Hello out there in blogland! I haven't written in a while because up until now my sleeping patterns were all out of whack. I have slept through the night for 3 days straight now so I am hoping the jet lag is finally over!

I have been busy taking a summer class and running the kids around to their various lessons. Once June is over, things should slow down for the rest of the summer. I am trying to work in a trip to Utah but not sure if it will work out. I am still hopeful.  

Lately I have been trying to work out and lose weight, because I realized while I was in China, just how limited I have been because of my weight. I could walk and do most things but I couldn't make it to the top of the Great Wall. At that point I made the decision to do something about the weight I have gained.

I am putting it out there for all to see so that I won't loose motivation! I am doing well so far but I know once life gets crazy, it is harder to stay on track. My goal right now is to get healthy enough to be able to go snow skiing with my family at Christmas time. The last time I went skiing w/Doug I couldn't even get down the mountain. I was so angry with myself, because before I got married I was actually a really good skier and I love skiing. So this is my goal! 

I think I might post pictures of myself at 3 month intervals so you all can see my progress. The now pictures are already up from China.  So look for pics in August!

So now that it is out there let me know what you all think! 

Ok, this is my last post for China.  This is a picture with Fu Jia, who was our student host for the family dinner.  We are at the goodbye banquet dinner that the East China College threw for us the night before we came home.  

This was a fun night and also a little sad. We had to say goodbye to our new friends and realize we would most likely not see them again.  There is always hope, but these students do not have the income to travel to America and I don't forsee myself, being able to go back to China anytime soon.

But it was incredible to get to know them and thank heavens for email and the internet so we can keep in touch.  

It is a popular idea in China for students to want to take on Western names because they feel that their names are hard to pronounce, also a desire to further westernize themselves. But Fu Jia liked the names of my daughters so much she decided to take the name of Maya as her western name.  I told her I liked her Chinese name but she was determined. I think she was trying to honor me in some way.  Which was so sweet but not necessary.  I wish  I could have fit her in my suitcase and brought her home with me!! Maybe someday I will see her again.

Anyways, I wanted to bring a bit of closure to the whole China experience because since I have been home I have had so many thoughts and I am still trying to process them all.  So many things I have learned and yet there are still many questions that have been raised for me. For now, I have been thinking about how much I take for granted.  I am so richly blessed and the freedom we have in this country is amazing.  Just the fact that if we disagree or agree with our leaders we can voice our opinions.  We have the ability to take action for what ever it is we believe in.  

I am glad to be home and humbled to have had this amazing experience. I wish you all well and hope that life is good.

All for now.

May 15, 2008

May 15th, Beijing

Greetings from Beijing!! This is me on JetLag!!

We made it here after a 15 hour flight--- I am very jet lagged. I hope you all are well and good.

I have not been able to get onto my blog on blogspot.com so I created this new site in hopes that this will work. I hope you will be able to view this and make comments.

We had a very interesting meal last night, I think I might be coming home a little thinner!! We have been doing touristy stuff all day and I am beat. We went to the Forbidden City, Tian'an Men Square, Bei Hai Park and a Pudong. It was a busy day.

The Forbidden City was huge it took about 2 hours to walk, my favorite part was the garden. Tian'an Men Square is right in front of the Forbidden City and it is so large it can hold over 1 million people. Bei Hai Park is a beautiful park set around a lake. and Pudong is an ancient home that has been passed down from generation to generation since the Ching dynasty (1600's).

It has been a day, so I will write more tomorrow and I will try to figure out how to post pictures.

Love to you all-----

May 16, 2008

May 16, Temple of Heaven

Hello Again!
I hope this finds you all very well and good! I had another very busy day. We started our day with a lecture at the Ministry of Civil Affairs, which is a University in Beijing. They were very excited to have us tour their campus and presented us all with gifts and a huge lunch. It was very interesting.

We went to the Temple of Heaven after lunch and then went shopping at Hong Qiao Pearl Market, which is basically a flea market. After traveling back and forth to New York so much it wasn't that much different to be here in a Chinese market. It was just like being on Canal Street.

All the younger students have gone to the bar tonight so here I am blogging and finding myself super tired.

We will be going to the Great Wall tomorrow I am really looking forward to that! I will post pictures of the wall tomorrow.

Love you all.

May 17, 2008

May 17, The Great Wall

WOW!! The Great Wall was by far my favorite thing yet. It is amazing! I have a video of me climbing it but I don't know how to post videos yet. But check out my Picasa web site for more pictures/videos.

I thought hiking Diamond Head in Hawaii was tough! Its got nothing on the Great Wall!! The walk is so steep and so high up in the Mountains you think you will not be able to get your breath. And the steps are all different heights (deffinately not code Doug). Any ways, it is a truly breathtaking view from the top and one that I will never forget!

We went to a Chinese Acrobatics performance last night, that was fun. It kind of reminded me of Cirque Du Soleil. I have a couple of videos of that as well.

It is such a different culture here, the hardest thing for me has been the smells and the food. But I am amazed at how generous and kind the people are. They have gone out of their way to make us feel as welcome and comfortable as possible.

We are taking the train to Shanghai tonight. It is a sleeping train. 4 people to a compartment---I hope I don't keep them all up with my snoring!!

When I am set up in Shanghai, I will write again--- but this is all for now.

Love to you all.

May 19, 2008

May 19, 2008

Greetings from Shanghai!!

We took an overnight train last night from Beijing to Shanghai. We had 4 people to a sleeping car. It was fun, I have never rode on a train before!

We arrived in Shanghai at 7am on May 19. Remember China is 1 day ahead of all of you! Shanghai is a lot like New York. It is much cleaner than Beijing and our hotel room is much more modern.

We met with the students from the University that is hosting us and they through us a welcome party. They are very hospitable and genuinely nice. I have enjoyed getting to know some of them.

We toured their new University and it is beautiful, it is set on a lake and very near the ocean. the grounds look a lot like California, very lush and green.

Tomorrow we are going to see the Botanical Gardens, I am sure it will be beautiful. I will post again tomorrow.

P.S. Doug---A Chinese student told me that my name means "wonderful" in Chinese!!

Love to you all.

May 20, 2008

Tuesday, May 20, 2008, Shanghai

Hello again. This picture is of Me and my new friend Michaela and my friend Erin. We are in the Botanical Gardens in the middle of Shanghai.

We we to the gardens this morning it was beautiful. There were lots of people and many doing Tai Chi and lots of grandparents with their grandbabies.

We also visited the Pearl TV Tower, which is sort of the Eifle Tower of China. It is very tall and I got to take pictures from a birds eye view of the city. The elevator ride was very fast and my ears kept popping so I know it was pretty high up. I still don't have the metric system down so I don't know exactly how tall the building is. But It looks like a needle with three pearls strung on it.

The Yangzte River runs through Shanghai and out into the Pacific ocean and we walked along this river today, it is called the "Bund" I am still not clear why they call it this but there you have it.

I am continually amazed at the culture surrounding me, it is so different than anywhere I have ever been. There are really no space boundaries, people cram into you and push and shove, this is not rude it is just how they do things. The people also sound like they are shouting at each other but it is just how they talk, it is the inflection in their language. I am learning a lot.

I will be visiting the social welfare policy office tomorrow and I am looking forward to that.

More to come....

May 22, 2008

Entry for May 22, 2008

Hello Everyone! this is going to be a short entry because it is very late and I have to get up super early tomorrow. We are off to a little village call Hangzhou, it is in the rural part of China and we will be spending the night there and taking a lake cruise dinner!

Anyway I know I haven't kept up the last couple nights but they have literally kept us so busy that I come home dog tired and I have no energy to blog. So I promise to get you all up to date when I return from Hangzhou.

Today we went to visit several social service sites--- but I will write about them later.

Love you all.

May 24, 2008

May 24, 2008
Hello Everyone.

I am back from Hangzou. It was a beautiful place, it reminded me of Hawaii. We went to a Buddist Temple called Ling Yin Temple, it was really pretty. You have to hike up these stone steps and gorgious scenery. I got quite the work out!! I think I will be on the road to be in better shape when I return home, we have been doing a ton of hiking.

We also went on a lake cruise and visited the Tiger Spring. This was so beautiful and hard to put into words--- I would post a picture but my camera broke and I haven't been able to download the pictures. I hope I will be able to fix it soon.

We got to eat dinner at a Pizza Hut tonite and you would have thought it was the best restaurant in town!! We are all soooo sick of Chinese food.

We are in for more Social Services visits tomorrow. It should be interesting. I hope my camera will work tomorrow. I don't know what's wrong with it--- it is very humid and I am wondering if that has something to do with it. We will see. Erin let me take some pics with her camera so I will download those pics soon.

I love you all.

May 25, 2008

May 25, 2008

I have had a very eventful day. I ditched the scheduled events of the group to go to a Shanghai Branch of the LDS church. It was a wonderfully diverse group of Saints, and an experience I will never forget. I even met someone whose Grandfather lives in my home ward!! It really is a small world.

Then I came back to the hotel and caught up on my journaling and emailing and I talked to Doug and Holden on skype. But mostly I was grateful for a break from the group--we have been together non-stop for 2 weeks---so it was a completely peaceful day.

Tonight we got to go to a Chinese student's home for a traditional Chinese meal. Our host family were very gracious and extremely excited to have us in their home. They asked us all kinds of questions about America and our family life at home. This was by far my most treasured and meaningful experience the entire trip. I can not emphasize enough how truly blessed we are to live where we live. I know I take way too much for granted. These people live in the most humble circumstances and would give us the shirt off their back if we needed it.

I found the experience here to be both challenging and rewarding at the same time. It is a trip I will never forget.

I love you all.

May 28, 2008

May 28, 2008

Hello Everyone!! I hope you all are well and good! We had a day full of lectures today so I am going to tell you about yesterday since I was to tired to post last night.

We went to visit the Sanlin Expo Community Center. This is a community of people that the government has relocated and designed an "ideal community" for them to live. It used to be a rural area with about 50,000 people now it is a fully functioning town with around 400,000 people. They have built this up and created this community center for the World Expo that will take place in Shanghai in 2010. Their slogan is "Better City, Better Life".

Anyways, we toured all throughout the center and they had several levels and all kinds of cultural activities for all age groups, and handicrafts, and ping pong (which is really big over here), and on and on. But my favorite room was the Kindergarten room. They put on a special performance for us. They did a dance and then they sang us a song of thanks about all the American's help for the earthquake disaster, it was extremely touching and then they gave us all carnations, and big hugs! I was quite taken with these kids and I couldn't help but bawl. Then we got to do an activity with them that was sort of like the bunny hop!! So much fun!! I got some excellent video but I don't know how I can post it to this site.

Anyway I have decided to put together a DVD with all my video and pictures when I get home then you all can come over and I can explain in more detail all my adventures.

Tomorrow we are going to visit an orphanage and I am both nervous and excited. I am excited to be able to be there with the babies, but nervous that I will not be able to handle it emotionally. I will let you all know how that goes.

Well this is it for now, love you all.

May 30, 2008

OK so this will be my last entry before I get on a plane and come home!! I will be flying out of Shanghai tomorrow May 31 @ 12:30pm and I will arrive home on May 31 @ 12:40!! Let's see if all you mathematicians can figure that one out!!

Anyways, I had the opportunity to go to the Shanghai Children's Center (orphanage) yesterday. I was really disappointed because I was expecting to be able to interact with the kids and babies. But the government had issued a health warning about Hoof & Mouth disease and would not allow us to see any children below the age of 6. So we toured around the grounds, which were amazing by the way. The facility is set on about 3 acres of land. And we went into 2 of the older kids classrooms. I have a darling video of a little boy telling us a story in Chinese, I will have to show it to you all when I am home.

Most of the kids in the orphanage are either mentally handicapped or disabled. I don't know about the babies because we didn't get to see them. But they have them in classes and they do all kinds of activities with them and they have several volunteers that come and help with all the different areas of the facility. These kids generally live at this facility until they are 16 and then who knows. It was hard to see and also to know that they could have good homes if only the Chinese government would let them be adopted. But they don't let people adopt any children with any sort of handicap or disability. It is incredibly sad.

Switching gears a bit, the Chinese students who have hosted our delegation, through us a huge party last night. It was so fun and kind of sad to say goodbye as well. My heart is torn because this has truly been an eye opening experience and I have gotten to know some of the students so well, I am sad to leave but also very happy to be coming home. I miss all of you so much.

The party was kind of like a birthday party for kids at home! they had all sorts of games for us to play and karaoke (they love karaoke) and Doug you know how much I love to play games! But it was so much fun. I let down my guard and had a complete blast!! These students have absolutely been the best hosts and friends anyone could hope for. They attend to our every need, they take the time to go shopping with us, so we don't get ripped off, they bring us water/food and list goes on and on. I will never forget the kindness that has been shown.

And lastly, a word about the earthquake. This is the biggest disaster that China has ever had and they asked the Professors that are with our delegation to give a lecture today to all the Chinese student social workers on disaster relief and what they can do. So that the students could go to Sichuan Province and be of help. This was a huge deal, we were all there and there were TV cameras and everything. All of us from the states walked in a procession and donated money to the victims of the earthquake as part of the presentation. It was very touching. Social work in China is relatively new, so they don't know how to handle anything like this. They call all of us "experts". I feel we have much to learn from each other. I know I personally have learned more humility, faith, hope, love and gratitude for the things with which I have been blessed.

This is all for now, catch you all on the flip side!!