Still Kickin

Still Kickin It is a new week and I started my classes Monday. Terry is a seasoned teacher and I am a nervous wreck. I went to his class on Friday and watched the master in action. He is great with those kids. It was helpful because I did get some ideas and see how it was done. I have 70 students in class and that is a handful. Teaching back to back two hour classes is exhausting. I don't know how Terry and the other teachers have been doing it for two weeks now while I just try to "play house" in China. We have a banquet with the mayor that the BYU teachers were invited to on Friday and a banquet/fantango with the University on Saturday.We have a holiday here next week. National Day. We have the week off and we are signed up, paid up and ready to go on the "Silk Road Tour." Only problem is we haven't received our residence Visa. They are having trouble getting it and we have to have it to travel. We go to the police station tomorrow to try and get the ball rolling. We will have to leave our passports and it usually takes 10 days.....hmmm.....let's do the math. We'll see if we get to be tourists on the Silk Road or back to the U.S. on Saturday.

Too many adventures to write about. Boy do we feel up against the learning curve here. The language barrier is something else, but the people are heartwarming. We went on a hike up Laoshan Mountain. Waterfalls and Daoist carvings on the stones. We went to the paralympic sailing venue yesterday and they were jumping around to take pictures of the foreigners..."us." One little girl handed us torches she had made out of construction paper and wanted us to hold them in a photo. She kept saying, "one world, one dream." Anyway, it is funny to stand out because you have blond hair....only for a few more weeks. Every store is an adventure. Friday night we went to TaiDong where they have an outdoor market at 5:00 p.m. It is a walking street--no cars--a million people selling their wares and all kinds of street food that looked interesting and scary both. Some of the smells were outrageous. We ate at Pizza Hut where building a salad is a work of art for the Chinese. Photos to come. We were able to go to the closing ceremonies for the paralympic sailing venue and the show was fantastic. It was on our campus here. Photos to come (from our neighbor who has the "good" camera). We were able to get our talks out of the way in church today and that was a new experience. I cut out 3 pages and Terry who knows how many because it takes so long for the translation after each sentence. It is hard to keep a train of thought going, but we had so many tell us how spiritual it was. On to lesson plans for the week. We love and miss our family. The days speed by and we are exhausted every night.

China Adventure Begins

We are here and haven't had time to breath. We are muddling through. The language barrier is incredible! What an exhausting chore even to make it through the grocery store. We have seen some amazing sites and we are getting settled in despite a few set backs. Terry, the master teacher, started classes this week. I start my classes the 22nd. I have freshman who are required to do mandatory military training before school starts. The are adorable marching around campus in their little uniforms....blue camo....thousands of them. There are 70,000 students at Qingdao University. We are trying to get our pictures in some kind of order and figure out how to send around. I vow to get better and more frequent with the blogging. Terry is now the 1st counselor in the branch presidency and I am the young women's president. We have to speak in Sacrament on Sunday. I feel like I've been swept into a whirlpool and I can't catch my breath. We miss you all and love you all. Thanks everyone for your emails and news from home.

Chaos

The time is here....I'm not sure we're ready. Certainly ready for an adventure....ready for the challenges??? Not so ready to leave our family and friends. Definitely not ready to pack....which is why I'm blogging. I have packing and stuff strewn from heck to highwater all around me and I can't function. How do you pack for a year in two suitcases? I can't seem to pack for a week in two suitcases. Our love goes out to all...the tears are flowing as I think of not seeing my loved ones for several months. I'm sure the time will fly, but it is hard to say goodbye.

We enjoyed our associations and training at BYU. What a wonderful campus and we are in the company of some incredible people. Hopefully in China we'll remember some of the things we were taught. Our brains were overflowing by the time we were done.....lessons on top of lessons....

Okay back to the task at hand. Love to all.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU... HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR THE BEST DAD IN THE WHOLE WORLD... HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!!

Aug 16th 19??

I just wanted to make sure my dad knew how much I love him on His Birthday even if we cannot spend the special day together..

My Dad is always there for me and my family. He has not missed a single child being born, baby blessing, or the big sealing day in Hawaii. I will miss you while you are in China, but thanks to technology we will be able to talk all the time!  (that is if you have the time to log on...haha)

Happy Birthday DAD!!!!

Thanks for always being there and for being such a great Dad!!

To BUSY!!!

So apparently these two love birds are to busy with Training to keep us all posted on their adventures and life.. So I took the liberty of Getting their login information and spiced up their page.. haha.. Hope you guys like it...

Well I know you are working hard in the Training Center, and we all know that you both will do a great Job. You guys are so blessed with the gift of Love! We will all miss you, but I know that you guys will be greatly blessed for accomplishing this task. All I ask is that you do not get so busy that you cannot update the rest of us on your CHINA events.... Thanks for always being at our big and little events in life...

Love you...

Michelle Simmons (your favorite daughter in Hawaii)......

China Prep

It is getting closer and we are getting nervous. The last month has been busy and filled with fun and the countdown is starting up. I can't believe we have less than a month before our adventures out of the country begin. We had a blast and were treated like royalty in Hawaii. We enjoyed and thank everyone for the birthday celebration in Utah. We had a fabulous time at Red Fish Lake with our friends, the Coats. We just finished the Bow Shoot on the Mountain and the wildflowers and company of our family was delightful. I hope to get better at this electronic journaling. Love to all.

For Time and all Eternity

July 3rd Terry and I were sealed in the Laie, Hawaii Temple. What a beautiful event. The only thing nicer would have been to have all the family there. We were the only ones in the temple and were treated like royalty. What a special day! Love you all. Familes are forever.