MY KIDS!

Ok so I have to show everyone pictures of my kids here in China.. The one picture with me in it is of my home class. Jack is the one closes to the camera, Leo is to the left of him, Jason is next Leo, then it goes Kevin, Ella, then Mary and of course me. In this picture we are turning in our tokens so they can recieve there toys. My kids are so cute and smart. Every time they come back into my class it is like such a relief. No matter how crazy they are they just make me feel so happy to see my kids.
Today was one of the funnest days teaching, we played basketball for the second day. The kids love it so much and they where so good because they knew if they were not they would not get to play basketball. They would always repeat "Yau Ming" who is a huge basketball player her that they love.
The other picture is of my favorite kid Jackie, he is wearing the sunglasses. He is the cutest kid in the world and i just want to squeeze him all the time. Even when i have to get mad at him i just smile at him I can not get mad. One time all of the kids where mumbling English and I could not understand them ( you have to understand Jackie only really speaks when you tell him to and tell him what to say.) Anyways I just could not understand them and then Jackie raises his hand and says..."Candy teacher" he said it like hello teacher are you stupid. It was so cute they were all trying to say Yummy treats teacher, but i just could not understand them.
The next picture is of Raychel, Anson, and Jenny. Jenny has the best language and is really helpful, but at times really loud. Anson is so cute, but he can be one of the biggest "Hellians" in all of the classes. His cute face in this case can not make up for his being naughtyness.
The other picture with Mandy is of her and her class. If you notice Jackie is in her class and he is just adorable (the one on the left of her). Of all the classes Mandy definately has the cutest kids, but sometimes also one of the hardest classes to get involoved in activites. Oh and if you look on the right of Mandy you will see our Harry ( or as Bastian would say Dumbo) He is so cute and at first he was one of my favorite kids, until he came out of his closet. He is so cute, but does not understand alot of english so he is hard to handle. I still love him oh so much, don't get me wrong.
I really love my little runts, no matter how hard they are sometimes you just always want to in the end give them big hugs. Even though they always point o all the teachers stomachs and say, "baby teacher" or make comments about how weird you look. It is all out of complete innocence. Thanks for all the comments..

My first motorcyle Ride... EVER!!

I first have to start out and tell everyone that my kids are the most adorable chinese kids EVER! today was one of the best day's teaching, yes they are a hand ful but in the end there are so many fun moments you just have to smile. So today after i spent like a hour talking on webcam with Bastian (which was amazing!) We all had to go on a 30 min walk to get some toys for the school. Once we got there and got everything we decided we did not want to walk back. SO our international coordinator (Annie who i love) helped us get motorcyle rides back to our apartment. This was my first time ever on a motorcyle, but not only that but it was with some chinese man. I was so excited because out of all of the eight motorcyle drivers mine was this old man who was just so adorable. Honestly i thought the others where kind of creepy! It was such a rush and they drive so crazy you always think you are going to die... I am so glad i experienced it and from now on i am going to learn how to tell them where i want to go and have them drive me. Who needs to walk when you can ride with a crazy Chinese man???

Our First Chinese Birthday Party

Last night we had one of our new students Ryan have a birthday. His mom invited us all to come to his party last night. It was so fun and interesting to watch. I learned how to sing Happy Birthday in Chinese and we sat around and talked for most of the time. The cake was like angel food cake with whipping cream and fruit and tomatoes on top. On the inside it has smashed up red beans. What is it with people and there random surprises inside of bread? All the adults there had us introduce our selves to them, we had to tell them what we like to do and our names. When I told them i liked to dance they all started chanting and telling me to dance. I had no idea what to do so i did the splits they were all impressed. Then my friend Lindsay told them she liked to sing and they wanted her to perform while i danced, so she stood up and I got on my knees and she sang Mary had a little lamb and i walked around like i was her lamb. It was so funny and they were laughing so hard. It was so cool to experience something like the in China just to watch others interact with each other is amazing to me for some reason. Just as a side note ever since yesterday it has been so humid here. there has not been a time since yesterday morning where i have not been all sweaty and sticky. I MISS THE SNOW (that is something i never thought i would say) well I love and miss you all... HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

The First Week of Teaching

This past week was my first week of teaching the little runts. I have to say it is alot different than i ever thought it would be. We have a few little brats in our classes, and they remind me of two people in my life when they were little, i am not naming any names but (Krista, and what i have heard of Bastian). I have a home class where the six kids our like my own kids for the year. I LOVE THEM!!! I have Kevin, Mary, Ella, Jason, Jack, and Leo, luckily they are (well from what i have heard from the other teachers) Is very quiet and behaved. The funny thing is in my class they are so out of control, but in a fun way. I am having a hard time with some of the other kids in the other classes but these are just things that will get better with time. I have learned that i never want to teach Elementry kids EVER. It is one thing to have kids of your own, but it is another to teach 30 kids that are not yours. We have this one kid peter who is the biggest of all the trouble makers, he interrupts all of your lessons and never obeys. Then there is Joe, for some reason none of the other teachers seem to have a problem with Joe like I do. There are also a few girls Susie, and crystal who are so in La La land every time you look at them you just want to laugh. Crystal always has her hands down here pants ALWAYS, and susie just stands and looks in the sky. I think the hardest part with the kids is some of them understand fully, and some of the kids have no knowledge whatsoever of what we are saying. There are six different categories that we switch off teaching and I am in charge of gym. I was so excited for mine until I actually had to do it. The hard part about my category is that everything is very activtive and not in a sitting down area like the rest of them. My room is quiet small so i do most everything outside. When we are outside there is no way to control these kids while they are standing next to all of there toys. Again I know after time and practice this will all get better, but right now it is my challenge. I really do love the kids so very much and I am so excited to love them even more. We are driving a few hours tomorrow to go to our first Church session. I am so very excited to take the sacrament and be in that setting again! I love you all

VENTING

ok, well I know this is just a random post but I am going to tell everybody anyways! So like i discovered something today, Chinese people eat SO MUCH!! I really think that they eat more than most Americans. I always thought that they only ate a little bit and that is why they are so skinny...... LIES they are all LIES. It is crazy to watch our international helper/teacher eat. She is probably 4'11" and maybe 115 pounds and she EATS SO MUCH! like probably 3 times as much as I do.
I also thought that Chinese people did not know what bread was, that they only ate rice.... AGAIN LIES.... They have the most amazing bread here! America needs to take some lessons on Chinese Bread and Ice Cream. There Bakery's are the most sinful things in the world. A whole store of different weird amazing bread! Not only that but these huge breads only cost like maybe 15 -45 american cents which is way crazy. One thing that they need to learn from America is they but meat random peices of meat on the insides of some of there bread! GROSS can you say GAG ME?!?!?!? You have to be really careful about what you buy cause some times there is a little gross present inside.

Diapers? What are those?

One of the new things I have learned in China is well baby’s do not use diapers very often. I was sitting on the Subway and looked in front of me and this adorable baby boy maybe like 5 months. I looked down and he had pants that were split at the crouch and no diaper. Come to find out they all use those pants, when the baby has to go potty they hold them over the trash can. My question is how they know when they have to go at such a young age where there is not that much communication. I guess diapers are way expensive, if you look all over the sidewalks there is poo everywhere! Little kids run outside of stores and go potty on the side walk next to you WEIRD. That is one of the many things that I am so grateful for in Good Ol’ America. I have learned to look at these things in China and just laugh it off, and be really appreciative of what I have.