Pictures from Our Week

Every Wednesday I have the pleasure of attending a small group with girls from all around Kunming. Last week I hosted at our house. This is a quick, informal shot of most of us, enjoying pumpkin break and coffee. Right now we are studying Daniel and I am loving it!

Small group at our house.

 Although October is just around the corner, we are warm and sunny most days. Flowers are blooming everywhere!

Flowers are still blooming in Kunming!

 And yet the trees are losing their leaves and it is pumpkin season. Oh the juxtaposition! We love it.

Fall is here, too!

Holidays and Food

We are in the middle of two holiday weeks. Last week we celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival (Moon Festival) on Thursday and next week we will celebrate National Day. 

For Mid-Autumn Festival (which I realize isn't in the middle of Autumn, at least by Western standards. Something to do with the lunar calendar...) we had Thursday off and took advantage of an odd day off mid-week. Eric used his time to work ahead in his AP class and I caught up with friends. I think I got the better deal. Here is how I spent my afternoon and evening!

L-R Bethany, Josalyn, Kim, and Michelle

The next day we had a professional development day at school. The students enjoyed another day off and we went to work and learned about a new testing program we are going to use later this Fall. The best way to make a fun day like that bearable is by going to lunch with co-workers. So that is what we did. We went to an Yi minority restaurant not far from our campus. Eric and I had never been there before, but we went with a couple people who had. This was key because they knew all the best dishes to order. One of the delicacies we enjoyed were fried grasshoppers. Yum yum.

Grasshoppers served with peanuts

Yum

Actually, they don't taste bad, in fact, they taste like nothing. Crunchy nothing.

Sunday afternoon we had another new food experience when we went to a north-eastern Chinese restaurant after Fellowship with a few friends. We enjoyed sweetened sweet potatoes- they had melted sugar poured on them and the trick is to quickly take your portion off the pile and dip it in cold water before the whole mountain of sweet potatoes cools down and hardens into a big block.

Trying to get a piece off the pile

Dip it in the water

We were back at work this week, but have next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday off for National Day holiday. Like Mid-Autumn Festival, Eric and I will be celebrating a little differently. I am going to Sanya on Hainan Island on the South China Sea for four days with some friends. Eric is staying in Kunming and will be attempting to get a little ahead in his school work (to say that Eric is busy these days is an understatement!)I am thankful to have an amazing husband who lets me play while he works and doesn't hold it against me. :) 

Superman, Spice, and Sightseeing

This past week was Spirit week at KIA giving students and staff, alike, the chance to wear some pretty interesting get-ups. The week was scheduled out like this:

• Marvel Monday (all super heroes welcome)
• Time Travel Tuesday
• Well-dressed Wednesday
• Holiday Thursday (alliteration is tough to pull off with a TH sound)
• Fairy Tale Friday

On Monday, Eric did his best Clark Kent impression with the outfit seen below.

Most days we dressed up and most of the students did too. I think it gives them an opportunity to feel involved and see a different side of their teachers and classmates. 

Eric as Clark Kent for Spirit Week! 

 Walking home one afternoon we spotted these peppers laying out to dry. You never really know what you are going to see on a daily basis here. 

Neighbors drying peppers in the sun.

The first step in making lajiao (spice).

 Tuesday after school, I went with a few new teachers and friends, Emma and Josalyn, to the downtown area of the city. Eric felt like he had to focus on his AP class planning so he opted to stay home. We took a bus to the city square and walked along a little market street to an Indian restaurant where we ate dinner. It is so nice to get out of the neighborhood sometimes and remind myself that I live in a huge city. There were people lined up along the street selling everything from dolls to baskets to clothing to dishes, all in anticipation of Moon Festival coming up this Thursday. It was a good chance to unwind and enjoy the sights of the city.

Blind musician seen downtown by the gates.

  

Horse gate downtown.

Erik, Brittany, Sarah, Emma, and Josalyn hanging out downtown.

My New Little Garden Project

I have mentioned before that we live in a very transient community. People are often coming and going so many of the things we own come from moving sales. For the past year I have admired a large planter that one family had on their deck. In late July I had the opportunity to purchase it for myself when they decided to move back to their home country. It came with a ton of plants and a large rosemary bush. It was a beast to get home, but I think it is well worth it!

I have a mum!

The pretty end of the planter.

Mini-garden in the corner of my deck. I am growing basil in one pot because you can't find it here anywhere!

Other end of the planter with the large rosemary bush. 

Every Day Life

We arrived in the grey van. We parked, went to dinner and came out to find that cars had parked all around us. We had to find a parking attendant and he had to go into a nearby restaurant to find the owner of the black car parked in front of us and have him move it. Typical China parking lot experience.

Out with friends, Kevin, Emma, John, and Melissa at Bird and Flower Market. This is the seasonal fruit available in Kunming right now.

Yum!

Pagoda at Green Lake park. 

The Muslim noodle shop near our neighborhood.

He is stretching the noodles. So cool!

Michelle, Kim, and Melissa waiting for our noodle dishes.

Amazing food for 8RMB (a little over $1USD).

The Great Seizure Trip of 2013

This is Eric's first night at the hospital. He was admitted at about 9pm and then went to have an MRI. He is waiting for the MRI in this photo.

This was posted in his hospital room. I think his goal is a little obvious.

Poor guy spent almost three full days like this.

Sweet freedom! Eric leaving the hospital with his fruit basket and a huge bag full of medication!

At a night market with friends, Eric and Amy Rodgers. 

Amazing fresh fruit.

Eric Rodgers ordering Massaman curry from a street vendor.

The Really Big Catch Up!

Oh wow. It has been a while. You know when you are putting something off for weeks on end and finally it gets to the point where you feel like if you don’t start, you never will? I am there. If I don’t do this now, I never will. The hole I have dug is so deep it will take some time to dig myself out.

Where to begin? How about June-July! As seen in my last post, in June I flew to Washington in June and spent five weeks with my family. Eric bravely stuck it out in Kunming and tutored three students 4 days a week. He is a good guy, I know. While home I had the opportunity to see so many of you. The process of catching up face to face and spending time with you was so good to the soul. I flew back home in July and Eric and I were able to spend a few weeks doing projects around the house and hanging around Kunming.

Eric had one week off this summer and he was so looking forward to it. We had big plans to stay home for a few days just relaxing and then further explore the city in which we live. Life had other plans for us. On Monday, 29 July Eric had a seizure and we flew to Bangkok for better healthcare and in-depth testing. We spent most of our week at Bumrungrad International Hospital. Our friend, Michelle, flew down there with us and was so crucial to our well being. She was the one thinking clearly on Monday when we traveled there, she was the one who knew where to go, and how to do it. She was the one who made sure we had everything we needed. She was the one who went out and explored the city with me when all Eric wanted/needed was sleep in his hospital room. She was truly an answer to pr*yer.

After all of the testing, poking, and prodding, we discovered that Eric has an epileptic wave in his brain that for whatever reason acted up that Monday morning. The doctor stopped short of saying he has epilepsy, but he put Eric on epilepsy medication that he now takes faithfully twice a day.

Eric was set free from the hospital on Thursday afternoon and we were able to spend one night in Bangkok together outside the four walls of his hospital room. Good friends of ours from KIA happened to be in the city that week so we met up with them and asked them, “What things does Eric need to do in the next 6-8 hours to fully experience Bangkok?” Answer:

1.  Order a Thai iced tea from a tea cart. Check

2.  Ride the sky train. Check

3.  Eat mango sticky rice ordered from a street vendor. Check

4.  Walk through a night market. Check

5.  Eat Massaman curry on the sidewalk. Check

6.  See a rat and a cockroach while eating above meal. Check, check

7.  Drink fresh squeezed orange juice. Check

8.  Get a Thai massage. Check

G*d is good all the time. We didn’t plan on spending the week in Bangkok and Eric certainly didn’t love spending four days in the hospital, but overall he is healthy and thriving, even on his medication and we got to have one really fun afternoon/night in a city he’s never visited.

Moving forward- Eric is supposed to get a three month check up and a six month check up, but we may forgo both in favor of a five month check up in Seattle with a neurologist. We want a second opinion and a trip home for Christmas will give us that opportunity. Again, G*d is good. We get to see family at the most magical time of year and get to have the reassurance of a second opinion.

We flew back to Kunming on Friday and had a relaxing weekend before our KIA staff orientation began on Monday morning. It was during orientation week that it fully dawned on us how far we’ve come in a year’s time. We are familiar with the processes, we know who to go to, and how to get tasks accomplished. We understand the system. What an amazing feeling!

We are mid-way through the fourth week of school and things seem to be running smoothly. We have some new students so it took a bit to learn faces and names, but now things have pretty much gone into routine mode. Eric is spending most of his time outside of the classroom preparing for his AP World History course. Because of the specific benchmarks his students need to meet he has to put extra time and care into his curriculum. He is careful to add fun elements into his lessons- short videos, re-mixed songs, photos, etc. allowing his students to really engage in the lesson. If I could, I would take his class!

This past spring I was informed that I would be taking on extra responsibilities this school year with our grading program and database information; I have assumed this role and it seems to almost be going smoothly, but as with most learning curves, I am pretty sure I don’t even know all the things I don’t know yet. I enjoy the added responsibility, but I can’t say I actually love what I am doing.

This pretty much catches us up! I promise to be better with updates!