China campfire cider

Jeremiah and I went camping recently with some other expat friends.  He was so excited that he sat and dug through all of the stuff we were taking all afternoon until time to go.  Our tent was voted the worst looking tent, but I guess thats what you get when you rig your broken Chinese tent, just so you can go.  The pocket knife "training" had to be his favorite part of the trip, but it seemed the hit of the trip (at least for some) was our campfire cider.   We took a clay pot used for making chinese medicine, filled it with water,  4 apples, a cinnamon stick, a chunk of ginger,  about 20 black pepper kernels, and a cup of sugar.  Let it sit in the hot coals for an hour and then served it for whoever wanted some.  Those that didnt get any cider seemed to be just as pleased to eat the stewed apples after the cider was gone.  It seems that going on a drizzly day turned out for the best since it let us have the mountain to ourselves.  All in all Jeremiah and I had a great trip.

Shopping day with local Chinese girl

     Mel took a local village girl out shopping for her 19th birthday.  This girl had to grow up way too fast.  At the age of 8, she left for school one day while her mom was in labor and came home that afternoon to a new baby sister and a mother that would never wake up again.  She laid in bed beside her deceased mom and snuggled her for the last time, wishing she could be where ever her mom was.  At the age of fifteen she got pregnant and shortly after married.  She is now married and has a 3 year old son and all the responsibilities that come with that, but hasn't had her much needed mother.  Mel has started telling her that she will be her "mother."  She did her hair and makeup and then took her shopping the whole day of her birthday, she could have anything in the world, but the one thing she wanted was a big stuffed teddy bear.  Mel bought her everything she could convince the young girl to get, she was too caught up with how much things cost.  It seemed that she had never been loved on in this way.  It seemed Mel enjoyed loving on her as much as she enjoyed receiving it.  Its days like these that make our life here seem worth it and lets us know just how loved we have been.

Homeschool

Jeremiah doesn't come right out and say that he loves school.  But he loves school.  The Sonlight curriculum is great.  Today we learned about and prayed for 3 different people groups.  And he begs to have someone read the different stories to him, even dropping the ipad in the middle of a game if it means reading school books.  Love the bonding time with him even if its tiring to read so much.  This is one perk of doing what we do and living where we live. (Picture of Jeremiah a few weeks ago.)

The China dilemma....our son busted his chin open and after experiencing Chinese hospitals every expat knows to try everything possible to keep from having to go.... so we tried bandaids- FAIL.

We tried duct tape - FAIL. 

....so next option.... no medical glue available - we tried super glue and duct tape.....

......looks pretty good......

...... an hour later.....   his chin is gaping open again.  We ended up going to the hospital at 12:00 at night and had the best experience thus far in a Chinese hospital.  He ended the night with 5 stitches in the chin and 3 shots in the rear end for tetanus.