A friend of ours was ploughing his fields a few weeks back.  He collected these worms as he plowed around the pine trees lining his fields.  He said they were pine worms, at least thats the translation into English.  They looked similar to mealworms but maybe double the length and girth (thats a nice wormy word for ya!!!).  They were fried in the families large wok.  Mealworms are typically just small crispy oil flavored crunchies but these actually still had a little creaminess to them. :)  If you ever happen to be digging around some pine trees I would recommend picking up a few just to try.

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.

travel

flying in airplanes is becoming a part of normal life for Jeremiah and Annie.

missin the fam

Annie misses everyone back home and sends her love often over skype. "I lu loo nainai"

Dali

Jeremiah and I had a blast kayaking in Erhai lake in Dali. We had some great father-son time on our 5 day retreat.

Water Well!!!

We have our first drilled well in the ground. The next well drilling project to start the end of August. We used water4.org hand well drilling equipment.

Nursery

We recently rounded up the whole team to help out with building a nursery. One of the guys on our team and a local friend helped to finish off what we couldn't in the first day. It's not too big but we're hoping to begin to influence others in the village once they see the success and benefit of it.

We recently celebrated my daughter Annie's birthday. She is a true two year old princess.....most of the time. :) We have been truly blessed.

Nepal

I recently visited Nepal for a few days. I didn't have a chance to get outside of Katmandu, but enjoyed my time there none the less. I went to visit friends and try to be an encouragement to them. I really enjoyed spending time with them. Nepal is a poor country with little infrastructure. I saw many street children and homeless people. Passing out candy and bringing a smile to their face was one of the highlights of my trip.

Red Light Road Rage

So the other day our taxi is sitting at the stop light waiting to turn left and maybe slightly over in the oncoming lane. The oncoming traffic pulls past us and one guy yells out his window at our taxi driver. Our taxi driver yelled something back. The next thing we know the guy that had had yelled at our taxi driver was out of his car and standing at the taxi's driver side window. The window was down and he proceeded to swing at the driver through the window. All in one motion the taxi driver opened the car door, grabbed a metal pipe strategically placed beside his leg for occasions such as this, and took a step out of the car with his arm raised ready to return a blow. The other guy responded with slamming the car door on our driver. The fight continued while Mel and the kids watched all from the back seat. Finally someone else stops there car and begins to pull the other driver away as Im yelling to get his attention that Im calling the police. He finally left. We pulled away when our light turned green with our taxi driver spitting blood and the kids very shaken up. This was another pretty normal day in China.

Meetings in Kunming

Had some productive meetings in Kunm!ng. Finally a real water project in the making. The water cisterns we did in the past didn't turn out to be so good. It hasn't rained much since we built them, so everyones new cisterns remain dry and we're in the middle of a drought. Water well drilling has to be the solution. Lets hope everything comes together to make this work.

First Day on the Aza route

This is my first attempt at doing an Aza route in town. I talked with 3 people today. This old lady has six daughters and a son. Finally the language is coming. I've always assumed that an Aza route just wouldn't work in town. But now I'm more determined than ever to make the route work and get this language down.