This is an update from several weeks. Life since school has started has been very busy for the both of us, but in very different ways. Patty has far fewer classes four per week, but has taken over continually being outdoors walking, spending time in the mountains and has been taking tons of walks with our dog, Noah. She continues growing and eating incredible amounts. I have many more classes than I know what to do with, taking up most of my time planning, teaching, and correcting. I feel as though I have gotten lazy in other ways though as I have not been able to go out walking, playing basketball and ping pong, or running much lately. But with this there have been plenty of other activities to keep us busy. The dog is in constant need of walks, so we seem to spend countless trips down the stairs, around the campus and out into the countryside with her. It has been even more exciting now that she is in her puppy making stage.

Last weekend was our anniversary and as tradition goes in our family, I got sick the night before and that day also. Patty had to teach my class as I could not get out of bed, but I would not miss doing something special for our 5th anniversary. So many blessings during this time!! I wanted to take her to a fancy restaurant here in Anshun, yeah I found one, but asked her if she would rather have toasted fish, so we used our anniversary to have a chance to get together with some friends and celebrate together. We got Patty 11 roses which is the Chinese number for forever "1 + 1" together forever. Other friends got us matching keychains, matching mugs, candy etc. The next day was Noah's big day--her surgery in Guiyang.

The morning started early at 7 traveling to the bus station to catch a bus...we went to another station that allows dogs and met the vet there. He had a bag with little puppies (it turned out to be 4 of them). The trip went fairly well, almost two hours of an antsy dog head out the window, then wanting to smell all the people on-board. Finally upon arriving we took a taxi ish thing to a market where they sell huge dogs like German Shepherds, Mastiffs, etc. and we met the people who would do the surgery. They gave Noah her shot when Patty was away and Noah was laying still a minute later. They put her on a table, tied her legs down with rope and Patty was ready to get out of there-but they asked us to stay just another minute to check and soon found out that they could not do the surgery because Noah was having her period. She was totally out at this point, so we expected that we would have to carry our dead looking dog back home, but they soon gave her another injection and she was almost instantly awake and wanted to run around. it was a bit funny as she staggered around falling frequently before they gave her yet another injection and she was ready to go. So we traveled back to Anshun, getting pretty much nothing done and finally got to eat at 2 pm after 7 hours and 140 yuan ($20). We are hoping to not have to do that kind of travel again, but we will see. She seems to be able to stand it better now, she will finally fall asleep next to us after 30 minutes or so. Students are getting more and more used to her, but it is still quite the struggle to convince people that she is safe and will not bite them causing the dreaded trips to the doctor for numerous injections.

It is late now, I will try to put some more of this past week up tomorrow or soon...been trying to sneak in a little NCAA basketball scores and games as I can. Not quite the same though across the ocean. Many blessings and lots of love from the Muellers!!