A Party: In The Garden

It wasn't technically in the garden (or not at least what I pictured as a garden), but if you remember I mentioned a couple of weeks ago HERE that my student Leslee had invited Andrea and I to her school's Garden Party. It was last Saturday (aka May 22nd) and it was lots of fun. Each food item or game cost between 1-3 tickets generally (there were some that cost much more than that). We found out while there that each booth was run by a different class and it was kind of a competition to see who could see sell the most.

They had hand/arm/face painting (which I thought was a booth that was giving shots when we first walked up :D) While we were getting painted one of the other ladies offered to take pictures for me and then was also two other ladies taking pictures and video recording Andrea and I.

When we first got there we were early so there wasn't that many people, but within the first hour it got very crowded.

They had 4-wheelers that you could ride, it made me laugh that it was a special thing because growing up almost every other person that I knew at least owned one 4-wheeler or dirt bike. Leslee was so excited as she stood in line, but when she got her helmet on she started to become a little nervous...she quickly got over it though.

This is Little Annie, she was a 3 year old when I was here last time. Andrea and I were standing waiting for Leslee when I heard "Teacher Beth" and looked over to see a little girl and her Mom waving at me coming towards me. I didn't recognize her at first, she has gotten so big. She was doing a little dance with her class as we were leaving.

Weight of Words

Andrea and I attended the Sacrament meeting of an English ward today while we were in Taipei. When the first song was announced I went to pick up the hymnal, I was so surprised at how much it weighed. I had not realized until now how many songs are not available in Chinese, but yet at the same time how many have been made available and that there is the demand for them. I will miss carrying around my hymnal in pinyin and singing in the Choir with the beloved Ji-An Branch.

All In A Row

Last week I came down to yellow class during nap time to get some things for my afternoon class, I found all the shoes up in a row. I suspect Rain did it, he loves to put things in order and will always come in before the others and put out the chairs.

The Single's Are in The House!

Three weeks ago some of the singles in the branch told Andrea that they were going to come to our apartment the next week and have dinner with us, they would bring food and we should provide an "American" dessert. We weren't sure what to expect but were excited none-the-less.

They made something with dumplings and some kind of batter.

A Taiwanese "pancake"

Pumpkin soup

Andrea provide the fixings for root beer floats (there is root beer to buy somewhere but we don't know where so she got orange soda) or banana splits, but they didn't really understand that they were supposed to be two separate desserts, so...they put ice cream with bananas and orange soda all covered with chocolate sauce. They LOVED IT! Andrea and I were cracking up the whole time but they thought that it was an awesome idea.

After dinner we played some intense rounds of Uno.

Randy (one of the singles) had brought his non-member friends Paper and his girlfriend Fish, so at the end the missionaries stopped by and played a couple of rounds of Uno, just so they could meet them.

All in all it was a fun night, we hope that we can do it again before we go home.

Markets

My dearest Mother gently complained that I have not really showed pictures or what a market is, when I was describing it once a few weeks ago she said "oh, that's completely different than I imagined." So when we went downtown with Yuling I took many pictures to show a "market," now this is just a general shopping market, with a little bit of everything...there is also specific markets just for fruit, just for vegetables, food, clothes, stones, meat, etc. but hopefully this will give you a general idea.

Cambodia!

Have I mentioned that I am going here in less than a month! I'm super duper excited about going, but a little sad because at the same time it signifies that my time here is done and that I will be going home the day after I return from Cambodia. Andrea and I are going for a fun filled 5 day/4 night adventure, filled with tours, swimming at our fancy hotel (and boy is going to be fancy-I mean, it has a swimming pool!), an hour long massage, shopping, and super yummy food.

These next 4 weeks are going to go by like crazy, still to do: practice, practice, practice graduation and get the kids get ready; hopefully plan a picnic; maybe go on a field trip to Ocean Park (Stephanie and I were talking about it the other day, not quite sure if it will come to pass); take a gazillion pictures, graduation, have a five year old sleepover at the school, continue with daily lessons and tutoring, pack, clean, figure out if need to send home a box, and keep my blog up to date (I'm sure there is more but that's what is at the top of the list and mind).

I have enjoyed my time here but can't believe how quickly it has flown by, I'll be sad to go home but extremely happy at the same time, I miss my family and friends, and as weird as it is to say it- I'm ready to go back to school.

Scooter Ridin' Fun

A couple of weeks ago I had just gotten off skype talking to my Mom when the phone in the kitchen started ringing (it doesn't do that very often but when it does I generally ignore it :D), Andrea went to answer it. It was Yuling asking if we wanted to go downtown with them, of course we said yes and hurriedly got dressed.

We were downstairs at the appointed time when Yuling, Daniel, and Joseph pulled up on their scooters, we grabbed our helmets and hopped on. Before going downtown we swung by and picked up Allie.

(Joseph, Andrea, and Daniel waiting while we pumped up Yuling's tires)

Yuling's tires were a little low so we stopped for a few seconds to get them pumped up, while Allie and I waited we snapped a few cute pictures.

Joseph and Yuling dropped us off at the entrance to the market while they went to find parking, the first thing that Daniel noticed was this giant bear inside one of the drink places. He kept on saying bear in Chinese and pointing at it.

No bed for nap, so Daniel had to make due with his Dad's back.

After buying several purses (I believe that among the three of us we bought 5 :D), clothes, and other foods we stopped for lunch, of course we had to go to what I like to call "Famous Dumplings," and as usual they stepped up to the plate and served delicious food.

Daniel was getting a little tired and restless by this time so I let him play with my camera again, there are several like this.

After lunch we dropped Allie off at her music class and then came back for dessert, Andrea and I both had shaved ice with mango--YUM!

Besides having fun with Yuling, Joseph, Daniel, Allie, and Andrea?...finding and buying Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel, and Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story for only $30 US!!! (The first two are two of my favorite movies and ones that I have wanted for a very long time but wasn't ready to pay $30+ for each one)

PhotoHunt: Memorial

Ok, so not quite American but I still thought that it was an awesome picture that I took! I took this last time when Nathan and Sallee were here visiting. We went to place and watched a Changing of the Guard. All the people kept walking back and forth and Sallee and I got a little tired of it, so we sat down and I quickly snapped this picture when the wind picked up all the flags.

To Become Like Him

I have always been a big fan of Jenny Phillips ever since I discovered her in high school when preparing for a girls camp program. She produces beautiful, inspirational music and firesides to go with them. This movie is no exception, we have such a wonderful example and we should spend our life striving to become more like him.

Who You Gonna Call?

I've had a couple of youtube links sitting open in my browser for close to a week now, waiting to share, but haven't had the time to do it. I had 3 of my 4 tutor students cancel today, so I think that I have the time :D

If you haven't figured out by now I love improv or flash mob things people do and love to share them with others (count yourself lucky I don't even show a fraction of what I watch). I just had to show this one, I love The Ghostbusters and used to watch them often (this made me feel like watching them all again) and thought that it was really cool that they did it where the original scene was filmed. Enjoy!

PhotoHunt: Monthly

I hate to say it but the first thing that came to my mind when I thought of monthly was not the most appropriate for blogging (well for some it might be, but not for mine :D), so I cleared that away from my mind and thought of the best thing that I do monthly...I get to go to the Temple! At school I wasn't the best at attending the Temple (which is really sad considering it's right up the street), but here we have worked hard at attending at least once a month, and I love being able to attend- even when I hit my head on the font :D

Hammer Time

Well, it wasn't exactly a hammer, but it was still fun. In "honor" of Cinco de Mayo (yes I know it wasn't actually the 5th of May, but we fit it in where we can) we had a pinata (you got to use any excuse you can to have fun :D) We used a blow-up toy to make sure that the pinata didn't break on the first hit (we were using a pinata that had been used before and actually only had one layer of paper on it)- though we ended up having to just turn it over and dump out the candy :D. Sorry the pictures are small (you can click them to make them bigger), but I figured that this was better than uploading 50 pictures.

I love that the Teachers got involved and I especially love Stephanie's look on her face .

The 5 year old's- we made sure that Jimmy and Kevin went last so that everyone else got a turn.

4 Year Olds

3 Year Olds