Pagoda Run

Sorry about yesterdays blog. I should have given you some kind of warning. :) It was pretty gross, but part of the experience. I had to share. :)

I think we climbed around 500 steps. Great work out!
Connie, Will, and Tiffany on their way up.
The other Pagoda on the next mountain. The make the roof to curve up so that when the evil spirits come down they will not be able to come all the way down, but hit those curves and go back up. This culture believes very much in spirits and ancestory worship.
The River.
PingGou. The City. This is just a small section, but the mountains in the distance were breath taking.

After we left the market, we headed up to the Pagoda. N thought we needed some morning exercise. Actually she and the kids climb this several times a week. It wouldn't be too bad once you got your body use to it. It was a long way up. I did ok at first, but then had to stop and rest several times on the way up. :) Guess I should start working out again. ha! Once we got up there it was incredible. You could see the whole city. The mountains are unlike anything you see here. They are all covered in green. Really pretty. We sat up there for a while, and then took some time to pr'y over the city. That was a neat experience. We would have people come up to look at the foreigners while we were pr'ying out loud, but they had no idea what we were saying. :) When we first were led to this county, there were no known believers. Our "club" decided to adopt it and we send teams several times a year to go over and work. As of four years later there are over 200. Father is really working.

If you do not understand some of what I am talking about email me and I will let you know. I am using certain terms for security reasons.

How do you like your meat?

Just pick what you want! :) We are not sure exactly what it is. They yellow flowers they also cook and eat. They say there are really good.
Pig heads
Goat heads with bottles of blood for sale. They use the blood for cooking. One of our team members had those flavor packets you can add to your water bottle. Well, hers was bright red, so I told her that the locals were going to think that she enjoyed drinking the goats blood.

Greens/Vegetables These were REALLY good!


This is where you go to buy your meat and vegetables. N thought it would be fun to tour this right after we ate our breakfast. :) EVERYONE shops here, this IS your local Wal-Mart. :) The smell was a bit strong and there was blood all over the floor, but you get used to it I am sure. Some of our girls were real smart and wore their flip flops to the market. One of my favorite things was when we would sit down in a restaurant to order, if they did not have it they would run to the market and get it to fix for us.

Headed to mainland China.

Sorry for the delay in posting. I have been sleeping. :)


Our hotel.
Our room. Don't let these plush looking beds decieve you. There is a piece of plywood just below the surface. :) It wasn't too bad. You get use to it. Our bathroom. We did have a western toilet. More on that later. :)
The shower floor. Looks very cool, but hurts to stand on. We had to wear flip flops. The rocks jutting up is supposed to be theraputic.

N, Me, and Katie in the motorcycle taxi. I really enjoyed riding in these things. Plus it was SUPER cheap. 3 kuai for all of us= 40 cents.
Our view inside the taxi.

Our first meal together. I was really worried about the food, but found several things that I really liked. The fried rice of course, some sweet potato cakes, fried potatoes, green beans, and corn. T's favorite then was the "swan tien pie goo" (this is not how you spell it, but how it sounds phonetically to me). Translation sweet and sour pork. He learned to say it just in case N was not around to order for him. We also drank a lot of schwey bee (again phonetically spelled) AKA Sprite.
After dinner we headed over to the square where I believe the whole town had gathered. They have something going on every night. It is HUGE. There were people line dancing, there were others dancing together, you could feed fish, play basketball, or just hang out. It was fun until we started to draw a crowd. I never felt comfortable with people following us and staring at us.

We were in Hong Kong for two days and then headed into mainland China. It has a completely different feel to it than Hong Kong. We flew into Nanning to meet our friend N. I was so excited to see her! It had been two years since we had seen them. Once we got there we exchanged our Hong Kong money into Kuai and then hopped on a van that took us to the train station. We then had a 1 1/2 to 2 hour ride into PingGuo. We were lucky enough to have seats. They will sell as many tickets as they want to. If they run out of seats then you just stand in the aisle. There was a girl sitting in one of our seats so N made her move so we could all sit together and catch up. This girl was not happy and gave us dirty looks the whole way. The train made one stop and she looked at N and told her it was our stop. N informed her it was not. She wasn't too happy. I don't know why she was so mad. Once we got into PingGuo we flagged down some motorcycle (3 wheel) taxis to take us to our hotel. We got to stay at a brand new hotel. It was not completly finished, but the 8th floor was. So that was where we stayed. Of course everyone knew where the foreigners were staying.

Heading to China

Waiting in the airport for one of many flights to leave. Kayla, Tiffany(practicing her peace sign for the trip), and Will.
Our home for 14 hours. They did have tv's in the backs of every chair, and showed several movies. You could pick what you wanted to watch. That really helped it to go by faster. We got to our gate ready to go, only to find out it was delayed for SIX hours. Uuuuggghhh!!!! So instead of arriving in HK at 6:00pm we got there at midnight. It worked out fine, we went straight to bed. :) We were ready!
Hong Kong. Not so much China, it's more of a New York City feel. Britian turned power back over to China in 1997 after having power for 150 years. They are still heavily influenced by Britian. Driving on the wrong side of the road and all, and the minding of the gap when you get off the subway. :) Our hotel room in Hong Kong. These beds were soft and comfortable!
You had to put our card in the slot for the power in the room to come on. They would only give you one card. So when you left the room your air went off. LOVELY!! We could sometimes stick a comb or something in them to get them to stay on. That didn't always work.
McDonalds in Hong Kong. Tiffany is obsessed with ketchup and they only gave her one packet. She had to go back and beg for more. This was a constant battle for her. Not that Chinese food tastes good with ketchup. They did have an ice cream sundae with red beans and green tea sauce. I was so tempted, but I somehow refrained. ha!

We are home and recovering from our trip to China. It was absolutely amazing and God allowed us to be apart of some incredible things. Hopefully through this blog I can share a glimps of how BIG He is, and how he is working not only in America, but China, and all over the world. I will be posting in the coming days. I have a lot to share. Thanks to those who were praying for us and my kiddos. Mykids did great and the team all survived the culture shock. I can't wait to go back!!! Well, I could do without the 14 hour plane ride. :)

On the way in we were able to stay in Hong Kong for two nights to get our sleep schedules worked out. They are 13 hours ahead of us. So as I should be in bed right now, it is only 1:00 pm over there. It will take me awhile to get readjusted. We got to see some sights in Hong Kong and get our last fill of western food (McDonalds, Outback Steak House, etc.)before we headed into mainland China.

China Bound!!

Packed and ready to go. Yes, this is all I am taking. I know some of you are shocked!!
See ya later mom! KG in serious need of a nap.
BYE! BYE!

Tomorrow morning EARLY, T and I are headed to China with some teenagers!! We are excited, but dreading the loooooooooooong flight! We will be gone 12 days. I will not be able to blog while we are there, but will journal and have MANY pictures to share when I get back. Thank you to Nana and Mimi for taking our kids and keeping them happy! Good luck! Pray for KG, every morning for the past week she asks, "You go to China today?" Me-"No, not today." KG-" I gonna miss you.".......... "You coming back?" Me- "Oh yes!" KG-"You bring me a surprise?" :)

See you in two weeks!!!

Bibleman to the rescue!

CT as Bibleman.
KG and CT at PF Changs.

This past weekend we had to run to Mardel's to pick up some stuff for Graduation Sunday. CT remembered that this was the store with the Bibleman outfit. He had seen it about 2 months before and had talked about it on and off. I told him that if he wanted it, he could use the money that he had saved in his piggy bank. He had me get it down off the shelf for him and he studied it for awhile. Then he had me put it back because he couldn't decide if he wanted to spend his money on it. We did this about three or four time before he finally decided that he would buy it. They also had a pretty cool sword that went with it, that he was dying to have. I was impressed though, he had enough money to buy both, but he didn't want to spend ALL of his money. He just went with the cape and mask. Miss KG found a wand that makes noise and insisted on buying it. I told her that if she wanted it she had to use her own money for it. So I said, "Is that okay?" She replied without a second thought, "Oh, yeah!". I'm a little worried about her.

Since we were in T town we headed on over to PF Changs for dinner. Some friends of ours had given us a gift certificate, so we decided to use it. PF Changs doesn't disappoint. Of course CT wanted to wear his Bibleman outfit in, but Daddy wouldn't let him. He did wear it the next day to Chili's and Wal-Mart. People just smile at him.

Eatin' Crickets

CT watching Daddy hit the ball. He made a home run!
KG Eatin' her crickets.
The Crickets. :)
KG and Jessica!! Hope your having fun at FC Jess. :) You made the blog.
KG and Mommy.

T is playing softball again this year, so we have been having a ball going out to the park to watch. KG has learned about crickets AKA sunflower seeds this year. We think she came up with this name because every time Mrs. Brenda went to crack one for her she had to tell her "Hold on, let me crack it for you." So from crack it to cricket it is. She would be content to sit and eat them the whole game. Daddy's team has done really good this year. I think they have only lost one game so far.