After the exciting weekend of Thanksgiving, returning to school and Anshun was a little different. We were excited to be back, but things were different. We did not have SanSan anymore, so we were not forced to get up early to take him on walks and take him on late night walks around the track and campus. We have been trying to keep up walking at night, as it is fun to be able to talk and share about the day and reflect before going to bed. This week, we have wanted to eat more American food though, so we have made spaghetti and we bought some olive oil and nice bread, so that was fun. I also made some vegetable stew, which turned out really well. It is kinda fun to try new things, but each meal is a big production with many plates to wash in the end. We received a package from home with some gloves and hats and a nice surprise of chocolate. That was really fun to have--most of the food here is salty or spicy, so a little sweets are always nice.

We have been working on getting things together for having Christmas parties for all of our classes. We decided that this being our first year, we should try to have each class over individually for a small Christmas party. We will show "The Nativity" and share the story. We put up a Christmas tree, but we did not bring any ornaments, so we are having students write what they are thankful for on paper ornaments we traced and cut out: angels, snowmen, stars, and Christmas trees. We also stayed up late last night to make some cookies. We made 88 chocolate chip cookies (from some of our chocolate) and about 50 sugar cookies. We are not good bakers so hopefully the student will like them. It was quite the production, because we only have a small toaster oven, so we could make about six at a time. We are excited to have students over, but it will mean some very busy weekends. We are having our two five year student classes over this weekend. In the end, we will have eight parties and somewhere around 300 students over if everyone comes (we are not expecting everyone to come, but we will see).

The weather has been really nice, each day being quite a bit nicer than the computer said it would be. The sun has been out, so that usually means that it will be warm. I had my final two basketball matches this week. We played the math and science departments and then the middle school in town. Each of the matches were rather large victories but a little violent in nature. The teachers are fiercely competitive, but we won both games, 85-15, and 73-37. Also, I was invited to play in a volleyball match between the teachers and the school's volleyball team. We tied two games a piece, and it was fun to play with the same teachers again. We have started having two a week Chinese lessons and that has been really good. We are hoping to practice more and feeling more confident. It is still a little bit of a stuggle, but we are definitely learning more. The days are just not long enough for all of the activities, classes, and having study time, but we are learning to make the most of our time. We hear there is a big storm coming at home--we hope everyone is safe and warm. I will update everything again when our parties are over on Sunday night. Many blessings and love!!