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!!