Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Public Service Announcement

When bleach and Fabreeze are in similar shaped bottles don't put them next to each other on the shelf. The only thing that tipped me off was the smell.

Emily -1
Guest Room Comforter -0

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Tuesday, January 26, 2010

oh this day

Recently I was invited to go to a friend's hometown to see her city and have dinner at her house. This meant I would be traveling alone.

The day got off to a rough start when I realized that I had not factored in rush hour when I contemplated how long it would take me to get a taxi. Needless to say I arrived at the train station, only to see the number of my train flash off of the screen as it pulled out of the station. oops. Oh well, not to be discouraged... All I had to do was jump into line and buy myself a new ticket. Chinese don't fail me now! The best I could do was "Now I go Wuxi?" Luckily it worked. I paid the guy 12 kuai and headed to KFC to wait for three hours. At 11:54 I headed back into the station ready to go, unfortunately my train was delayed another hour for a grand total of 4.5 hours at the train station. Awesome.

Being stuck in KFC for 3 hours ended up being great because I got to read the word. (Ok, you're right, I don't have a three hour attention span. I also played Bejeweled and Spider Solitaire.) The delayed train wasn't bad either cause I was able to share some Good News with a guy that started talking to me while we were waiting so that's cool. Plus I was able to use Chinese almost all day which is a victory in itself.

There have been plenty of days when stuff like this happens and my mind is so occupied with being annoyed, that it becomes impossible to even see any opportunities, let alone make the most of them. I'm really thankful that the Father choose to give me patience today and helped me be ok with whatever he threw my way.

The rest of the trip went great... I ate a mystery foot... more on that later.

My friend made sure to take to me to the train station personally with plenty of time to spare. It's possible that her concern stemmed from the fact that I arrived in her city 5 hours late.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

grillin' in the guest room

Due to volunteer team, vacations, weather complications, etc. the Easton's have still not had our Skype family Christmas. Last week we decided to open the gifts from each other... Mostly because I was afraid that at any moment Mike was going to go out and buy what I'd gotten him.

Sidenote: That is the problem with buying guys Christmas presents. If they need it they just go out and buy it, and if they don't need it they don't really want it. It makes Christmas gifts a little tricky.

My wonderful husband bought me my first grown up coat

and Mike got a new grill

We had some friends over for dinner and Mike proceeded to use said grill...in the guest room. Technically it was on the window sill of the guest room, but it was pretty much the same thing. The whole room still smells of lighter fluid. The room will probably explode if we ever try to light a match in there.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Travel Pics




Christmas pics.

A little piece of America on Christmas day - T.G.I.Friday's
Here bf's and gf's mark their territory by wearing matching clothes...
when in China...

dress up santa contest

What does Sonny want for Christmas?

This guy was a friend of Obe's over the summer. When Mike introduced himself he responded "Mike!? You're Mike?! I'm so Happy! Can I give you a hug?!"

Nothing gets the party started in here like 100 Asians doing the Cha-Cha slide

yi, er, san... qie zi
That's one, two, three, eggplant to the lay person

Saturday, January 16, 2010

December update

A few of my favorite numbers over Christmas...
  • 15 hour train ride to the frozen tundra (aka Beijing)
  • 6 different campuses
  • 2 trips to Shanghai (lost luggage)
  • 1 dance party at the Great Wall
  • 5 nights, 5 Christmas Christmas parties
  • 11 student volunteers (1 little brother)
  • 0 time for sleeping
  • 400 students hearing the Good News
  • 1 New Sister!

Christmas was wonderful, tiring, but wonderful. Thank you so much for all of you who were pr@ying for us. This season was crazy busy but certainly worth it. It really felt like the Father blessed this time and that the teams really helped us push the work forward.

More information can be found on our December update. If you do not receive our monthly email updates and would like to be added just shoot us an email and we can add you to the list. Thanks again for all your support. (easton.emily@pobox.com)