It's beginning to look a lot like CHRISTMAS!

At least, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas inside our apartment. Outside it still looks like China. No snow, no yard ornaments, no light displays, no town square nativity scenes or Santa huts. But James and I have enjoyed making our living room look as Christmas-y as possible! And I've loved the excuse to spend some time crafting! Here are some pictures of our handiwork.

These pretty 3D stars look so beautiful hanging over our dining table.


To make this sign I cut out squares of cardboard, covered them with white paper, painted each piece red or green, and then stenciled on block letters. It turned out cute, I think.

We cut out a flurry of paper snowflakes to tape up in our front window. It's almost as cheery as the real thing!

Here is our scraggly little Christmas tree! We found it in a local market and looks so much cuter than anything we expected we'd be able to put up this year. It's fun to have a real, live Christmas tree, potted and all. As long as we don't kill it, we should be able to use it for a few years! (And aren't our lumberjack stockings cute!? Love 'em.)

These origami ornaments were slightly tedious, but they turned out great.

And these 3D paper ball ornaments really helped fill out the tree.

Our last decoration is this antique nativity scene that we purchased this summer and brought back with us. It reminds me so much of the set my mom always puts out each Christmas! I am really looking forward to using it to tell the story.

And now I just want to sing "Deck the Halls!"

turkey, dog, and pumpkins

Though the title of this post includes all things that you can eat here in China, I assure you no dogs have been eaten by us since we've moved here. Rather, we wanted to update you on a few happenings this Fall/Winter. First off, we had a great thanksgiving with some ex-pats in town. We hosted 16 adults and 10 children. Everybody brought a ton of food and we ate our brains out. I even downloaded last year's macys parade and fooled everybody into thinking it was this year's.















Next we got Laura making some delicious acorn squash cookies. They were sssooo delicious!















Below we have a picture of Maggie. She is some kind of Yorkshire Terrier from Chengdu. The owners of this dog are busy having a baby in Thailand so we volunteered to watch her while they're gone. She a bit of a hassle, but for the most part very mild.



















And last we have a picture of a wedding Laura and I attended two weeks ago. The bride is a member of the Pumi minority group and the groom Mousu. It was our first wedding to attend in China which made it extra special for us.















Other than that we've been enjoying X-mas decorating and receiving fun packages from the States. School is still session. We have another 5-6 weeks left of class (with one day off for the holidays, haha). We are seeing a lot of improvement and continue to enjoy our teachers.

Happy holidays!

Two Years Today!!!!

It's our two year anniversary! Honestly, I can believe it! It seems forever ago we were standing at the altar in Dennison, Ohio. So much life has been shared in these last two years. Blessing after blessing has been heaped on my undeserving head--the best of which is my husband James.


We took a little road trip this weekend and got to celebrate in snow! It was magical.

China's driving test

Recently, a friend of ours bought a new truck and said that we could use it for special occasions. It's nothing fancy but it is a diesel truck with a low gear ratio which makes it easy to get up and down the tough dirt roads around our city. We were very excited about this and wanted to make full use of the new truck. But first things first, I needed to get my Chinese driver's license.

Here in China, a foreigner can get a license 1 of 2 ways. If you don't have a driver's license issued from your home country, then you most go through the process a Chinese person would. You have to take classes and pass both a written and driving test. The cost could be upwards of $600. If you already have a driver's license issued from your home country, then all you need to do is get the right chops (google: chinese chops) and pass the written test. Easy enough, right? No.

The written test is notorious for being badly translated into English, lacking common sense, and downright hard to memorize. Many people here in our city have attempted to pass the test, but have come up short. For example, one of our close friends in town took it 4 times before passing it on his fifth. The test is compromised of a random 100 questions out of a possible 1300. There are about 40 true or false and 60 multiple choice. You most get a minimum of 90% to pass within a 45 minute time frame. The questions range from understanding street signs to knowing how to stop the bleeding from someone's flank (yes they use the word flank). There are two ways to study for the test. 1) get the paper study guide which consist of all 1300 questions and their answers, review, and memorize, or 2) download the ipod app (yes someone made an app) which breaks down all the questions into categories and let's you take practice tests.

I wanted to pass the test on the first try, so I downloaded the app and studied like crazy. Last Tuesday I took the test and scored a 97%. Woohoo, it's official. Now I just have to learn how to drive on these crazy Chinese roads :)

As I was studying for the test, I came across some really funny questions that I wanted to share with you. Below are pictures I took of some of the most bizarre and funniest questions I came across. I broke them up into four categories, 1) bad translation, 2) courtesy, 3) comical, and 4) just weird. Enjoy!

Weird:




































































(you would think the answer to the above question would be (D), but it is actually (A) :)

Funny:







































































Courtesy:






































Bad Translation:

sad october

This past week was the "national holiday," which means everybody gets off school the entire week; well at least the foreign students. The Chinese students here in Lijiang have to make up two days worth of the holiday on Saturday and Sunday. Why don't they just use the weekend as part of the holiday and have class two days of class during the week? No one knows why, it's just the way it is.

So what did we do for our break??? Well, Laura is currently in Indonesia. Her best friend Sheila is also on her vacation and decided to spend it in Indo and asked Laura to tag along.....so Laura did....for 12 days! Yes, I know what you must be thinking, "How is James gonna survive 12 days without Laura?" That's a great question. I've already lost 8 lbs, I can't find anymore clean clothes, and I have a mild case of pneumonia because I get too cold at night! But seriously, I miss her. I knew it was going to be hard, but not this hard! But she's having a great time in Indo. She'll tell you more about it when she gets back.

So Laura wanted me to post some pics of our finished (almost) apartment. The process of "making home" has taken forever. It's hard to find things you like and harder to get them to LJ when you do find them. But here are some pics of what we have so far. Enjoy!

James & Laura unwrapping the furniture we ordered:





























Patio, dining table, entry way:



















































Living room:

































Kitchen:

































Guest bedroom and bathroom (wet bathroom, no division):





































Master bedroom (still unfinished):



















Master bathroom: