Cooking Class

Dad, remember the time when I made homemade lemonade when I was 13 or 14? It was back in the old house. That's how I remember. You were really skeptical. I don't think you tried any. At first I was really sad, but then when I tried it and it turned out really, super yummy, I was glad that I had more to myself. Well, I made lemonade for my kiddies today. I'm going to take lemons and talk about them and we'll roll the lemon and squeeze the juice out and pretend to add sugar and water and then I'll pull out the pitcher full of the already prepared lemonade. It turned out so good and it made so much! I'm really quite proud of myself.

Oh! I can't believe I almost forgot! Yesterday was one of the best days in Fuqing! I found cheese at the store! And for class, I made salsa. My original plan was to make guacamole, but they didn't have avocados at the store. I was really nervous for my salsa, too. All it was was a tomato, some cilantro, a little bit of green onion and some seasoning Mom sent me (thank goodness for that, because the stuff I bought at the store did not smell appetizing at all). Wow! It was so good! The closest thing I could find to tortilla chips were Lays potato chips. They did the job, but because they're thinner it was a little harder to pick stuff up. And then for dinner we had grilled cheese and fried potatoes!!! Jessica made the grilled cheese and Nikki made the fried potatoes. We are getting really good at improvising and working with what we have. My belly was quite satisfied.

After dinner we had to teach the older kids. It was hard. I really struggled with coming up with things to say to them. They could understand basic things, but I couldn't carry on a conversation with them. Next time will be interesting. As soon as we were done with that, Jessica invited me to do her pole dancing workout. It was interesting. She takes classes in Sandy back home. I'm glad I went with her because I did something active, but it wasn't as hard as the stuff I would do.

So, conclusion, it's been a good week. A nice kick off for the Beijing trip. We leave tomorrow morning from Fuzhou, the capital of our province that is just a half hour away, for Xi'an. It will take us a little more than 24 hours to get there. We'll arrive in Xi'an on the first, the beginning of the national holiday, and we'll be there until the third. Then we'll be on a train overnight to Beijing and hopefully arrive in plenty of time to get ready for church. We'll be gone until the tenth of October. Should be a good trip. I'm super excited.

I love you, Dad. I'll be thinking of you and the fact that there are no golf courses here, to speak of.