many.
oh yeah it's for real
and when I thought of doing this picture for David I never planned it would be like this. Shout out Fenwick from the great wall!
lily , our guide brought me to the fire house can you believe it, except after this picture she asked me not to get to close it is guarded by soldiers oops. I only saw 2 fire trucks and 4 ambulances the entire time.
little qua qua and me. again lily went the extra mile and got me and wendy to an orphanage that our agency supports from the states.These kids all have disabilities and are waiting to be chosen to go home. I had kinda set it up before I left but wasn't sure if it would pan out, so me and wendy skipped the silk market to play, what a great trade!FYI qua qua is adopted just waiting for her mom and dad to come.
the night be for we went to this home we were scrambling looking for things to bring to the kids there,when I had a great idea, Sky had written me a card for everyday of my trip . so we tore of the plain side of his cards and brought colored pens. this was a huge hit with the kids. I was so excited to tell sky that his cards not only blessed me but the kids too, this little guy, who has not been adopted he has cataracts that they don't have the technology to fix, wrote one of the card for us to say thank you and Sky was most excited about getting this gift! when I was telling him on the phone the next day about it I said and we had just enough cards for the 11 kids, he said "oh so that's why God had you stay 12 days so you would have enough cards for all the kids" YES!!! We are doing something right!
now we went to a Chinese opera. I had heard that their opera was like listening to a choking chicken and let me say it was a perfect description.


I became a great user of chop sticks, either learn or starve!
so this is the Olympic site, the birds nest,
this is whats around it! games in a few short months? I can not even begin to tell you how much work there is still to be done. I was in atlanta and oh boy good luck.
Frankly I wasn't very excited to go to this place I was done checked out of China and counting the hours till I was on the way home. But the summer palace was one of the most beautiful places I had ever been. And then we walked up to this gate and I knew it somehow, Yes I think that this is the gate they made a replica of in Epcots China, I know I am crazy but when you are a million miles from home everything that is home makes you happy. So I took plenty of pic's and will compare it when I am there in a few weeks! notice I have no jacket on this was a big deal for us because it was so cold that 99% of our pic's is me in my jacket.

here we are 2 days from sledding down the great wall, this weather sure is like home.