SOOOOO Many Goodbyes...

This blog about the June happenings is also very long and a little sad...So many people have been a blessing to me over this year and many of us will be making changes for next year. It will be exciting how the Father uses each of us in a new way!

 This is Stephen and Anna Reyes!!! and BABY DECLAN:-) i had a blast with the baby shower for them and since we share a love for baseball and especially the Astros, baby Declan had to have a sports shower:-)

This was a fun game...Stephen and his best friend Ben had to compete for the title of "fastest bottle drinker"!!! It was awesome!!! Stephen was the winner!!!

 The Incredible organization I have been with this year had our year end debrief...We were each given a Zhong-Dee Award and as you can see, mine is very appropriate:-)  

 This is Lesley...she is an awesome friend who teaches in Huangshi! Also a souther girl:-) We have to stick together!!

 After the debrief a few...I mean 6 friends spent the night with me...as you can see from Chelsie sleeping in the window seat...it was a fun night:-)

 Next up was the Going away party for Bruce and Donna...our fearless small group leaders. They lead different group but we all came together for the party....this is our group! LiPing, Kirk, Ryan, mandi and me.

 We like to call ourselves "The Favorite Small group":-)

 Then I headed off to KTV with Nathan and my student Jeffrey and his friend! It was quite fun singing together one last time!

 Only in China will you find a women and her dogs like this...it was a very patriotic sight....lol I think:-)

 This time for my finals I treated all my students to tea and the new Mr. Mai's English Club close to our school! I wanted the students to know about this great place that is run by like minded friends!! So we took the 1 mi. trek together! It wasn't raining but the students use umbrellas to block the sun from their skin....it is very important to them that they don't get any tan. They laugh at me that i won't stand under the umbrella also...:-)

 Some chinese friends suprised Karen and I with a wonderful chinese meal at her house!! It was amazingly good:-) Then we all ate together!

 More students at Mr. Mai's for the final!! 

 My 2 sweet teacher friends, Eva and Linda, treated me to dinner and KTV as a last night together in Wuhan! They are so sweet and I will miss them so much!

 Bruce, Donna, Mandi and I went with LiPing to the Countryside to visit her family!

 They live in a little village and have all sort of fun stuff this country girl loves...like baby ducks!

 This is how they get water..this is a friend and LiPing's dad!

 Her mom showed us how she cooks...it was amazing!

 Some of my students who recently made decisions went with me to Chinese fellowship...I was teaching the Sunday school class in English this Sunday and had a great time being able to share so openly with them:-)

 This is the day I said goodbye to Chelsie...She has been such a sweet friend and I love her so much! i am excited about her new adventures in SC and can't wait to see her again...This was our last family photo...the Johnson, Black, Priest, Chandler Family:-) After traveling together for 3 weeks we will always be family:-)

 Happy Birthday to Jay and Joe....both had birthdays close together and both are crazy:-)

 The Birthday Boys...they took this for Nathan:-) It's the Mark look alike:-) Joe was happy to dress like Mark for the day!

 One of my students treated me to an orchestra concert by an American University Orchestra!!! i was thrilled!!! They are from NYC and sounded amazing!!

 This is my student "Winnie the Pooh"...he also plays the violin!

 Some of my other students treated me to HOT POT...this was the craziest hot pot I have ever had....WHOA!!!!

 More goodbyes....The Johnsons left to go home for the Summer and we had our "last supper" at McDonalds:-) It's tradition:-) I will  miss these 3 with all my heart! Much love!!!

 Last but certainly not least...my 3 Peng yo's(friends) that are so incredible! Mandi, Ryan, and Kirk...They left today. i spent the night with Mandi last night and went with them to the airport this morning, bright and early. They were some of the hardest to say goodbye to. They have really impacted my life and I will miss them...so happy they will be back in China and even though we will be living far away we will be friends forever:-) The taxi ride back home after i left the airport was not so fun...I'm pretty sure the driver had NO idea why I kept crying...LOL...I could see him glance back at me with a worried face every once in a while. Life is so precious...relationships that have come into my life this year were not like any I would have imagined but by the Grace of the Father I am overwhelmed to feel HIS love through so many people. He is Worthy and I am humbled by His never ending Faithfulness.

MAY was quite the Month!

Well, May seem like forever ago! As I was choosing the pictures for this blog I was reminded of what a whirlwind of a month May was!!! From Teaching to Friends to New Sisters in Him...It was an amazing time of see the hand of the father(I will write a blog just about the real changes in my life that took place in May but for now I will give the overview:-))

 I was invited to attend a special presentation with the Mayor of Wuhan dedicated to foreigners living in Wuhan. He was very kind and 2 other teachers at my University also attended the special day.

 This is Nathan, he was a teacher at the University this year and became like a brother to me...I will miss him very much next year! We were at the Marco Polo Hotel for the Foreign Presentation by the Mayor. It is the nicest Hotel in Wuhan...very fancy!!

 This is Jeffrey! He was my student and is moving to Canada to study in the fall! He became a good friend and hung out with us many times this year!

 My friend Karen(in the Middle) is the PE teacher and Music teacher at the International School in Wuhan. She had her choir concert this night and I got to play the Piano to accompany her as she performed a song for her students and their parents:-) Liping and I love hanging out with her:-)

 On Youth Day, Another foreign teacher and I were given an award for teaching!! It was such an honor:-) We are with LiJing, our Waiban.

 At the University there are many gates guards....This guy just happen to have the job of standing guard at the award presentation. When I came out he smiled very big and congratulated me...then he asked if we could have a picture together...He is one of my favorite gate Guards:-)

 The University treated the English teachers to a 2 day trip to a small town a few hours outside of Wuhan. We had a very interesting time...I rode one of these cable cars up the mountain! But first I waited in line for 4 HOURS:-( 

 And when I say line I really mean I waited in this mob of people...there were fights and crazy things that happened the whole time. Grown people pushing and shoving and yelling...WOW

 But when I finally got to the top it was beautiful! The mountain was covered in Azaleas!!!

 Some of the other English teachers and me!

 We were so far out of Wuhan that we actually could see the sun set over the mountains without if covered by pollution! I was thrilled:-)

 This is one of my favorite English Teachers, Peter, and he is also like my small boss...not the big boss but he is awesome:-) 

 This is all the foreign teachers that went on the trip and 2 of our bosses!

 Well, when there are lots of friends there are lots of Birthdays;-) This was Donna's Birthday! She is the amazing wife of our small grp leader. She is an angel from the Father:-)

 This is Mark and Fang...it was also their birthdays...we celebrated at Aloha:-) Black was the color of the evening:-)

 After our last English Corner my basketball/sports class surprised me at the Diversity Club and ALL came!!! It was so much fun...most of them can't speak much or any english so they just sat around me and looked at me:-) lol it was awesome...I am going to miss these kids soooooo much!!!! 

 Sunshine sang a song for me at the end:-) It was so sweet:-)

 These are some of my favorite girls:-) One of these girls is a new sister:-) I had such a great time getting to know them all!!! We had a great time at Mr. Mai's!!!

 This is Eva and her daughter Ellie! They invited me to spend the day with them and it was great!!! Eva   is also a teacher at Jianghan and her sweet little daughter is learning English..we had fun speaking together!!

 Some of my friends and I were in a local "Battle of the Bands" competition in Wuhan!!! It was so much fun! from left to right-Taylor, Me, Nathan and Kirk!

 This is the view from the judges table....one of our friends took the picture! The guys sang a Chinese song and it was raining the whole time....I don't know if you can see the boy behind me holding the umbrella:-) He was also holding my mic....it was crazy and fun! We passed to the next level!!! We actually made it all the way to the finals but since the guys had to go back to the states before the performance we didn't get to play....but oh well....it was a blast:-)

 After we all had dinner with our friends for Kirk's Birthday!!!!

 So May was full of Badmidden in Wuhan!!! I actually got very involved in the competition and went to 3 of the days of the competition! 

 Karen and I snuck around to the back entrance after the girls competition and got to have our picture with the Taiwan team!!! These girls were awesome! It was about 1am:-)

 This is Bruce and Angela...they became my sweet friends this year. They Graduated and left school this day..I was so sad to say goodbye but it will not be forever...we will be friends forever:-) They told me I will be the Gan Ma(which is like Godmother) of their babies:-) This pretty much made my day:-) I can't wait!!!

 The Best Gift EVER!!!! Nate and Rhea came to visit me in Wuhan!!!!! I was beyond excited to see these two:-) 

 The first night they were here we went out for Kirk's birthday:-) 

 Day 2 we visited the open market and had chinese breakfast!!!! Jiao zi and Re Gan Mian:-) Wuhan specialties!!!

 We went to the woman's finals for the badmidden Competition!!! 

 This little cutie and I matched with our face painting so we took a picture:-)

 It was an amazing game and China WON!!!!!

 I had to take them to the crazy market and we took the bus to get the full experience:-)

 This was a very sad day...I made a mistake and bought the wrong tickets for our flight to Beijing...So, thankfully they gave us a new ticket, for a price:-( But the horrible part was that Rhea got on the first flight and Nate and I had to wait in Wuhan for 4hours for our flight:-(

 But we found this adorable baby to play with:-)

 When we arrived in Beijing I had arranged a car to pick us up and take us to the Great Wall!!! This was in the cable car on the way up....haha...Nate wasn't too sure;-)

 This was how he felt when we got to the top...lol Love the sign in the back!

 We could not have been blessed with a more beautiful day at the Wall!!! No people and clear skys!!!! A miracle!

 This was my second time to the wall and it was even more amazing the second time! Probably because I was there with my besties! 

 I left my mark on the Great Wall:-)

 Rhea and I had a great time sporting our new shoes as we climbed!!

 And it wouldn't be China with out a China moment...as we left the Wall we drove by some camels...ha

 After we left the Wall we went to our hostel but we passed The Mao building:-) 

 This was our awesome driver! He was such a blessing to us!

 Can't go to Beijing and not have Beijing Duck!!! It was delicious!

 This was our super cool hostel!

 A very happy Rhea and I after we went shopping at the "Pearl Market"!!! there are some pretty cool gifts inside those bags:-) 

 Next we jumped on our super high speed train and headed to Shanghai!!! 

 This was my first time on this kind of train and I loved it! The outside kinda looked like a space shuttle...maybe that had something to do with it:-)

We stayed at the most amazing Hotel in Shanghai!!! It was close to the airport so Than and Rhea could get to the their flight the next day and I got to relax there after they left before my flight back to Wuhan. i can't even begin to express how amazing it was to have 5 short days with these 2!!! I almost feel like it was a dream...but I Thank the Father for them and their friendship!!!