I wish I was back in Hawaii

These are my favourite pictures of my kids in Hawaii!

Maelyn at Ocean Park, Hong Kong

Check the archives to see all the new pictures!

Our day at the Chinese Cultural Centre

Maelyn at Disney Land Resort

This is a squattie pottie at Disney for those who have never seen one. To use you straddle it and squat!

Climbing the Great Wall

We are home!

We got in late Saturday night. Maelyn went to school on Monday as well as Mike going to work. We did not look forward to coming home to snow after sunbathing in Hawaii all week. We were still getting over the jetlag from China, now we have more to get over. I'll post more about China at a later date. Thanks to everyone who prayed for us and posted comments while we were away.

Hello from Dalian

We are in Dalian right now. It is the prettiest city in China. It is on the Yellow Sea and surrounded by mountains. It is so clean. I would recommend this city to anyone visiting China. Every night there has been fireworks all over the city because of the Spring Festival. They celebrate for weeks. They had firecrackers on the sidewalk and really scared me while walking. We took a bus tour today. It was so nice to see the ocean and the waves crashing against the rocks. It would be absolutely beautiful in the summer months here. There is no snow because it is spring here. We did this whole trip with no snow! We have been staying in a really nice apartment with a toilet. The dvd's are $1.00 cdn so we have stocked up. Our apartment has a dvd player so we have been catching up on movies. We fly out this Saturday back to Hawaii for one week. I can't wait! I miss Hawaii and western food. We have been eating chinese food for every meal. The rest of the team are at a Japanese sauna right now. It is supposed to be really fancy with hot springs and different types of saunas. We are having supper at Starbacks right now. Kentucky Fried Chicken is so popular in China. It's like Macdonalds back home. A popular drink here is coffee mixed with tea. It's really good.

Hello from Beijing

We have been in Beijing all week enjoying the sights. We've been to Tinamen Square, Forbidden City, Acrobatic Show, the new Silk Market (it used to be Silk Alley but is now in a multi-level building), and today we did the Great Wall. We went to a different part of it this time. I didn't climb very far but Maelyn made it to the top with some of the team. Even Mike didn't go. This is the child who doesn't like to walk so I don't know what motivated her! We leave at 6:30 am tomorrow to catch a plane for our next destination. It is on the Yellow Sea and is supposed to be very pretty. No snow here. The first day of spring was last Sunday. The weather has been nice for walking around. Beijing is such a clean city from the other ones we've been in and the traffic has improved since we were last here. We took Maelyn to the hotel we stayed in when we got her. It was so strange to see it again with her being almost eight years old now. We drove past the stadiums where the olympics will be. There are 45 stadiums being used. We went out for pizza for my birthday. It tasted so good after eating chinese food for two months. Our hotel is really nice for $28 a room including a chinese breakfast buffet. It is so nice to have a toilet and hot shower all to ourselves for a few days. The other two teams are here with us so it has been nice hearing their stories on their adventures. Thank you to everyone who posted Birthday wishes to me! Bye from Beijing

hello from sunny China

We survived the bus and 18 hour train ride to get here. The countryside was spectacular. We had six bunks to a cabin. It wasn't too bad. The weather has been quite nice with no snow, which is very unusual we are told. The people are very nice that we are with. The food is good. It has been good to see what it is like to live in China. Maelyn has learned lots about the culture. This Saturday we have a 7 hour train ride to go to Beijing for a week before heading out to our next destination. It's different living like the chinese instead of being in fancy hotels (like when we got Maelyn). It will seem strange to have western toilets after being here. Maelyn is having a great time living with all the university students. She eats with chopsticks all the time and enjoys all the new food. We have made close friends and there will be many tears when we leave each other. Maelyn has been so healthy on this trip. I've had a cough since Hong Kong from living so close with so many people. Mike has been fine. Everyone is gearing up for the upcoming Spring Festival. It's the one time of year that family come together. We plan to do tourist stuff while in Beijing. The girls sure love to shop and get deals! I will be celebrating my birthday in Beijing. Sounds like a spa day to me. We've had fun going for massages, haircuts, and facials. We can get a 90 minute head, arms, hands, back, neck massage plus hair wash for $1.00 canadian. So we don't even bother washing our own hair anymore. We even had Maelyn done. It is so cheap to eat in restaurants here too. The students have told us lots of what it is like to grow up here so it's been very beneficial for Maelyn. She is at the age where she will remember it all too. Before we left Hong Kong the three of us went to the new Disney Land. It was so much fun with great shows. They did a good job on it. We went through the week so there were no line ups. We also went to another theme park called Ocean Park with rides and animals, sorta like our Marine Land but more elaborate while in Hong Kong. This really has been a trip of a lifetime and we are so glad Maelyn is experiencing chinese life first hand.

Hey

Re ad my last blog. We just performed the drama. It went well. We met an amazing couple in China. They are teachers at the school the team stayed at and they are Americans that had lived four years on the Big Island in Hawaii. They are also Christians and have a bible study in their home every Sunday. They call it a Book Club. We had the privilege of being at it on New Year's Eve. China is desparate for English speaking people to teach in their schools. If they let Mike, Maelyn and I teach that shows how desperate they are ha! ha! We are staying in a church building sleeping on the floor until Monday than we go back to the ywam base again or another eight days until we take the train into central china. We are going to help out in orphanages this coming week so we are very excited about that. While we were in china people stared at us where ever we went. That bothered Maelyn. I have to end the laptop is leaving me right now.

Back in Hong Kong again

We are back in Hong Kong after spending a week in Guangdong, China. Our team was working at a billingual school there. Mike, Maelyn and I were asked to go one hour away from the team to teach at a kindergarten class. So that was scary for us to, venture out on our own. We were told to be outside the hotel at 6:00 a.m. and a van would take us to the school. It turned out to be the most amazin time for us. We were in a class with three girls and three boys. Maelyn got to read stories to them and teach them songs and new games. The two teachers we worked with were so sweet. They could speak some english as they were teaching the kids english. The one teacher would do Maelyn's hair everyday like the chinese girls were it. On the last day the teachers were so sad that we left. The one teacher made Maelyn two paper cut pictures for her.
Today in Hong Kong we came up with a two hour program at the ywca for their children's program. Right now we are at a coffee house and I was just told we have to perform our drama.