Hello again!! It has been a long time since our last post. A lot has happened since last weekend. Since it was Thanksgiving, we were given Thursday and Friday off of classes, which was a nice break. We travelled to Guiyang to have Thanksgiving with our teammates teaching there. This weekend, we also gave SanSan back to his owner who stopped into Guiyang to pick him up on her travels back to the States. He will make it to America before any of us, though he has a rather difficult trip to go, 10 hours on a train and multiple plane rides.

Before I tell about the weekend, I should share some about the week. For much of the week, I have been sick. We are not sure if it is from accidentally drinking some of the water while cooking or from a reaction to the medication I took here. It is just a nasty dose of diarrhea and feeling weak and achy. I took SanSan out on him last walk and we climbed the last remaining mountain in the countryside outside our campus. It was the tallest one and looked to be the most difficult. I let him loose and he tore off up the cliff up the windy, narrow paths (maybe Patty was best to have missed this one). Along the way we saw a couple of caves, but I was not willing to explore them alone or without lights and such. It was an amazing view and gave me a chance to see the military headquarters by the airport. We found also that it is a favorite make-out spot. On the way home, I let SanSan walk without his leash as a treat and he took full advantage of it. He took off like a bullet towards the airport, not knowing that I was going the opposite direction. He ran for an extra mile or so before turning around, but then the fun started. He found a big dog that he decided to follow barking the whole way. This time he did not listen to me and ended up following this dog for miles, until I finally caught up and found San San inside of a family's house in a small village in the countryside. I carried him most of the way home after that. It will be different not having him around, but maybe less headaches as well.

Our trip to Guiyang started with the bus ride. It is usually about a 1.5 hour trip and costs about 30 yuan (about $4 per person). This trip took almost two hours in a baking bus because the bus driver kept falling asleep and the only way that he could stay awake was to put on the gas then put on the brake and continued this for the trip. We weaved our way there without incident, but mainly because we were the biggest thing on the road.

There were 21 people at the Thanksgiving feast--teachers and students at various colleges in Guiyang and our little team from Anshun. We had turkey, salads, fruit, cranberries, mashed potatoes, corn, stuffing, gravy, and oh was it good after having vegetables and rice for most meals. What a blessing!! We even had a chance to get out and play some football before eating. We watched football on TV as well, although it was a three week old game between the Colts and Patriots!! For desert, we had three pumpkin pies and two apple pies, yummy!! The weekend continued with lots of other events, such as a big pizza get together with our team at the famed Pizza Fun. I will have to post some of the translated things from there, hilarious!! We tried to go bowling but could not and ended up relaxing and watching, Facing the Giants.

The next day we did a little shopping: this was quite the shopping experience. We went to a place with endless shopping stalls. It was like the outdoors Mall of America. They had most everything, although it took lots of looking and time to find what you wanted. We did not have all of that patience and only made it through a small part. We did find a couple of Christmas stores and got some Christmas cards, although they were expensive by Chinese standards. Patty got some sweaters to stay warm and we enjoyed the experience. Later in the day, we went to the Bird and Flower market, another great experience in shopping. Outside the place, they had hundreds of dogs and cats for sale, from mutts to many well known breeds. Patty could not spend too much time here, and indoors was full of stores selling antiques, books, artwork, and anything else you can think of. We found a few Christmas presents here and wall-hangings for our walls. I also found many different and amazing fossils and minerals, including the famed Guizhou dragon, but could not afford the prices many over 1000 yuan ($125). I am hoping to get some time to go fossil hunting later, because Anshun has very little but there are many places in the province. At night, we went hiking above one of the campuses and had spaghetti for supper (I did not know that I missed American food that much).

On Sunday, we went to fellowship with a number of other fellow workers from the area. It is always amazing to hear from them and to visit about the way the boss is working in their lives and work. Times are not always easy, but the blessings are many. The kids enjoyed SanSan as they had him pull them around on their rollerblades and ran with him constantly. The adults may not have enjoyed him as much as we had to put him in a closet for group time and he whined and scratched forever. Following that, we returned SanSan to his mother at Wal-mart. This is the second Wal-mart in Guiyang, both of which are huge. We treated ourselves and bought some French Bread and Olive Oil to have a nice Italian meal some night. We arrived home safely in Anshun, which was a nice end to our weekend. Along the way, we saw a Water Buffalo that had been hit by a semi and long lines (cars and trucks often wait in line for hours) at the gas stations. The prices have been going up and availability is sometimes a question so truckers will sometimes wait all day and clog the highways with their lines. We hope your Thanksgivings were filled with blessings. We have now officially bought our tickets for home and our small trip to Beijing along the way. We are very excited to get a chance to see everyone again!! Feel free to email us: dan_mueller20@yahoo.com If you would like to receive some of our pictures and have not gotten the snapfish invitation, also give us an email. Many blessings!!

Lately, I have been trying to wake up early to go running. It helps to boost my energy before the day begins and it has been something very good. Many of the students are out early practicing their speaking in every little place especially around the track. Today, both Patty and I were not feeling totally well. Patty has some "bad" side-effects from food (we do not know what this time), and I have had some "glow in the dark" mucus that has not gone away. I think I may get some medicine tomorrow. The weather continues to be good, so we have enjoyed that. Today, ended up being a very busy day.

I had listening class this morning and we finished up watching the movie, "Remember the Titans" and the students really got into the movie, they were laughing hysterically at time and some were crying at times. This is a good practice, but also a break from listening to listening tapes and doing the workbook. They enjoy it too. Maybe we will watch "Facing the Giants" another time, because they really enjoyed the football movie. After class, I went to town because Patty was not feeling well. It always ends up being a big ordeal, where you return on the bus with your backpack full of about 10 lbs. of rice and other goods, and your hands full of fresh vegetables and fruits from the market. Today, I had almost more than I could carry. I also had to get a new pipe to try to fix our sink that started leaking yesterday--but Patty fixed it already and made it stop leaking for now. What a woman!! Grocery shopping usually takes about two hours with the bus ride to the market, walking to the two grocery stores, walking through the market and the return trip home.

Today was also the first day of the teacher basketball tournaments. I guess there will be four or five weeks of playing every Monday afternoon. I was really excited to play, but we had a very hard game against the PE (Phy. Ed) department. A couple of them are very good basketball players, so I did not think we had much of a chance. It was a very physical game, because as the dean of our department said, if we lose it is ok, but if they lose it is like losing face. After the first quarter we were down 26-6, but at halftime we were only down by one. The lead went back and forth after that, as many students came to watch. It was a great chance to be able to meet one of the other foreign teachers, Dustin from Seattle. My jaw still hurts from getting hit there by another player, as this was some of the examples of the physical play. In the end, I missed a three-pointer at the end that would have tied the game. The dean of our department and the school president were very excited that we did so well. They took us out for a meal after the game which was fun to get together with the English department teachers again since we have been working together, but do not always have a chance to talk. Next week, we play the administration team and our friend Tom. We will keep you updated. We hope all is going well at home and that your lives are blessed in new and unique ways every day. Dan and Patty

This week has had amazing weather, meaning that we have spent a great deal of time outdoors. The crazy part is that it is November! We took many, many walks out into the countryside and visited a number of different places, many of the times with our students. We will talk about a couple of these different times in this week's blog post.

One of the most fun things I brought along to China has been my telescope. It has been fun to view the moon, Jupiter, and also this week to check out Comet Holmes. The school has put up huge spot-lights everywhere making it very difficult to do any star gazing, along with the usual cloudy skies, but this week has been great weather for this. I took the telescope out and many students wanted to see the stars as it was the first time they had seen a telescope. Comet Holmes was very different from other comets, it did not have the tell-tale tail, but it was an amazing sight to see.

During the week, we took a few memorable hikes, such as Friday where Patty and I climbed three hills in the countryside. Each hill was connected but we had to explore to find ways up and down those hills. It made for lots of fun and some great sites of the countryside and Anshun city. We have also been letting SanSan run loose in the countryside, which he loves, but now he is no longer scared of the water buffalo. Instead, he likes to chase them and herd them. He ended up chasing this farmer's water buffalo about a football field barking the whole way.

On Saturday, I got up early to go running and play basketball before the big basketball game on TV. They were broadcasting the Houston Rockets vs. Milwaukee Bucks, Yao Ming vs. Yi Jianlian. This was the Super Bowl of events for China. It was a good game, but the students who said they would come did not end up coming. Afterwards, I ended up playing basketball with some students for what turned out to be three hours. It was very tiring, but a great time to spend time with them and enjoy their favorite activity.

On Sunday, we went hiking with a group of eight students. We went to the Airport, which had no one there (they have one flight a week). The walk was quite interesting because multiple times the path disappeared and we walked on the rocks dividing the fields. On the return home, we walked around the area, so our walk ended up lasting 3 hours. It gave us a lot of time to spend with many of the students, even though many of them were not our students. We also had supper with them later at night. These are the kinds of times that are great for building good relationships. It was a great blessing, as the weather has been lately. We hope that each of your lives are being blessed in unique ways.

This last weekend was unexpectedly warm, the internet had forecast rainy weather, but we ended up with very little rain and lots of sun. This meant that we spent lots of time outdoors. On Friday, we went outside to play some badminton and ended up playing with a variety of students and getting a chance to talk to a bunch of them. Sports has been a good way to meet a variety of different people, many of whom are interested in learning English but may not have much of a language level and our Chinese has sadly still be insufficient to hold long conversations. We have been watching episodes of Law and Order, Full House and other American TV shows when we have had free time or while we eat and that has been fun.

On Saturday, we went walking with the dog and ran into our friend Tom, from volleyball. He walked with us and we had a chance to talk about many things. He is very active so this could be an opportunity to have someone to run with (he runs 6 laps in the morning at 6:30 and 10 laps later in the afternoon). Maybe too much for me though. He invited me to go play basketball later (although he did not show up). This has been something hard to understand in China, it is common to make an appointment and not show up--at least it has happened to us a few times now. But I did go and play ping pong with some students, they are now not quite as shy to call and invite me to play sports. It is fun to try new things, but now finally my skill level is getting closer to a normal Chinese level. Later, I went to play basketball too. Maybe I will learn to not try to do everything, but I would definitely rather be outside then indoors especially when it is nice out.

Sunday was super beautiful, with temperatures almost into the 70's. Patty decided she could not stay indoors any longer, so she put on many layers and we headed out for a walk in the countryside. I showed her some of the places I had been taking the dog walking, such as the Brick Factory, the Rock Quarry, and we watched many farmers plowing fields or working in the sun. We were heading home for lunch when we met one of our friends, Leo and his girlfriend, who were going for a hike. They wanted us to come climb the mountain with them. It was nice out and we thought they meant the one close by so we said, "Sure." What we soon found out is that we were going to walk almost to the airport, a very long ways away, and climb the highest mountain the area. It was a beautiful area with small fields with high stone walls and we ended up walking on those walls to get to the mountain. Well, Leo and I and SanSan walked on the walls while Patty and Joy (she asked for a English name) walked through the fields. We took lots of pictures of us on top of the mountain (including Patty near the edge of a large rock). It gave us a breath-taking view far into the countryside. While we were walking another friend called and wanted to go hiking, so I again said, "Sure, I am sure we will be back by 2pm." We arrived home at exactly 2 and I headed out for another hike, this time to a park to go play cards and enjoy the weather. It was another long walk, but it was worth it. It was a park with a memorial to the soldiers who fought and died in the Revolution including a very famous person, Wang Zhan Yuan, a leader in the Early Revolution. We ended up walking around and then playing cards for a while. I returned home just before 5, such as long day. We had our fellowship later that night, because our leader was gone visiting students. It was a long tiring but incredibly blessed weekend. We sent out some pictures from this time. I hope you all enjoy.

This has been a long time since our last post. There has been only small little exciting events here and there, but mainly the everyday teaching and retreating to the warmth of our house. The weather has gotten a little cold and since we are in the south of China, that means no heaters in buildings, except our apartment. We are blessed to have small heaters that make it comfortable. This weekend was a very exciting one on campus--there were all kinds of balloons, arches, marching bands, and lots of cars. Three events were going on at the same time: the Guizhou championship table tennis and basketball tournaments and a conference on economics in the province. There were lots of people on campus and it was fun to be able to see some of the festivities and check out some of the matches. On Saturday morning, I went and helped a student teach her class again, only this time I did not have to trek across muddy streets to the countryside, but she had it on campus. When I arrived, I found out why. She had about 20 students, instead of the six from before. She was offering free tutorinig to the students from the countryside, because she is kind and also wants practice. I have been teaching them English songs, so we learned Take Me Out to the Ball Game. It was really fun and a good experience, but the students are very shy (they are middle schoolers).

After that, I made it to some of the table tennis tournament, I have been practicing, but I am certainly not good. The matches were open to all ages and champions from across the province, so this meant from 12 years old all the way up to those in their 40's. I was most impressed with the 12 year old, who kept winning easily. As a foreigner, one of the players and also a coach from one of the sports schools, had me talk to her daughter on the phone because her daughter is going to Chicago in August. It is always interesting to see people's reactions and hear them talk about you as though you are a spectacle. At night, we had some of our students over to watch a movie. We watched the Prince of Egypt and it was really fun. We were expecting a few students for supper but no one showed up, so we had some leftovers from my attempt at making homemade spaghetti sauce (it is getting better).

This has been going very quickly as we have had incredibly cold weather that does not make us want to do much. We have been bundling up and staying indoors more than I would like to do, but tonight we went with our same friend Hope to teach at a middle school in the countryside. It was a 40 minute busride outside of Anshun into the mountainous area, but it was well worth it. We went to a middle school there and taught a 45 minute class to 82 students. I cannot imagine having 82 students, when in America 30 or more is more than enough. I cannot imagine trying to teach a foreign language to 82 students in a small classroom with lights that did not work, but this is much of what happens outside of the cities. It was a real eye-opener to how blessed our classrooms and schools are in America. This was not the first of these experiences, but it still just amazes me. The students were so shy, but so intent on doing what we were teaching. It made Patty miss teaching middle schoolers in America.

Farmers are busy in the fields here as we expect they are at home. It is a most interesting difference. Farmers have harvested their corn and are drying it (either by shelling it and drying it on the roads, or by tying the ears together and drying them hanging in their doorways). They are now plowing and dragging their fields. This is very fun to watch. Each of the fields is about the same size as a small backyard, and the plowing is done with a waterbuffalo and a small wooden plow with a metal blade. To drag the field, they have a piece of wood shaped like the number 8 with large spikes beaten into it that they pull through the field. Most of the people working with the waterbuffalo are either old men or young boys, but most farmers have been women. They do a lot of the hoeing of the crops and upkeep. I have been adventuring out to see how people work--there are some brick factories and rock quarries nearby. Many of the workers are women with children on their backs or chasing after them. It is such a big difference!! Today, I even saw a woman carrying about half of her cornfield, stalks and all down the road on her back--it looked like she was about to pass out from the weight. There is definitely no lack of hard work, determination, and pride in the workers here, even the street sweepers seem to take great pride in their job--making sure every last leaf and piece of paper is off the ground (though tomorrow the job will be exactly the same). We ask for your thoughts as we try to interact more and understand more of the culture.