Going To Quickly

Our second week together has been a blast! Grace has relaxed more and become more comfortable in her new surroundings. We are enjoying getting to know each other. Grace even showed us some authentic Chinese dance she learned in a class at school. And Mady joined in, in the back yard.

This week has brought many new experiences and learning opportunities for all the students. (and teachers) We started out the weeks activities at the country club lake, reserved just for our group. The kids all had fun swimming, canoeing and fishing late into the evening. Wednesday we enjoyed the day together at the water park. And Wednesday was what I think may be the highlight of their time here. They got to meet the college basketball team, get their autographs and play some basketball with them. Two of the team members even walked back to the school with us and played some more basketball until there was just no more time. When the kids signed up for this trip to the USA seeing the LA Lakers and Kobe Bryant was listed on the agenda. But as time progressed things changed, and Kobe Bryant was actually in Chengdu while they were here. So we did the best we could and introduced them to our "world famous" college basketball team. The kids were in heaven. The team was very kind and generous with their time. If you happen to know any of them please thank them for us!
Friday we had an optional camping trip for the families. We did all the traditional camping things...we ate campfire dinners, made smores, played some catch, and gazed at the night sky. We all sat around the campfire after smores as Jordan played his guitar and the girls begged him to sing. He did finally cave and sing one song as they all took photos...cracked me up! After biscuits and sausage for breakfast Sat. morning we headed to the lake for the day and had a wonderful time playing together. Grace spent some time by the lake writing a song :) And to top off the weekend we stopped on our way home for giant ice cream cones and fries to dip in them.....nothing like the US to overload you in sugar and fat! yummy... My favorite memory of the whole weekend was when Grace saw the night sky and said "Oh, so beautiful!... in China only one star and here so many!".. She stood for the longest time with her head back staring at the stars. She found the big dipper, that we had learned about earlier in the week and thought that was very cool. As we went back to our camp sight we found two other girls in the same position staring at the sky in awe....I walked over to them and they said "so beautiful!.....so many stars, in china, not very many."...No one wanted to go in that night. Grace stayed by the campfire and got a little homesick and told me a Chinese proverb about the stars representing your family watching over you while you are away. I found it interesting that out of all the entertaining we have been doing over the past 2 weeks and still occasionally hearing the words, "this is boring". Nothing could top God speaking through His creation!