Sunday, August 24, 2008

First week of School

Well, alot has happened in the past two weeks. Tayton started preschool last Monday, Tenley celebrated her 6th birthday on Tuesday and then started school on Thursday. She is pretty excited about being a 1st grader.
Lets start with Tayton and his school. He is going to a preschool that is located on site here at the Racquet Club. It seems to be a great school, it's close and he LOVES it. He is in the Dragonfly classroom and they began learning this week how to describe their looks. Tayton's teacher said, "okay Tayton, what does your hair look like" (I think she was hoping for a color description), and Tayton replied, " it's good". She said she could help but laugh because of the confindence he had when he said it.
Tenley is now the big 6! She is so excited to be 6, but is already talking about being 7...... we had a party here at our house with her new friends she has met since arriving in June. She had 7 friends representing countries, Holland, Australia, Canada, Scotland, America, and China. You should have heard the accents!! I LOVED it!! All the little girls are so precious.

Two days after her birthday she started school. She really likes her teachers; Mrs. Walker from Australia and Mrs. Priti (assistant) from India. When she got home from her first day the first thing out of her mouth was, I get to have 3 recesses. (a MAJOR accent on 3)

I am posting some pictures of our apartment for those of you who have requested to see what our house looks like. Also, there are some pictures of the clubhouse, where we spend a large amount of time. There is a great place for kids to play while us mom's and dad's sit and socialize. It's really great and very family friendly.
Trent is starting to travel in and around China more. Next week he has to go to Turkey for a week. He has started language lessons which are pretty intense. I start mine next week. I was waiting to get the kids in school to devote more time to it. We both really want to use this opportunity to learn as much as we can.
My weeks get's saturated pretty quickly when you consider a day or two shopping (food, ect..), a day of language lessons, a day of volunteering at the school. and maybe a day of free time with the girls. It takes so long to do everything so if you have to grocery shop, you will not get anything else accomplished that day before picking the kids up from school. After school we are trying to go to the pool each day. Summer is getting closer to being over so we want to soak in the sun while we have it. It's a great way to unwind also!



Sunday, August 10, 2008


Is anyone else thinking what I'm thinking?
"Where's Waldo?"
Sorry it has taken us so long to get another post up. We have been busy getting acquainted with China and playing "Hide and Go Seek." For example, Vanilla Extract, do you know how hard it is to find such a thing in China. I did finally find it and my kids (and Trent) are happy to once again have homemade banana muffins and chocolate chip cookies.
School will be starting soon, 10 days to be exact (yes I'm counting). Tenley is very excited to meet her teacher and make more friends. I think she has met every child living at the Racquet Club, but it is just not enough for her. She is quite the social butterfly.
You have to understand that living in a new culture you are going to get random questions from your children. The other day Tenley asked me, "mom, why do all the people here have black hair?" After the lack of a brilliant answer I told it like it was, "because God made them that way." Anyone else have a better answer? Belching in public is also very common here (not rude). A few weeks ago our driver belched very loudly in the car with us in it. Tenley was quick to shout off, "excuse you!" I couldn't help but laugh because neither of them were in the wrong.
08/08/2008
We went to TGI Friday's on Friday night to watch the opening ceremony's for the Olympic games. It was really great to be among the Chinese people to watch it all unfold. A truly historical event for them really. They are obviously proud and honored to be hosting such an event, probably more so than any country to ever host the Olympics.