UPDATE! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, once again we are long over due in updating the blog. So here it goes...
Mark continues to be gone two nights a week at the plant. He spends many hours on the road each week but uses it as an opportunity to sleep! His hair continues to get shorter and shorter as Jeffrey uses a different attachment each time he goes to get his haircut. Last week Jeffrey told him, "Mark I know you sure about this but I'm not". He is liking the peninsula look on his head less and less but doesn't want to do the Mr. Clean look so this is the no maintenance plan hair cut. He has started his Mandarin lessons again on Friday and we are starting to work with the youth on Sundays.
Elise is falling into the groove of school and her social life. While she still doesn't love Geometry she is doing just fine in it. I did have to go to the teacher and let him know that since he requires the kids to work together in class he needed to tell the majority of the class that they needed to speak English since they attend an English speaking school. (not Korean) Now that she can understand her classmates I think things are getting better:) She has joined the newspaper and yearbook club and also tried out for the high school play. They are doing A Midsummer night's Dream and she has been told that she is Bottom. For all of you Shakespeare buffs you will know what I am talking about. Elise has started babysitting a little bit again which is great for us because our money tree has finally gotten a branch to blossom again:) She is doing great in the friend area and never seems to be lacking for much to do. This weekend she had a birthday party which included dinner at a Thai restaurant and bowling.
Jacob continues to love playing Rugby and figuring life out. My easy going Jake who has always made friends easily seems to be having a little more difficulty here. He says there aren't many good choices which for that I am grateful that he is choosey. He did go swimming with the neighbor boys this weekend and hung out and watched movies Friday night. His phone also never quit ringing on Saturday while we were at the electronics market because Carla wanted to know if he would go out with Angaline:) Do you all remember those great days when you friend would call the boy for you!?! Well his dad put the kabash on that in a hurry but apparently he didn't even need to because Jacob already had. For that I am also grateful. Jacob also started extra Mandarin lessons on Sunday mornings. He is ahead of Elise and Levi because he jumped right into Mandarin class last year and they didn't. So we are going to have to put him in private lessons because he was really ticking his sister off when he would answer before she could:)
Noah continues to be his feisty ,driver self. He hates Mandarin and so he didn't want to take lessons with everyone else. He loves to help me cook (when I do) and so yesterday while everyone else was at language lessons he wanted to make chocolate chip cookies. Well, we have done this enough together so I decided to let him make them all by himself. So he got the cookies all mixed up and then I helped him with our wonderful oven. We got the cookies in the oven and they went flat as a pancake and burned. So we tried the toaster oven and the same thing happened. Then he confessed that we didn't have enough flour and so he just used what we had. Thus the flattened and burned cookies. Lesson learned I still have to supervise. Noah is also doing a club at school called Tech monkey's and is enjoying that. He loves having a friend live right underneath us that is his age and they have a boy Jacob's age also. So the 5 boys will often go shoot hoops after school for a while. Homework is very intense for the boys as they often have 1 1/2-2 hours every night but their teacher does give them the weekends off.
Levi is starting to like school. He was so overwhelmed with the amount of homework! Ok, I think that was an understatement! He was sure I should talk to the teacher. However, me being the merciful mom that I am told him, "Levi, the way I see it, you have two options here. You can buck it up and do the work because it isn't that it is too hard and you aren't understanding it or you can not do the work, fail the 6th grade and have Ms. Smith again next year." His response was, "good point mom!" So he seems to be bucking it up. He is also doing Tech monkey's after school. Both Noah and Levi are keeping busy with new friends and both of them went to a friends house after school Friday night and then on Saturday they had a birthday party where they went rock climbing. He enjoyed his first out of school Mandarin lesson yesterday and is looking forward to doing class with just Elise because it was ticking him off too that Jacob knew all of the answers.
Well, I guess that leaves me. I continue to meet new people each week but have found a few Christian women who I enjoy spending time with. Our Bible study roster is full and we are having leader training this Wednesday and Bible study starts next week. Mark and I are both working with the youth on Sunday's and I am going to be helping our youth leader do some administration stuff periodically. I too am starting Mandarin lessons this week with 3 of my friends. I also still cook and grocery shop a few times a week, have lunch with friends, go to Jacob's rugby games, play mahjong on Thursday, go for foot massages with my man on Thursday nights, read, walk, help friends when needed etc. etc.
So that's life in China!
Now for my two funny experiences in the last week.
I have a new favorite store called Metro. It is like a Sam's club and you have to have a membership to shop there. Therefore, it just isn't as crowded, I can do the most one stop shopping there (sort of like Meijer) and that just makes me a better Christian than when I would go to Carrefour.
So, I have been on the great hunt for cotton balls. Well, I finally found them!! My issue wasn't in the lack of cotton balls here in the PRC but that I was simply calling them the wrong thing. I was so excited that I picked up the bag and imagine my suprise when it said TAMPONS in big letters across the front. I was a little confused as I further inspected them and didn't find any strings. They are indeed cotton balls under the guise of tampons. Not sure if they use tampons here but I'm wondering if I would have to call them cotton balls!?!
Okay, so my second funny story also happened at Metro but on a different day from the whole tampon experience. So, I am standing in a long line because stupid me went there on a Saturday. There was a young couple behind me with about an 8 month old baby boy in there cart. This family was buying some new sheets and thankfully they came in a plastic like bag. Well they had the little boy sitting on the package of sheets waiting patiently in line. Well, as any 8 month old would do he crapped his split pants right on the package of sheets. What confused me the most about this was that one, the parents were confused and suprised by this and two they were totally unprepared for it. The dad pulls this little wadded up kleenex out of his pocket and gives it to the mom to clean up this big ol' poop mess. So, here's me the only american around observing all of this and thinking ok what would Jesus do. So, since I am american and have learned the necessary things to always carry in my purse I whipped out my wet wipes and let them use them. They were very grateful. So maybe I changed the opinon on American's for one Chinese family or maybe not! I was grateful for the whole experience though because I had something funny to blog about again. And I thought my days of carrying a diaper bag were over!?!! Who would've thought.
Hope all is well with each of you!
Blessings,
Natalie