We have been back in America for about two weeks today, so I should give a little update on what is happening. We have had quite a few opportunities to visit friends and family, which has been great!! We returned on Friday the 11th, a day late because of an airplane cancellation in Chicago. We are still missing one of our bags, which is a big bummer. When we landed, we were able to see snow for the first time in a long time--it is definitely much colder here in Minnesota than back in Anshun, but we have heard that they have had weeks of freezing rain and all the buses are shut down. One of Patty's highlights was seeing Tippy, our puppy again and that he remembered us and was super happy to see us again. Patty went into BPHS, her old high school where she taught to share with some of the classes, and we went to a girls basketball game there with pizza at the Pizza Cellar. Everything seemed very similar, but it was a lot different. We were now a little like the outsiders, but we had a lot to share and we could catch up with them. Another of our highlights was getting to go to church at our fellowship. It was a great feeling of being home to be able to worship and talk to our family there. We miss having a fellowship of believers to worship with when we are in China.

WE have had a chance to visit some friends and families while down in BP as well as get together with Dad and Grandma on their birthdays. Much of the family came to celebrate grandma's birthday, so we could see many people at one time. Now, we are up in the Cities spending some time with Patty's family. We went to a Timberwolves game last night against the Suns and it was so much fun. The Timberwolves played really well and won by 10 :) We are planning a get together with some college friends for Saturday and Friday we are going to orchestra hall to see a performance. While we have been up here, we also got a new camera, so we have tried that out in the cold outdoors. We are planning on coming down to BP for the majority of next week and then we are going up to North Dakota to visit Chris, Betsy, and Madison and watch the Super Bowl with them. We will then spend the majority of our time in Blooming Prairie. I hope we can get a chance to get together with as many people as possible. Hope your days are being blessed!!

We are now back in the States which is a great feeling. We are getting used to the new time, but we are glad to see family and our fellowship tomorrow. We just returned from Beijing and have lots of stories and pictures from our time there. I will try to get some of those things in here. During our return from China, we had a few interesting moments. Our flight from Chicago to Minneapolis was cancelled which allowed us the opportunity to meet lots of people and share our stories, but we also had a bag that we have not been reunited with yet. This has been the hardest as this contained all of our presents and penpal letters from my students and lots of pictures and other things to share. It is good to remember that these things are really not important, it is all about the who that we know and not the what that we have (but yes it is really hard).

Here are a few of the highlights from our trip to Beijing. We arrived at a time when our friends were very busy, so we were basically on our own to get around the city. We were blessed though to have a place to stay in. We went to a wide variety of places like the Summer Palace (YiheYuan), the Old Summer Palace (YuanmingYuan), the Lama Temple that was a gift from the Dalai Lama and took 3 years to be transported there, the Temple of Heaven (Tiantan) where the gave sacrifices to heaven, Tianamen Square, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall (this was the only requirement for Patty), Hutongs (which as the old narrow housing areas of Old Beijing with courtyards old architecture). I will have to add more details once we get caught up with our sleep though. It was a great time to enjoy the history and splendor of Beijing, but we definitely could not live there. We look forward to visiting friends and family during our time home, hopefully we will also get a chance to get together with you also. Many blessings and great joy.