School kids

All the school kids about to sing "Peace like a River".

Yin Kun and Cheng Cheng

National Day party

Early this morning I went with Donna to the market to try to find some new clothes for all the kids. All they have are either stained, way too small/big, or you have the boys in girl clothes and vice versa. So, we set out to try to find specific clothes, for specific kids. We found quite a bit, but mostly for little boys... so the shopping will continue throughout the next two weeks, while I'm here. We're trying to find good looking clothes to have them in when I take their photo.
After Shooshe (nap time), we all went to the school for a party! Tomorrow is National Day (it's like our 4th of July), so the kids prepared some songs/presentation type stuff for us all to watch. All the kids showed up in great looking clean clothes, so I took advantage of the opportunity and had them all pose for some pictures! They're such cute kids :)
I'll post some of the pictures in a little while.... right now, dinner is calling my name!

Story

I worked down stairs with the blind toddlers today until the other kids got back from school. I had a nice conversation (or lack thereof) with the other worker during that time (Btw, Chinese dictionaries aren't very useful if the other person can't read...). I showed her some pictures of my family and explained (in broken Chinese) that there are 9 kids (this usually makes them give me a bad look and shake their head no at me, while wondering how it's even legal to have that many kids) and that 3 of them were adopted from here in China. She asked a lot of questions, after gesturing that it was "alooot of kids!", but I couldn't really understand her questions. I showed her more pics and videos and her reaction as she watched them seemed like she was confused or didn't like what she saw. But, after about an hour she stopped trying to communicate verbally (we were both getting slightly frustrated with the language barrier by this point), shook her head no, grabbed my arm to stand up, pointed to the picture of my parents and gave them a thumbs up whiling grinning ear to ear, and then gave me a huge hug! I honestly don't know half of the stuff that was going on, but I'm pretty sure she was happy about it all. :) haha.

Later this evening, I waited for the kids to get home from school before I ate (I like to eat my meals with the kids). As always, right after dinner Cheng Cheng planted himself on my lap and was chattering my ears off with how well he can count to 10 in English (can't he pick something else to recite now, it's been 3 weeks?!) lol. And then, as I was leaving to come back up here to my place, all the kids were waving goodbye, when Cheng Cheng came running across the room yelling something at me... I sat on the ground to see what was wrong and before I could even ask, he kissed me! And then told me in the cutest little voice ever, 'night night'. Ahhh, is he not the most adorable thing ever?!! He's soo sweet! I can't get over how much I love this kid.

I hope as you all are just now starting out the day, that you have an awesome and blessed one, like I've just had! :)

EW 5

I went to EW (eagle's wings) 5 yesterday, which is the baby house.... can you says A.D.O.R.A.B.L.E?!!!!!! (Yeah, I know I say that about all kids.... but still;).
They're short several staff for the next two weeks because of the big holiday coming up (Oct 1st is a huuuge holiday here - everyone's off work/school for the week), so I'm actually going to step in and work in their place almost every day there! And I've also started the photography finally, but haven't gotten much done since it was later in the evening and the kids were tired. But I do have a ton of candid shots and videos!  I can't wait to work there every day and get my "baby fill" ;)

I'm kinda limping around again after all the walking this week. Foot's been throbbing a lot, and even kept me awake last night. I have nothing to do today really, so hopefully with a day of rest it'll be good to go again! If you could keep that in your thoughts, it'd be wonderful...

Lunch time

Look at the food in Gao Jing's bowl.. doesn't it look tasty? ;) (believe it or not, it was!)

Wen Jia and Qi Qi

Cheng Cheng!

He was all sweaty so I spiked his hair up, took a picture and showed him and I think he got embarrassed cause he immediately put his hair back to "how its supposed to go" lol, it was so cute, though! :-)

Zi Ping and Gao Jing

This was our ride back

mmm..doesn't it look tasty?

"Street food"

I'm really loving it here. And I LOVE the kids! They're so adorable! Skyped back home with Cheng Cheng here with me today... he was so quiet! I couldn't believe it. He literally sat there in silence and wouldn't even smile...SO not like him! And of course the second I turned skype off he's laughing and asking me all sorts of stuff!
This afternoon, I got a call from my Donna's daughter to see if I wanted to go to the store and out to lunch with her and her siblings.... like I'd turn that down -- I love wandering the streets of China! When I asked where we were going for lunch all she said was, "Oh, we're just gonna get some street food"......."Street food"? I was kinda suspicious of that term, esp after Donna asked how well my stomach holds up on "gross stuff"...I figured it was worth going and trying it, anyway. What's the worse it'll do, make me sick...again? :P
We took a taxi to the middle of nowhere, it seemed, and came across a TON of street vendors. The streets were completely packed... guess that's what they meant by "street food". I've always heard you shouldn't eat anything unless you know how it's prepared (like, if its sanitary...the street doesn't fit that category), or any of the dairy products, etc (that "rule" was broken my first day). Though, It was quite fascinating to watch all the vendors cook in the middle of nowhere. The food I chose ended up being really good, but don't ask what I ate, cause I have no idea. lol.

After lunch we went to Dennis, the store, to get some stuff for dinner. Going through stores in China is always interesting... we had to get chicken and omgsh, it's gross here! They always have things just sitting out in the middle of everything, raw and bleh, just gross. Can't possibly be sanitary...
As always, since it's Saturday night, we had dinner and played games at Donna's house. The food was good and it was great fellowship.... but I could barely stay awake!
I'm so completely exhausted! I keep getting up between 4:30 and 6am....for NO REASON! It's ridiculous! Finally, the game night thing was over and I guarantee I was the first out the door, headed home! lol. When I got to my building I think I stood outside for at least 5mins just staring up the steps... way too many steps, esp when you're tired!...I got curious and decided to count the steps this morning and if I remember correctly, there are 99... and that's only one way! I went up and down those steps eight times today... yes, I  just had to do the math -- 792 steps! Ah! Sooo many steps! And that doesn't even count the bazillion blocks I have to walk to get anywhere around here! My shins ache... guess I'm getting in shape, at least ;-)

Inspiration

Every morning I always check my mom's blog (blessedrus.blogspot.com) to see if there's anything new going on at home, and I just gotta say HE is amazing!!!
My parents inspire me so much!! I LOVE my family! <3

Dominican?

I slept on the floor last night. Not really sure why, It just seems more comfortable at the time. I slept pretty well; Didn't wake up every 20 minutes, like usual. But, when I did wake up this morning I thought I was in the Dominican Republic! Haha. I guess the fact that I was sleeping on the floor? I dunno. It was funny, though.

Wei Tao

There's another little kid that I've fallen in love with... His name is Wei Tao, he's 3yrs old, hearing impaired and completely blind, but he's soooo sweet! Most of the blind kids really dislike people (but do you blame them? they don't understand anything, because they can't see!), they have major sensory issues and refuse to let me even touch them. But Wei Tao actually starts to smile and hold his hands out when I call his name from across the room!
The picture isn't that great of him -- it's really difficult to get any pics of him cause he always wants to just put his head on your shoulder and pat your back (he can't walk or anything). But ah! Gotta love him :)
I hope to get some really good shots of him soon!

♫ "you make me smile like the sun" :)

On our way to the park/some of the nannies sitting with the kids that can't walk.

Gao Jing

Gao Jing is 5 (or maybe 6) years old. She's adorable and I love her! She already has a family in the paperwork process to come get her, but oh my goodness, if she didn't I would be begging my parents adopt her!! lol

Sunlight!

Toady has probably been the best day that I've been here, so far (Though, not being sick plays a huge factor in this). It started out slowly, but after siesta I decided to follow the kids to school and video them there. Kaitie and Micah apparently work in the school (I met them last week. They're from the states and are here volunteering, as well. They got married a couple months ago and are spending several months in China teaching/volunteering -- how cool is that?) All the kids split up into their classes and I noticed that one group (the younger kids) were leaving... They said they were going out to play in the sun... I thought to myself, "What sun?", it's so dull around here... I went out anyway. I figured it'd be more fun to go to the playground and play/video them, than sit around listening to Chinese lectures. To my (amazing) surprise there WAS SUN!!! The sky was actually blue! Omgsh, you have no idea how unusual that is here! Micah said it's only the 2nd blue sky he's seen in the last 8 weeks. It felt great outside! (plus it wasn't raining!) They said they don't usually take the kids outside just to play, but when they saw there was sun, they decided they needed to be out in it, while it lasted.
After playing outside with the little kids for a couple hours, I went back to the school just in time to video Micah teach an English class. Kinda gave me an interest in teaching ESL at some point...

Dinner was good tonight. Aw was lunch, this afternoon. Rice and veggies :) I've had this for a few days now... hope they keep it up! Though, I've sorta acquired a taste for their other food, too, now lol, but either way I hope it stays this way. ;-)

Chinese

The day after we met Anna Xuimei, she taught me about 6 pages worth of Chinese within 2 hours. I remember how to say about 2/3 of the words and can write about... well, yeah, hardly anything. lol

Met a lady from Australia last night, that's a part of the team here. I love her accent ;)

I woke up this morning sick...again. Donna brought me some meds and they seem to be helping. Can't wait to be over this and hopefully it's the last time!

Oreos

I'd like to know why the word "oreo" on the cookie is in English...