AUGUST 4, 2014: HAPPY BIRTHDAY JANE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JANE!

AUGUST 4, 2014

One of our Suzhou sisters had a birthday and so we all went out to lunch to celebrate!  Jane is a native to Suzhou and is really good at finding deals at restaurants.  She found a bargain for us to all join in on.  We went to one of Jane's favorite Chinese seafood restaurants.  It was pretty cool when one of our sisters at lunch brought to our attention that we had 5 countries represented within our group of 8 sisters.

 Some unique Chinese dishes

 Chicken feet

 Frog Soup

 Shrimp

 Scallops

 Amy eats frog

 The which served the scallops

Eating chicken feet

AUGUST 1, 2014: CONNIE'S GRADUATION

 CONNIE'S CHINESE CLASS GRADUATION

 AUGUST 1, 2014

Today was my Chinese class final.  We had a good week of class as we finished up our Chinese textbook and we had a comprehensive written exam and an oral exam.  Our test was 6 pages long and later I found out that I earned a 98/100 on the test!!!  The 2 mistakes I made were so, so silly – and I thought I had gone through it 3 times to catch errors.  One mistake was on the dictation part where we had to write the Chinese characters for the number 31 and I forgot the character for “10” which is “shi3”.  The other mistake was that I wrote “qian” instead of “quai” when writing out the characters for “1.6RMB.”  I know both of these and shouldn’t have missed them.  Oh well.  I scored perfect on my oral exam.  I HAD GREAT TEACHERS -- Bi Laoshi and Li Laoshi.

 My final exam.

After my test, I ran over to Dad’s office and Amy met us there and we worked to finish our proposal.  We have another meeting with Mr. Ma Liang at 4pm.  We were curious what his response would be with all of our costs and numbers.  He didn’t really give any response, but just said it was interesting and he would need to go over it and meet with us the next week.  He asked if we would finish it up and send it to him.  So, we didn’t get a “No” but didn’t get much more.  In our document, Vernon put that we thought they should pay me full salary, $50,000, for teaching the programs and then our “house Matron” work would cover our housing costs.  Tuition has been offered for free at this point – that is a $210,000 cost (30,000 per student) that has been offered free for the first year to XJTLU faculty’s children and then the second year it is half price, which will be $15,000.

I am still bewildered as to why he even wants to still talk to us!  The only thing we can figure out is that they are in dire need of some white faces in their school to get it started.  We will see what happens. 

 

At 3pm, before our meeting, we had my Chinese class graduation.  I received a cool certificate and then I also had been asked to give an introduction of my family and give it in Chinese.  My instructors had helped me refine it so I spoke everything correctly.  I had the picture of our family that we took just before Alison was married and they put that up on the bit screen and I gave a 2-3 minutes intro of our family in Chinese.  It went OK. 

 

 Our friend, Jenni, gave a short speech in behalf of all of us students.  

She did great!!

Jenni, Emily and Yuri showed some Chinese paper cutting that they had completed after learning the art at a cultural class.

 Some students sang to a popular Chinese ballad

 I was asked to introduce my family in Chinese.

 

JULY 29, 2014: RS LADIES' NIGHT OUT FOR DINNER

RS LADIES' NIGHT OUT FOR DINNER

JULY 3, 2014

Tuesday night, Amy and I had fun going to a “RS Ladies Night Out.”  A sister in our branch, Jane, has a talent for finding coupons and deals for various restaurants.  Jane is not a member and is Chinese and native to Suzhou!  She is able to attend our branch because her husband is a member.  Jane is such a wonderful lady!   

We had 13 sisters at our dinner and we all sat around a huge round table that had a large spinning “lazy susan” in the middle and we had some Chinese food that was typical of a northern group of people.  We had a spicy fish in a soup, cow stomach, fried potato with a sugar glaze, a green bean dish, pickled greens, chicken with lots of bones, and more.  We all had a wonderful time and enjoyed visiting.  I think when we return to Arkansas that I want to replace our dining table with a large round one that has a big “lazy susan” in the middle.  It is so much easier for serving!!!!  We had a huge and fabulous meal and thanks to Jane’s coupon, it only cost less than 20RMB per person!!! Amazing!  I am excited for Hyrum to get to visit with Jane and Jerwin in our ward who are both local Chinese and members of our branch.

AUGUST 3, 2014: FUN AND GAMES AT HOME

FUN AND GAMES AT HOME

AUGUST 3, 2014

It is always fun to see the kids playing games together.  Benjamin has been playing chess with Mason, David and Mason play checkers and one day they played a version of marbles with round lego pieces.  We have creative kids.

AUGUST 2014: COOKING ADVENTURES

COOKING ADVENTURES

AUGUST 2014

Amy is a great cook and is not afraid to be creative and resourceful.  We have ended up with some delicious experiments!  Yahoo!  Here are a few from the past couple of weeks.

 HOMEMADE POTATO GNOCCHI

 

 

REFRIED BEANS

These beat anything I have ever tasted!

 

Sesame Chicken Salad 

The fried won ton strips in the second picture were so good!!!

It made the salad even better!

 "TACO TUESDAY"

Amy made little taco bowls out of the won ton wraps at the wet market and we all had little taco salads!  Delicious!  The sweet corn was yummy, too.