October, 5th 2017 In Weifang, the sun always rose early, some days before 5 am! It made it nearly impossible to sleep past 6, which was a great habit we formed, because thats how the city ran! Everyone was up and out of the house early and many breakfast places were often closed by 8 or 8:30. It was also nice to get a little family time before classes. This particular Thursday morning we woke up early and hungry! By this time we had only been in Weifang a little over a month

Our first week in Weifang, Macy, Wade and their friend Jasmin took us around the wetlands. The wetland are a big park in our city, which would eventually become one of our favorite places. Macy and Wade were seniors whose internship was to aid us in our first semester on campus. We became really close with them while in China. #diary #China #weifang

For my birthday this year, we decided to go to a nice hotel in town. We were going to stay one night and enjoy the hotel buffet for dinner. I was especially excited about my birthday dinner, because they had advertised an Italian buffet, and its nearly impossible (and REALLY expensive) to find Western food! We settled in to the hotel and lounged around until dinner time. The kids were so excited to take a bath, and I loved being able to lay down in a comfortable bed I wouldn'

August 25th was our 2nd full day in China, and a day I will never forget. We woke up early and headed out to find some breakfast, and on our way we discovered how rare it was for people to see blonde children. People gasped and followed us down the road as we walked. One woman took special interest in our family and walked with for at least a mile in search of breakfast. She touched the kids faces and hair, and tried to make conversation with us even though we didn't know a

Our last day in America, and our first day in China. I knew we were in for quite an adventure, when before our plane even touched down, I had, for the first time, tried sashimi and tofu. I had no idea how many adventures awaited. Our travels to China went fairly smoothly, although for a solid 2 hours Grant cried on the plane (but can you blame him? It was such a long trip). We went over with a group of people teaching English, so we were able to herd our way through the airpo

The closer we get to our departure date, the more and more emotional I become. These days, I seem to be going from extremely excited, on-top-of-the-world, "super-mom" productive, to unbelievably stressed out and unmotivated, in a flip of a switch. I feel like a fifteen year old battling love! My emotions have been ALL over the place! With the stress piling up, Drew and I have noticed that we've been more short with each other. We have these concerns about money, and the kids,