Tuesday: Oh Tuesday. Chase was emailing us late in the night. like until 12:45 am. then we were up at 3am to call into a conference line so that he could call us between 3am-8am. He finally called at 6:45am. So great to hear his voice. He told us some funny stories, spoke a little mandarin and we all shed a few tears. In my patriarchal blessing it talks about motherhood being my greatest calling, challenge and blessing. I now understand the challenge portion. It's tough sending out your children, even though it's for a great cause, it's still a sacrifice. He called again from LAX, briefly, and then just like that, he was gone. I had the sads for the rest of the day. We went for our traditional last Tuesday of the month taco Tuesday, picked up a few movies and groceries, gave a bit of money to one of our favorite beggars-the one Chase liked, and walked home in the dark. Letter from Ally, her time is quickly coming to an end and she's making the most of her last part of her mission.
Wednesday: Pon came over early this morning with fudge from
Mackinac Islan
d.
Yum! Todd's favorite so we tried to save him some. Mandarin study, Laundry. Rode the bike at the gym, it was stinking hot in there today. A guy came in...I thought it was stinky guy, but luckily it wasn't. Yoga, face planted while trying the crow pose. Lots of school today. Sophie had to write a report on Ocean habitats and make an Arizona poster. Brynn worked on division and Brigham worked on a Sherlock Holmes short story project. Brooke was doing science experiments but we are lacking a kitchen scale. Will hunt for one tomorrow. Pon snagged two green papaya for us from a tree in the neighborhood, she knows how to pick the good ones. Todd is enjoying work and headed to the gym/pool with Sophie. She got an eyeful in the women's locker room I guess. Brooke and Brigham went to the Ho's with Sydney to watch a movie, we watched Heaven is For Real
here at home.
Thursday: Pon sent me a text around 8:30AM asking if I wanted to go with her on the shuttle to Shamu (Sam's Club). We left 30 minutes later and were there about an hour after that. A new Korean friend also went along for the ride...Soo Choi. We shopped until our carts were stuffed-peaches were my favorite find. Chase's mission president emailed us some photos on the way home. We were so excited to hear that his trainer is one of the Elders we met when we visited last March. Chase mentioned that it would be pretty great if one of them would be his trainer. (photo below with Elder Tribe). He will be serving in the Eight Mile Plains area. His MTC companion also went to that area. The mission president's wife keeps a blog and the write up of the new missionaries, with a few pictures of Chase, is here.
Todd called home and had some excitement from work...in his words, So I'm sitting at work around 4 in the afternoon when all kinds of sirens start going off. Not really loud, but then someone with a megaphone started to shout in Chinese and everyone else started evacuating. I figured a fire drill. I was right. A Chinese fire drill :)
I packed up my bag and headed for the elevators, not working...its a firedrill. So went to the stairwell (I'm on the 6th floor) which is packed with....Chinese. It takes 15 minutes or so to file out down the 6 flights of stairs. We would've burned or died from smoke inhalation. In the event of a real fire, I must remember to go out the window and to jump into the trees like Rambo off the cliff.
Once outside...they yelled at us for not being able to exit more quickly, then had everyone go back inside. Back to work...had this happened in France...they would still be off work and complaints would've been filed by the workers against the company. Not in China.
The girls and I went to Coastal City. Sophie wanted fries, "I don't even care if I don't have ketchup!" It took until past 10PM to find a taxi.
Friday: Todd got home after a long day. It took us over an hour, as a family, to decide what to do on our Friday night. We finally decided to walk down to Sea World for dinner. As I went to get my purse, I walked past our deck upstairs and it lit up with lightening. By the time I went back downstairs, Todd had already ordered takeout. The poor delivery guy was soaking wet, but the food tasted good. A new Duck Dynasty episode came on so while everyone else watched, I broke out my sewing machine and made some napkins from the fabric Brooke and I picked out in Utah.
Saturday: Girls and I were off early to Holiday Plaza. Sophie wanted to check the ice skating times for a get together she is planning for this week. She painted ice skates and stamped "meet you at the rink" in turquoise blue. Todd planned a lunch date with some friends from the branch so I finally got to eat at Angelo's, a restaurant Kathy Black recommended almost a year ago. We had smoothies and ice cream outside under an umbrella for dessert. It was so hot and humid it felt like we were steaming. Brigham met me at the subway and we went to Luohu for a few things on his list and a few things on mine. We also ended up with this camera stick, which was not on our list, and it turned out to be a hit. Gabe Granata was back in town and we enjoyed catching up with him and seeing how his family was acclimating to life back in the USA. Jealous they got to see the Kesters! Sure miss them all, living far away from home sure makes solid bonds with our friends we meet here.
Sunday: Big day today, a new family moved into our branch. They have six kids, five of them were there today, but three oldest are headed to BYU and a mission. Two will stay here, a 15 year old boy and 17 year old girl. It's like Christmas in our branch when new friends come to stay for a while. Also, Rhoda and the AZ sisters were back, yessssssss. We watched The Saratov Approach, yikes, not the best while having two missionary children out serving. Popcorn for dinner!
Have a great week, keep in touch & come visit!
Love from China,
Taylor Family
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