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Monday: SCHOOL all day. Avoided being pinched. Stayed home. Boys played basketball this evening.  Todd worked at an offsite location. Brooke finished her Australia vacation video. Chase tried to find March Madness game info all day. I think. Letters from Ally.   Her new zone leader is her buddy from home so she's happy about that! Had an all-green dinner.

Tuesday: Lunch at Gold Coast for Kathy Black's farewell.  So sad to be losing another friend. They will go back to Bentonville.  Chase went to pick up a certificate that says he is not a criminal in China, tailored pants and a second pair of glasses at Peter's. Peter sells knock off purses, watches and wallets and belts in the front, eye glass shop in the back.  Random combo!   Brooke is getting her glasses fixed, Brigham is getting some pants altered as well.  Chinese class for the whole family minus Todd. Girls and I had a good time wandering around Old Shekou. We ended the day at the gym, the little girls caught the tail end of an international women's Zumba class taught by a couple of Russian ladies and are now determined to get new dance clothes and join the class every T-Th. Boys played basketball Til late. 

Wednesday: out of the house by 9:30 with girls. Day trip to Luohu to get dresses made for the Sophie and Brooke-baptism and prom. Rode subway there with Cherie and Pon.  They have new metal detectors and scanners set up in the metro now because of the stabbings that took place here in China. Tennis, Activity Days, Basketball game for Brigham , Scouts. Visiting teaching dinner. Pon is making her famous green papaya salad and curry with rice to bring to our house. It's my friend Anna's birthday so we will have cheesecake and trifle too. I didn't even see Todd til late...work to basketball game to Young Men.  

Thursday: Visiting teaching Grace with Pon this morning. Lost and stuck on 29th floor in the elevator. It wouldn't open or go up or down. Finally we put Grace on speaker with the elevator operator and finally got it figured out.  We were  in the wrong bldg.  More fancy cars than I've ever seen all in one place. We played with Grace's son's race track while he was at school. A visiting teaching first for me! Back to Peter's, a hole in the wall place to get prescription glasses.  Also had to go to a couple of money exchange places to get Filipino pesos  for Chase's upcoming vacation. He stopped at Muslim Noodle for lunch and rode his bike home.  Giant orange flowers were rapidly falling from a tree-Red silk cotton tree.  I think the whole tree nearly emptied in one day. The flowers were falling and people were ducking because they were a bigger flower, like a pair of tube socks in weight, covering the sidewalk and surrounding shrubs (photo below of what it looked like, I found on google). Smoggy  & windy, cooler wind, even though dusty, dries things up. Shannon, my friend Joyce's son, is staying with us while she is in Korea. The girls, Todd and I went to the gym. No Zumba because of spring break. The little girls were sad about that. Then we watched American idol. 

Friday: Seminary then the girls and I hiked Nanshan mountain. Lunch date with Todd to our favorite place. A bit of shopping at All City mall for some comfy Asian pants. We are going to come home with some funky clothing styles. Don't laugh. Brigham picked up his pants from the tailor (had to have them lengthened, he's growing like crazy). Most of the trips he takes around town end with a stop at Muslim Noodle for fried rice or noodles. He's their best customer, I'm sure.    The girls had the house all picked up when I got home, and even washed the produce and put the groceries away. Boys played basketball until they couldn't see in the dark any longer. 

Saturday:up early to send Chase off. He's going with some family friends to Hong Kong and then on toBoracay. Ran around our hilly neighborhood for a while then to the gym.  Stinky British guy was there so couldn't stay long. He smells up the ENTIRE gym, no joke. You can.not.inhale the entire time he is there. It's unbelievable.  At nearly noon we met our group at McDonald's at Seaworld and  headed to Guangzhou for District Conference, on a chartered bus, with a bunch of friends.  We will stay at a hotel tonight. Todd is speaking in the adult session on the topic "How we can be unified as a branch in sharing the gospel in our ex-patriot setting" . We played ticket to ride, enjoyed the sights along the Pearl River Delta (fish farms, banana trees as far as you could see, beautifully plotted gardens, amusement park, pagodas, many, many apartments, old run down cities, fishing boats, etc.) and felt carsick when we arrived.   We found an import grocery store and had fun there for a bit, seeing stuff we didn't know we were missing. Cheese and crackers! Pop Tarts, Pringles! Bit-o-honey!  Brooke and Brigham played ping pong. The girls wanted to swim but swimcaps were required, and not in our possession, so we just watched the speedo wearing, swim cap clad men flogging around in circles.  Entertaining enough.   Great meeting with Elder Toronto of the Seventy on Hastening the Work (he said this was a world wide topic and the First Presidency invited 12 & up.) Todd did a great job on his talk and we thought a lot about Ally and started to get sad about Chase leaving soon, even though he will have a great experience. A Chinese native (married to a foreign passport holder), bore her testimony. There is something about hearing a Chinese national share their testimony that is unique and hopeful. She went to Hong Kong 3 times and then was baptized.  She said before she was baptized that she just followed a hollow set of actions without meaning. The gospel has given her direction and purpose in her life and helped her make decisions.  Life is fuller. Cracks and gaps in her life were filled in. The teachings sounded familiar, life is brighter. She has a better attitude when challenges arise and knows there is a plan for her.  

Sunday: I had a music practice before the meeting. District Conference, always fun to see friends from other cities in China. Our friends Alisa Granata (just 11 years old) and Ernesto and Carina Tovar all spoke and did a nice job.   A quick lunch and then we headed home on the bus. The crowd on the bus changed a bit and people were eating and chatting, napping, laughing and playing games the whole way home.  Todd had a Youth Conference Trek meeting. The little girls and Brigham went with Shannon to walk his dog and we are getting ready for the week. 

Let us know how you are doing! What did you do for Spring Break?

Come visit!!