WE'VE GOT MILK!

We've been very this week for it only being Tuesday, but even here in China we can't escape the crazy Holiday Season. Yesterday (Monday) I got up and took Emma to Korean class and then I planned to stay for Body Shaping class. Our instructor was sick so I stayed at the school and visited with friends. It was then that I made arrangements to have fresh milk delivered to our apartment every morning. The milk we can get at the grocery store is not refrigerated and because I can't read the labels, I've come home with apple milk before (YUCK!) Jim is scared of the milk and wouldn't drink it, but I was still cooking with it. The kids were really missing milk, so when I heard of this opportunity I jumped on it. The farmer who will deliver the milk said he could deliver to us last, which would be between 2 and 3 am YIKES! Is milk really worth hearing the door bell every morning at 3...I think not! So we came up with the solution to put a covered trash can (very small) outside ouir apartment door when we go to bed and when we get up at 6am to turn on our hot water heater (for our baths at 7) we can get the trash can with bags of milk in it. Well, I put a clean liner in a covered trash can that we had and Jim flipped out! It grossed him out that our milk was in our trash can. It doesn't bother me at all. Our stairwell is cold so it stays cold and the bags are sealed so I think it's a great set up. Jim is still hesitant. I invested in a box of cocoa cereal (very expensive import food for these parts) so the kids (and Jim) would eat it with milk as we try to adjust to the new milk. I'm not even a milk drinker but had trouble living without milk. I hope to get some milk fat and cream from this farmer too and make butter and whipped cream. It's only getting better. I did a little shopping later in the day and Jim finally took me to the bank so I can go by myself some day. He must have gotten tired of asking for money.....now he'll make me go.....I liked not knowing so I didn't have to make the 10 minute walk. It's been a big deal not having tea bags that I can make iced tea with. I found some yesterday but it still wasn't anything like Lipton. I thought it would work though. Then we received 2 packages in the mail. Tea bags were in one box and so we had iced tea with our dinner.....what a treat. Thank you to all who helped fill the boxes...we are so very blessed!

Tonight we went to the orphanage to teach English for the first time. We had 5 elementary students and we really enjoyed it. We didn't know how much English they knew, so we started with numbers and played games. A young man I see at the Foreign Language School sometimes was visiting there, and he offered to translate for us so it worked out really well. We also found a short cut to the orphanage. We live about 3 walking minutes away!! Not only is His timing always right, His location is too! It took us longer to get our coats, shoes and gloves on than it did to walk there. The directors (a married couple) said they'd love to see where we live....they are foreigners here too (Korean) and don't know very many people. The wife said " please invite us some day" Her desperation to "get away" made me realize the importance of meeting with them outside of the orphanage. Sometimes I feeel we don't get invited very many places because of our 4 children, could you imagine having 34!! I bet they get very few invites out. There's no way our loud household would frazzle them, so we plan to invite them over soon.

I am busy getting things in order for my English students' Christmas party and concert. Jim is learning a song for the same concert and Selah is learning a part for a play for a different program. Emma and Jameson are learning how to do the lights and sound board in the theater so they can help at various programs in the theater. Our Holiday Season is so very different here, but we still figured out how to stay busy.
Sorry. No pictures this time, but I should have alot after this weekends' events.