Monday: For FHE we had new family, the Burtons, over for tostadas. They have two little boys Kenny and Cole. Stan Burton works for Oakley. Brynn showed the story "the coat" about Hebert J. Grant giving his new coat to a boy who was cold. (click to watch, it's just 2 minutes long).
Overseas and silver palate with Jordana, my friend from Connecticut. They had candy canes for $6/pack and red and green m & ms at the import store. No chocolate oranges or egg nog or lifesaver story books this year! Can you imagine the egg nog made with the non-refrigerated eggs? That combined with all of the bird flu they are finding here in Shenzhen makes me nervous.
Letters from Ally are always a highlight of our week. Three more of those she taught were baptized, the parents of the three sisters and another friend of their family. So seven baptisms in a couple weeks' time. That's a great way to kick off the Christmas season! That family will add so much to the small branch they have there in Sweden.
Tuesday: new stationary mall with Pon, this one is closer to home. Pon showed me more clothing stores with real brand clothes (not knock-offs, as usual). Chinese class was fun today. I feel like I'm learning a bit. Thai Dinner at coastal city with Joyce, Donna, Twila and Debbie. I'm afraid after having been to Thailand and also having Pon's cooking that no Thai will ever taste as good. I loved the mall parking lot, it had green lights above the available spots, and red above those that were taken so you can easily spot where to park. Dollar store, groceries and ice cream. I felt like I was running the entire day.
Wednesday. Mr Li took Pon and me to coastal city for visiting teaching lunch at chili party, where we met Tiffany and Anna. It was a bowl of random things we ordered-sweet potato noodles, cilantro, bread sticks, mushrooms etc and cover the entire dish with chilis. They put the big bowl in the middle and handed every one a small bowl and chopsticks. I asked Todd the update on our passport visa renewal. Fesco, the agency helping us, replied back that on the 13th they would submit and we would have them back on Jan. 5th. That means we are stuck in China until after January 6th. I knew Disneyland was taking down the Christmas lights and decorations on Jan. 5th so I had to figure a way to get there. I asked Fesco (who has had our passports since Dec.3rd) if I could come get them, take my kids to Hong Kong, and have the passports back Friday before they were due. This was after 4pm when this conversation was taking place. I headed downtown in a cab to the fesco office and tried to pick them up before closing time. Traffic. I met the rep in the parking lot and signed a paper and I was back off to meet Todd for dinner, passports in hand. We ate dinner at Baia, a new Italian restaurant in Seaworld. It wasn't officially open so we had the entire restaurant to ourselves. They gave us a seat by the window overlooking the city lights. Food was so-so but nice atmosphere-except for the bathroom, the lights didn't work yet so I had to use my phone flashlight. That was fun. Kids are doing school, school, and more school in order to finish. Brooke had mutual where they cut out sugar cookies and baked them to hand out Wednesday when they go caroling. Chase headed down to the import store for snacks with his friend Matthew. Nice Korean boy his age. Son of one of Todd's co-workers.
Thursday: We got up early and were on the 7:45 am ferry then the Hong Kong metro to Disneyland Hong Kong. Great weather, low traffic, short lines. Almost felt like Cali. We rode space mountain, buzz light year, autopia, grizzly gulch, slinky dog, mystic manor. Toy story land is great-parachute ride, live green army men everywhere, jumbo sized scrabble letters, tinker toys and lincoln logs. Only place to get churros. Hot dogs and hamburgers chocolate covered bananas, pink ice cream minnies and light up cotton candy sticks. Saw the usual characters, Buzz, Chip and Dale, Minnie, Mickey, Woody, Jessie, Tinkerbell, princesses, LILO & Stitch. We came to see the Christmas lights and ended with Indian food and the Christmas Tree lighting. We picked out some ornaments to mark our time here in Hong Kong then we headed home all in one taxi, crossed the border and got in another taxi and headed home by 8pm, tired and happy. We missed Todd, who was in meetings all day long.
Brynn here. Disneyland HK was soooo awesome. Toy Story Land was way better than I imagined. They had a cool army dudes parachute ride and an awesome ride with the RC toy car. One of my favorite rides was Grizzly Gulch. After the Christmas light show (which was in Cantonese), we went home to watch Duck Dynasty-The Christmas Special. Duck Dynasty is the bomb.com. Anyways, Miss you all and have a Merry Christmas!(Christmas is almost here!!)
When we arrived home, Todd had really sad news and told us that Ivy, our niece, had been burned badly in an accident. She was burned from her chest to her knees and is currently at the U of U burn center. She is struggling today with her lungs filled with fluid, but she has the best care and very faithful parents, friends and surrounding family. We are praying and fasting for her and for continued miracles in her healing and recovery.
Friday: I headed to Huaqiang Rd with the little girls after Brynn took her Language Arts final. We made a few wrong subway exits because I didn't know how to spell "washung"...third time we emerged from the underground was the right stop. We found lots of "treasures". Sophie had to go to the bathroom at quite possibly the nastiest bathroom yet. We now have quite a few leading contenders for that position. We met Todd at the public security bureau and they would not do 7 visa renewals at the same time. they would only do one. The supervisor said to come back at 6PM (we pulled a ticket at noon). So we left and had lunch and returned at 5:30PM only to have them tell us they would not process our application, to come back Monday. A full-on China situation that we seem to encounter day after day. Go here, go there, sign this, pay us money, come back later, not today. You have to get used to it or go crazy, that is our choice. After that, we went to Luohu to pick up a dress from the tailor and drop off a skirt to be made for Brynn.
Saturday: Chase left early (7AM) to go paint-balling with some friends. They hired a driver and drove 1 1/2 hours away. He said it was a fun time. The rest of us went to the gym in the morning and hired a driver to take us to Sam's Club and a Nike Factory Outlet in the afternoon. When I went to take out my Sam's card I realized that I couldn't find my wallet. Made a few calls and discovered that I left it at Disneyland. They cut up all of my cards and mailed them to the banks. I told them without my passport I had no way to get into Hong Kong to get my driver's license, and other items for at least a month. They won't mail it but will hold it for three months. We were still able to shop at Sam's which was crazy busy, like Mesa Costco busy, with all the snow birds in town - x10. The nike store was very expensive, not really a good deal on anything. bummer. We passed a car dealership that had a huge transformer character as tall as the building, made from a car. The doors were the wings, etc. Todd and Brig thought that was pretty great. We hurried home, stopped at subway for cookies and sandwiches and headed to Sears for Thai visiting teaching/goodbye to Palmer's dinner. Jeff also planned a white elephant game and provided all the gifts. Now that is kind of genius. You can wrap up and get rid of lots of junk and the guests have to take it home. Better than a thrift store drop off.
Sunday: Raining. Makes for a pretty backdrop at church as there is a floor to ceiling, wall to wall window behind the podium. Palmers spoke before they head back to Mapleton UT to attend BYU. We will miss them, but we were silently hoping to hop in their bags and go home! They gave great messages based on the talk "Mountains to Climb". Todd and Shane team taught gospel doctrine. Fasting for Ivy and praying for her safety and recovery. Shane came over for spaghetti Sunday and we played ticket to ride and watched Christmas movies.
A few Chinese names from this week: Swing, Ame, Cuidie, Glory
We hope you are all enjoying the Christmas season. Enjoy that Arizona citrus for us.
Love from China
The Taylors
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