Catching up

I know I haven't been blogging much lately, so I will try to catch up on a few recent events in one big catch-all post.

The highlight of February was a week-long visit from our friend Susannah. She has been obsessed with China for as long as I have know her, and we were happy to show her around our little corner of China for a week.

Sarah and Susannah at Tian Yi Pavillion, Ningbo. Photography by Milan

She has done a much better job than I ever could chronicling her visit to China day-by-day on her blog, so check it out! I especially like her video of our eBike (electric scooter) ride out into the countryside. I learned how to ride the eBike just for her visit and, I am happy to report, didn't get either of us killed. Hooray! Come to think of it, I haven't been on the eBike since she left. She was very encouraging and helpful as my backseat driver, and only laughed for about 5 minutes when I knocked over three other eBikes at the grocery store parking lot. Miss you Sus!

Last week was the U.S. Peace Corps' 50th Anniversary celebration. You have probably noticed that even 10 years after joining the Peace Corps we still can't stop talking about our time in Kenya. We are thankful for that opportunity to live with the friendly and generous people of Ileho, Kenya for two years. We celebrated the 50th Anniversary in China by hosting an international potluck party at our house last week.

The highlight of the night were our guests from Tanzania and Kenya, students who are studying Chinese and fish agriculture at Ningbo University. It was great to chat about East Africa and hear their perspective on living in China.

And I think they enjoyed our attempts at Kenyan food - beef samosas, sukuma wiki, and Kenyan chai tea with lots of milk and sugar. They don't sound too thrilled with Chinese food and miss their favorites from home.

To continue the spirit of volunteering, we went to the inauguration ceremony of the Yulan Community Heart Bridge International Volunteers Group last weekend.

Tim may or may not have been nominated as vice-chair of the organization, we're not sure.

We are now card-carrying members of the volunteer organization for our local community.

Earlier this week Milan and his class went on a field trip to a famous Chinese cultural location where they all learned the art of making a pizza.

There he is at Pizza Hut, making his very own personal pan pizza. It tasted just like I remember from our High School cafeteria days. They were required to wear the plastic gloves, even though his whole hand fit into one finger of the glove.

Other than making pizza and taking his own pictures with the digital camera, Milan's new favorite thing is building tents with Daddy.

He started out with a pretty simple pillow-and-chair construction in the living room:


That evolved into the single "center pole" construction in his bedroom (with significant help from Daddy this time):

To last weekend's masterpiece, that required stripping our bedroom of curtains and using all of the mops and brooms in the house:

I especially like the use of long deflated balloons as anchor strings for this one, Daddy clown's special touch.

I am happy to report that spring is finally here. The weather is not freezing anymore and even warm-ish and pleasantly sunny a couple days a week. The most noticeable sign are the hundreds of pink and white cherry and plum trees in blossom all over town. I celebrated the nice weather today with some other parents from school and a hike in the nearby mountain park.

Hope you are all seeing signs of spring where ever you are!