Random Pictures

These first few pictures are our visit to Salt Lake City to be with Grandpa just a week after returning from China. What a trooper she was!

She loved taking walks around the hospital with anyone she could convince to go with her. This time she was walking in daddy's shoes!

This is when we first arrived at the hospital. She had not seen Grandpa in 2 days and when we got to the hospital and she saw him she laid on him and cuddled for about 20 minutes. It was amazing seeing some of the most important people in my life love each other and make each other so happy!!
Grandma and Kenya at Uncle Dale's house.
This is Kenya doing the hair of our dear friend Jena in Rexburg. What a good sport Jena was. It was so fun hanging out with them while in Rexburg. We love you guys!
She was really brave and let Kenya put rollers in her hair.

These next pictures are of here in Libby. It is such a beautiful place! Today it snowed from the time I woke up and didn't stop for more than 1 hour all day! I loved it! Winter is so wonderful here! These pictures are not of today, but a few weeks ago, but you get the idea.


What a cutie! Kenya LOVES the snow! She is always asking to go outside and play in it. She loves to walk in the snow and throw snowballs. One thing we are glad she did not completely miss this winter.
This picture is out of the kitchen window at my parents house a couple of weeks ago.

Life back in Montana.

Well, since we have been back in Libby we have done a lot and really not been up to much. Crazy how it works out that way.

The first week we were home we were trying to adjust to the change in time. All of us had adjusted enough after just 3 days. I had a few nights where Kenya and I were up for 2-3 hours in middle of the night, but that also included extra long naps.

As you could tell we spend our second week traveling to Utah and back. Kenya was AMAZING again! She really didn't have a hard time with the 12 hour trip there and while we were there she did rather well too! The trip home was just as good too. We were able to break it up into two days because we stopped in Rexburg for a day and a half. We got to see some of our good friends still there and had a great time!

So, this past week we have had a fun time playing. We just been hanging out with my family and trying to get somethings organized and get our lives back on track. Kenya has loved having more people to play with and a little cousin to teach new tricks to.

Kenya loves to dance (still), play chase, go outside, play in the snow, and loves all the animals around. I think she loves the horses the most.

The other day when it was snowing she said, "I want to going flying in the snow." She meant it. She wanted to go outside and go flying like on the movie "The Snowman." Robert took her outside in the snow to try.

Kenya often thinks about her friends in China and asks where they are. All we can do is tell her that they live in China and we don't live there anymore. There are many people we miss and wish we could see.

That is all I can think to update for now. I am shocked that Kenya will be 2 years old in just a couple weeks! I am sure I have an update then!

Safe

Everyone is back at home and safe.

Traveling.

Well, tonight I spend a good 1 1/2 to 2 hours unpacking from China and repacking. We are headed to Salt Lake City for a while to be with my dad. He was flown down to the VA hospital there on Thursday and we are not sure how long he is going to be there. So, are going to spend a few days down in SLC.
Kenya has been such a great child! She has adjusted to everything really well! She has been on a good sleep schedule for about 3 nights now. We will just see how she will do with a 10+ hour drive.

Splendid China (one more vid)

Now this was amazing! It caught everybody off guard. Everyone saw the fog coming in and most of the lights were off. All the sudden this Green Cyclone Tunnel of Doom appeared and everyone gasped all at once!

Splendid China (Videos)

Here are a couple short clips of the Horse Battles that took place. There was so much more, but our batteries kept dying and we wanted to save some room for the night show.



Creepy! This stone-faced story teller was pretty cool.






There was this amazing waterfall that fell right in front of the stage!


Watch the little men in purple!


Wow! Gettin' dizzy just watching them?



Now that's what I call multi-tasking!

Splendid China (Pics)

So before we left China we decided to do our best to see a little bit more of it. Since it was so difficult to tour China for real, we went to an attraction called Splendid China and Folk Cultural Village. We were told to make sure to stick around for the night show, because that was the best part. Indeed it was, but there were a ton of interesting things before hand as well. We should have gone earlier because we made it through only a third of the park! This place had replicas of the Great Wall of China, the famous Terra Cotta Soldiers, and many other famous Chinese attractions. We only saw a few.

The only snow we got to see in China are in the next two pictures.







Here's a little girl dressed in some traditional clothes. We could have taken a picture of Kenya wearing some cool traditional clothing, but the people were going to charge us, even if we used our own camera! That is one thing we will not miss and that is 98% of the people in Shenzhen try to cheat Foreigners out of their money.
The Nine Dragon Wall
We didn't make it up to this attraction, but it's replica of a famous temple/monastery.
Here is a another Buddhist temple.
The following statues are actually around 20 ft tall! I am taking the picture from the second floor.


This is the entrance to a day show we saw.
Yeah, this is totally a Mongolian tent!


Sorry Jena and Joey, we searched this place inside and out, but no Mongolian babies!

The horse riders kept begging people to come ride the horses and kept trying to get Kenya on there too. She was just interested in talking to and touching the horses.








It was so awesome to go into some of these traditional houses and see the detail and hard work that went into building them.
There was this cool structure of caves that we didn't get to go to, but we saw a guy ride a zip-line from the top over the water and over the Rattan bridge we crossed.
We crossed this cool Rattan bridge as a shortcut through the park because we were running short on time.

Our good friends, students, and guides Jason and Pascal.

This was the sign in front of the path that took would have taken us to the replica of the Great Wall.
So begins the night show. Contortionists...You gotta lovem.



The show was very musical, but was very interesting because it had a story line. Videos are on the next post.

Montana's Winter Days

Robert and I made it to my parents house yesterday evening. We are all safe and well. Kenya cannot get enough of Grandma and Grandpa! I think every other word is Grandma.
Late last night it snowed. We are enjoying a wonderful WINTER day here in Montana. It is lightly snow and the air is crisp and chilled. Oh, how I missed Montana! It is the perfect day to come home from church and have turkey stew waiting for you! Maybe I will see about having some made. Hint, hint, mom!
I am sure we will have more to update and such as we get settled here.

Home Again Home?

So, here we are back in the good ol' USA! So, excited to be here. We are wishing that we were "home," well what home we do have. That is we are wishing that we were in Montana with my parents. The last leg of our trip turned around and went back to Seattle.
Our plan flew over Kalispell and circled at least 3 times. There was fog hovering over the airport and there was not enough visibility to land, so the captain turned right back around and went back to the Seattle airport. So, here I am in Kent, WA. Sad, but not too sad because we are staying with my brother Aaron and his family. It is a lot of fun and Kenya is getting to see 2 of her cousins. We will be flying to Kalispell on Saturday. Let's all pray for good weather!

How can I not?

So, I could not resist posting this.
I was scheduled to teach today from about 8:10 till 10:00 today, but as of yesterday I was told that I was no longer working there. The reason they gave for not having Robert and I teach for the rest of the week was that our students would be in testing and that grade 10 and 12 would not have classes for the rest of the semester. So, this morning I got a text message at 8:30 telling me that I needed to be at class because testing did not start until after lunch. It was a Chinese teaching who was not informed that the Robert and I no longer work there. Yeah, they straight up lied to us. Grade 12 had no tests and regular schedule and grade 10 had tests starting only after lunch. Robert and I had a good laugh about it all! Really, why lie to us? You don't even have to tell us an excuse. Just say that the school decided that your last day will be today. Is that hard? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
I think God really wants to make sure that we feel good about our decision!

Big Suprise?

Well, I went into work today thinking nothing special and after my first class one of the Chinese teachers found me and told me something very interesting. She told Robert and I that today was our last day at Yoahua. So, in just 10 days we have been given 3 different days as our last day. Is that surprising? Not to us! Oh, and of course they changed their minds and are only going to pay us for the first 19 days of January, which I feel is completely fair(ish). They told us that we would get paid for all of Jan before and just changed that on us today. Oh, how I will not miss the only consistency in China; that is that there is no consistency! So, now Robert and I are finished teaching and will spend the next few days packing and such.
Our Heavenly Father is amazing and so kind to us! So, for the last week I have gone to purchase tickets to fly home and something has just kept telling me to wait. I kept thinking, wait for what! Aren't the tickets only going to be more expensive as time gets closer? As it turns out the tickets are the cheapest next Thursday. AND the flight is more direct to Kalispell. The one we were going to by for Jan 31 had us flying into Seattle and then to SLC and then to Kalispell. Now we will cut out SLC!! YEAH!! I am going to try and get tickets tonight and see if I am successful.

Made In China!

So, as you can see from the added gadget, we are expected our second child. I am 14 weeks pregnant and so entering my 2nd trimester I get to share with everyone! I am due at the beginning of July.

The theme for the rest of this babies life is.... Made in China. We are collecting T-shirt and onesies of all sizes. This poor child is not ever going to forget that it was made in China.

I found something I will miss about China.

So, this morning Robert and I ordered in for breakfast, McDonalds. We did this once before too. It was nice to just call and poof, here is a yummy AMERICAN breakfast. I am sure in America we would have thought this outrageous and not supported it, but we had been wanting pancakes for a while so we tried it. It was nice. Today it took less than 20 minutes from phone call to a knock on the door.

Last night I dreamed about a wonderful breakfast at Cislo's in Kalispell, MT. I had biscuits and sausage gravy and other yummy breakfast items!! I have not had biscuits and gravy for almost 2 years because before I left for China I was still nursing Kenya and I could not have sausage while nursing her. That is one of my all time favorite breakfast foods! I know what I will be making when I get back to the States. I woke up and told Robert and so we did the best we could here in China and ordered McDonalds.

Coming to America.

So, we have decided to leave China and return to America. This was the hardest decision I have ever made! I feel like a failure for ending before my 1 year, but the only answer I have is that GOD told me to do it. Yeah, there are several factors that could come into play as to why, but I am not sure which one it is and with out the Lord pushing me home, I would have brushed them all off and just stuck it out. It is not unbearable here teaching and such, it is just that is where I am told that I need to be. I don't understand it, but it is just right!
We are not sure when we will return, but it will before March 1. We will be returning to spend time with my parents in Montana.
So, once again, anyone know about jobs anywhere please let us know! Robert will be looking for work, anywhere, well I guess not China.

Family Pictures

Okay, really, I was not wanting this post to be long. I was thinking I will post a few of the pictures that we had taken at the beginning of December, but as I started to load them it was going so fast! Honestly, I was taking like 5-10 seconds to load 5 pictures at a time. So, now you can see more pictures.
We had a friend of a friend take these pictures. She did not let us pay her at all. She put together a nice book and had some other things made for us. All we had to pay for was the price of having the book and other items printed. She are so happy with they way everything turned out! We thought a lot of them turned out great! Kenya had a blast and really enjoyed it.
Thanks so much Echo!!!