Buses and Hair Salons

So this sunday was Asia stake conference for church. We just had to download it off the church website to watch it. But apparently it didnt download completely because when we started it this morning, it only played 10 minutes of the conference and stopped. So we just had a little testimony meeting and took a lunch break while we downloaded it again. After our(mine melissa's and brooke's) delicious french toast and mashed potato lunch we finished the stake conference session. Following that, the girls stayed to watch the relief society broadcast. Then jessica's husband rex(the film crew guy) brought over a cheesecake for us to eat. Yummy :) It wasn't real cheesecake but it was still pretty dang good!

After all the conference watching was over, we ate dinnr and practiced our halloween dance a little. (We have to perform at our schools halloween party next week)

Then we spent the rest of the night just playing games over at anna and Brittany's apartment with a few people. Good day :)

This morning, we were waiting for the school bus and it finally came but anna and brittany weren't there. ..so we waited forever but finally bob our bus driver for impatient just left them. Carmen ran up to get them last minute but she took too long so she got left too. Bob was driving so fast and crazy it was a little bit scary! Karina stayed home cuz she didnt get any sleep so if they dont make it to school there's no one to teach for them... great. Hopefully they all make it on time cuz I don't wanna teach two classes!

We were supposed to have parent teacher conference today, but we were told the wrong time. We waited outside for the bus for an hour and it didnt come, so we just left cuz we thought they forgot. Fine with me, those things are pointless. We have them every week and the kids don't improve that much in only one week, so there's never much to say. Only like two of the 20 parents talk to me anyways so I don't know why we even have them. Our bus driver bob probably hates us even more now. Great. Me and melissa learned our halloween dance with karina after the parent conferences were over. It's pretty cool so I'm excited! :) Then we went to the store with james and noah to get some laundry detergent and conditioner. We were supposed to meet up in their apartment for games at 8 but brooke and hayden didnt show up till an hour later so we just hung out and played around on the guitar till curfew. 

Today we didn't have to teach at all! It was outside day!!! So we walked down to the park across the street from our school and just played games in the grass and ate a snack then headed back to the school when it was time. It was so much fun :) We just played tag and duck duck goose and some other running game ha. The kids are soo cute, I love them :))♥ 

After school we went to get our hair cut and washed...so nice! My hair is insanely soft and smells amazing. They washed it for like 30 minutes and then massaged my head and neck and back and arms. It was all included in the hair cut, And it was less than $10!! We also booked our sanya trip today! Woohoo!!!! We're flying there and back instead of taking a train because after everything it was only like $20 more to fly and it saved us 30+ hours of travel. Definitely worth it! I'm so excited for the beach! :)) 

We had cooking class today and made some delicious greenbeans and carrots with pork. Its funny, the cooks always use the same spices and ingredients in every single dish they make, yet it always tastes different. But im not complaining, the food is delicious. I never thought i'd say that ha! I used to hate chinese food :P We had a dress rehearsal today after school for the kindergarten's halloween party next week. So...we had to stay at school till 4:30. Lame, but the dances were so cute :)) Each class had to perform. Even us teachers performed a dance, and the kids loved it haha! Today was zachs birthday, so when we got home from school we went and ate dinner at gina's pizza with him and a few others. Then we played games at anna and brittanys for a while.

This is James playing his ocarina. And yes those are goggles on his eyes and underwear on his head ha.

Brittany fell asleep during church ha.

Cooking class...fried eggplant. It was alright but only because it was fried. Eggplant is nasty.

Holly eating her eggplant. It was hot haha 

Park Day!

So after an adventure to the park with our chinese kids this week, we decided to spend our saturday at the park too. It was one of my favorite days here so far. We brought food and had a picnic and played football and ultimate frisbee and slacklined a little until the security guard got mad and made us take the line down. We also made a bunch of asian friends and played games with them. We taught them how to do the macarena and tooty-ta haha. It was hilarious watching a bunch of asians hop around with their knees together and their eyes closed singing the tooty-ta song. There were so many people standing around us and dancing with us and watching us ha. It's like we're celebrities here! We were singing a song on the bus ride over and when we stopped everyone started clapping and told us to sing more haha. It was a very long but fun day :)

Me melissa and brooke have been practicing the piano almost everyday at the elementary school.  They have over 20 pianos up there for practicing. Each one is in its own little room so you can play by yourself..super nice. Hopefully I'll start improving again!

Its spirit week at school!! AKA: i get to wear sweats and flip flops instead of dresses if I want!! Haha just kidding, but it has been fun :) Monday was crazy hair day, tuesday was black and orange day, today was pajama day and tomorrow is irregular dress day (mismatched day ha). We've been staying late at school everday to decorate and make the haunted house...long days.

Some more pictures

Melissa making breakfast in her cute little robe.

Me and Brooke playing koolaid pong..we won of course :)

me in my little food mask with ann. They make us wear these every time the kids eat.

Our delicious breakfast french toast.

Hayden and melissa playing beer pong (with koolaid)

We Bribed our bus driver sparky with an ice cream cone to take us to mcdonalds. haha hes the best :) He speaks english pretty well but he couldn't understand everything so melissa and karina got out of the car and pointed to the menu in the drive thru while he translated haha, so funny! The sad part was the Ice cream cone machine was broken so we didn't even get Ice cream! :/

Dora..shes so cute :) She always wears a princess crown to class :)

Late night piano sesh. (pictured above is john pretending he knows what he's doing:P haha)

Make up Day and a Party

Today was quite the day! We had makeup lessons because of vacation last week, so we had to teach even though its saturday. It being saturday, our school bus driver didn't come to pick us up So we had to take the city bus. Long story short, we ended up going the opposite direction of where we were supposed to and got lost. By this time we were late for school and had already missed our first lesson, so we had to take a taxi to school. After school, we went to kaiyin and played around with a soccer ball and on the pull up bars. Me and nikki ran for a while around the track and then went home to get ready for a birthday party.
A little girl in one of my classes invited carmen and i to her bday party! We bought her a little present at the store yesterday and wrapped it up in one of the plastic bags I had laying in my room haha..we fixed it up with sparkly ribbon and tissue paper from the school to make it look cuter :)
The party was so fun! Ann's dad picked us up from school along with some of the other chinese teachers and drove us to the party. It was in this super gorgeous area with a lake and tons of trees. We got there and Ann(the bday girl) was out riding a horse along with a couple of other people! It was so cute, she's so tiny! Me and carmen walked down to the fence where they were riding and anns mom asked if I wanted to ride a horse...so of course I said yes! They gave me a little helmet and these leg protecter things and then put me on a horse, said a few words in chinese, and handed me the reins. I didn't really know what to do haha! I figured it out eventually but it was the first time i'd ever ridden a horse. Pretty exciting!! After a little while of riding, they fed us cake and dinner! The cake was amazing!!! We got a piece of cheesecake and a piece of chocolate fudge cake...soooo good :)) yum! For dinner we ate sheep, fish, chicken(as well as their feet), intestine soup, and wintermelon. Some interesting things tonight. The sheep was actually pretty good, I drowned it in spicy soy sauce so it tasted delicious :) The chicken was okay, I didn't eat the fish, and the chicken feet tasted like..well feet. I don't even understand how people eat them...its like all bone. Gross things. The intestine soup didn't taste bad, it just grossed me out knowing what it was. The wintermelon was good. It tasted kind of like a cucumber and squash mixed together. We rode home with yannis and his mom after the party. It was weird being in a car again..I'm so used to other forms of transportation like buses trains and subways. It was nice to be in a normal car again. We're making french toast and egg sandwiches tomorrow morning for breakfast! Yum!!! Im so excited :)) Should be delicious!

Pictures part 2

Melissa and hayden on the great wall of china!

Our friend cindy at the tea house.

The birds nest. Olympic stadium! It poured on us the whole way there.

These lanterns are everywhere for the holiday..and theres hayden.

Egg dumplings..most delicious breakfast ever!!

Tienamen square...sooo crowded. It took an hour just to get from one side to the other.

The bug i found on melissas eyelid..haha

The giant ice cream cones we got in beijing! They got a cone, put ice cream in it, stacked it. Got another cone, put ice cream in it, and stacked it again 10 times.

Standing on the wall!

Our giant ice cream cones :))

 Hayden licking a chinese mans elbow.

Inside the birds nest. Super exciting.

High pants party!

Tobagganing down the great wall..soomuch fun!

We took pictures with this guy at the top of the wall, we didnt know you had to pay.  So he was yelling at us
in chinese as we ran down..oops.

The great wall of china!! 

 Hayden and his Icecream goatee.

Llama temple..we just took a picture outside the gate so I don't really know what was inside :P But the gate looks cool ha!

 Sleepy faces..trying to get the train tickets switched early In the morning. No success.

Melissas friend

 Some creepy asians on the train with us. They wouldnt stop staring at us.

Our terra cotta warriors group. We met this guy named sawyer who helped us get in and showed us around.
Ali, courtney, holly, serena, nikki, me, melissa, saywer. (And andrew our film crew guy was there with us taking the picture)

 We found this puzzle shop in yangshuo one morning and spent a few hours just playing games and hanging out :)

Sneaking up on her...

Haydne giving brooke an ice cream kiss on the cheek haha :)

Playing ninja outside th hostel in beijing!

Ice cream after the mud caves!

Random pictures with asians off the street in yangshuo.

Pictures part 1

Sunset in yangshuo

After the mud caves and hot springs

River swimming :)

Best smoothies ever!!!

Cave swimming! So fun..even if it was slightly illegal.. :P

Free baby ice cream cones we got from mcdonalds..cute :)

First stop on sleeper bus...had to use the nasty troughs to pee. Gross.

On the sleeper bus!!

Kyle trying on melissas robe...

Me brooke and hayden :)

Emperors palace in beijing.

Exploring yangshuo!

Playing ninja outside our hostel in beijing.

Giant ice cream cones..and these were the small sized cones! Ha

The most declicious donut ive ever eaten.

River trip! Skipping rocks and just floating around :)

Morning bamboo raft rides :)

This cool cave we found..we swam through it but got in trouble and had to leave because boats drive through the cave and the owners didnt want us in there because they were afraid we'd get hit. Still super fun!

delicious noodles :))

Smoothies, yum!

One of the girls in kaiyin group told me there was this super cheap peanut butter at the store in yangshuo and that it tasted like normal peanut butter. So of course i got super excited and thought i'd stock up since they were so cheap. Worst decision ever. It taste likes chalk and its not sweet at all. Its actually peanut paste so its not even peanut butter. Good thing i bought four of them. Now i have to find something to do with it. Maybe ill try and make peanut noodles, or mix sugar into it or something..we'll see.

Some of my chinese babies :

Hayden trying out melissas new robe..

Gorgeous mountains!!! This Is one of The stops on our bike ride back from the cave.

Chimelong amusement park!!