Winter is here...

Its official. Winter has arrived in Baoding, and its SOOO cold. Lucky, I spent the day inside baking yummy goodies for my students. I decided that I wanted to make holiday treats for all of my students in all of my classes. That's about 150. Not as many as last year but still a lot of goodies. Between Curtis sneaking some off the counter (I guess I had a few too), and the number of students getting at least one treat, it has been quite the task. But I LOVE the holidays!!! Curtis spent his day teaching two classes in the morning, we played UNO with some of his students in the afternoon, then he went to play pool with some of his boy students, came home to change clothes and is off playing basketball. I don't know why anyone would want to go out in this cold ha ha.

So much has been happening these past few weeks - sorry I haven't kept up!!

Some of Curtis's students came over last weekend and made us some really yummy Chinese food, I tried to watch and learn, but I'm afraid I haven't quite mastered cooking Chinese cuisine quite yet. We had over 8 dishes plus dumplings! Spicy Green Beans (my favorite), a potato dish, a green pepper dish, spicy fish, pork and vegetable dish, stuffed eggplant and some others.

We have a small apartment and 6 students (all roommates) came over, so I was in the kitchen with 2 and Curtis held down the dumpling making in the living room with the other four girls. It was a great night!

We also went to a friend name Celia and her husband's house to celebrate Lindsey's birthday (one of the four parties she had). We ate my most favorite Chinese meal - hot pot. It basically consists of a bowl of boiling water in the middle of the table, with seasonings in it to make it flavorful - spicy or non its your choice. Then you take raw veggies and meats put them in for a few minutes, take it out, dip it in some peanut sauce, and eat! I could eat it everyday...

Saturday we made a trip to Beijing to relax. Rena, Josh, Curtis, Justin, JinJing, Sabrina and I caught a train in the morning and enjoyed a great meal at Outback. We then proceeded to go shopping at various places. Ate some Baskin Robins Ice cream, Curtis grabbed a pizza from Pizza Hut and we jumped back on a train. It was a good break, maybe not so relaxing from walking and shopping so much but we all had a lot of fun.

Christmas shopping has begun. While Curtis and Josh went out last night to continue their shopping I decided to text some of my friends to see if anyone wanted to go to dinner. I didn't expect anyone to reply "yes" as it was an hour before we would meet, Saturday night and if they hadn't eaten already I was sure they would be studying for all of their finals. Well turns out I was wrong. So me and 12 of my fun and beautiful friends went out for a girls dinner. It was a lot of fun. Of course we talked about life, love and other mysteries. We also planned some shopping dates(these girls LOVE to shop) and other hangout times. They also, all walked me back to my apartment in the freezing cold - they are pretty cool. The night ended with lots of smiles and a successful unplanned girls night.

We are still thinking about our options for the future. Thanks for your thoughts as opportunities present themselves.