Exploring Little by Little

We have been venturing out beyond our compound these past couple of days, and it is not as scary as I thought it would be!

Yesterday El and Coop got up bright and early, maybe 4:30am, ready to start the day! El was excited that the tooth fairy had found her here in China and who knows why Coop was up! Danny and Eens slept until almost 8:00 - boy was I jealous! I decided to start the day off right with a big pot of coffee (I'm back to straight caffeine girls - no more half caf - it just doesn't do the job right now!!)! Then I made some yummy scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon! So far, so good! Next we had to attempt to get ready for church by 9:30! You would think that since some of us had been up since 4:30 that would be an easy task, but of course we were still rushed by the end!


We found the church which is actually located in a travel university that is under construction for the summer. We had to go to the third floor auditorium where I'm not quite sure that the AC was working, but we made it and found seats. We were actually one of the first families there. Right now the church has to be extremely careful only letting foreign passport holders through the door. That is the only way the government will allow them to congregate and during the Olympics the government will be more strict. It is sad that so many people do not have the religious freedom that we do in the States.


I have to say that once the service started it was so nice to sing and worship like back home! The actual setting was not nearly as clean and comfortable as BCC, but it didn't matter to me! I have a feeling that will be something I look forward to all week! The service itself was very much like home. We sang contemporary Christian music - which I enjoyed, then the kids were dismissed for Sunday School. The congregation is small enough that they actually ask individuals to come forward with prayer requests. That was a nice touch! After the service was over I picked up Eens and Coop (who loved playing with children their age) and Dan and El waited for me! When I came down, we started chatting with a lovely family and ended up going to lunch with them. It was all so refreshing! For those few hours I forgot that I was in China! Jennifer and Kevin have lived in China with their 2 children, Rachel (6) and Ty(4) for awhile and they had so many tips to offer. We all had a great time and cannot wait to get together again soon!


All in all, I was exhausted by the end of the day, but it was a good day! Plus my eyes only welled up one time all day!

Today Danny went back to work. I knew I had to get out of the house this morning, so after getting to skype with my sister Steph and talk to Jenny and Jeannie on the phone, I prepared to leave the house with all three children and the ayi in tow! I had my little Mandarin book with me and Danny had already explained to the driver where I wanted to go, so we were off! We ended up at E Mart (a shopping center) that has a child's play area. The kids had a ball running and playing in the sand. It was so nice to have ayi with me because she could keep track of Coop while I watched El and Eens! Here are some pictures of them...

It was going great until we had to leave and then my sweet, dear Eens became a bear! So what did I do to reward the behavior, I bought him a bike so he would be quiet! Honestly, I was going to buy him one anyway, but it had to be done immediately. My tactic did work, but I'm pretty sure Danny is not going to be real happy about it!

I must wake my sleeping boys if I hope to get any sleep tonight!