A Picture is worth a thousand words...

So I'm short on words, but have plenty of pictures to share with you! So enjoy the pictures and descriptions of the latest adventures in my life! :)

I had a wonderful sleepover with 6 of my small group gals on Fridya night - we had a great time of discipleship and growing together. WE did bible trivia, memorized the books of the NT, had a devotion on Christmas, made/decorated sugar cookies, revealed secret santas, had 45 minutes of study time reading different books, and finished it off in the morning with devotions and more bible trivia with breakfast. Oh, and we did get 4.5 hrs of sleep in the middle of it all! :) It was a blessed time of growth and excitement. And the girls are off on their assignment - memorizing the 1st chapter of 1st john before we cna have our next sleepover!

Friday was our Christmas Performance and party - and I stole one of my students props from the play- and forced the students to call me Miss Angel. I got a few looks from other teachers in the hall - forgot what was on my head! The students shared the birth of Christ in the performance - it was a great message, and then we did our gift exchange afterwards with snacks. Only one student got made about the stealing presents game - the rest thought it was awesome! :) Couldn't really blame him though - the knit gloves he got had pink and a bear on them... not very manly! :)

Holiday plans - I leave Wednesday the 24th for Harbin where it's between 20 and 40 below C! We're going to see Ice and snow sculptures, watch Siberian Tigers eat chickens we purchase to have fed to them, and possibly get some snow skiing in too! :) i purchased a whole new outfit for the occasion - almost as much as my plane ticket was! :) But it's something you do once... and don't normally return, so I'm glad to get to have this experience over the holidays, esp as we only have 2 days off.

We get New Years Day off(thursday) but have to return to work on Friday. It was a nice jesture - but a 3 day or 4 day would be more worth it in my mind. But at least we only work 3 days next week and 4 the following. that is a blessing! And then for Chinese new year (3wk break) Emily's coming to visit me - she arrives the 20th of January!!! Yeah1!! and we'll go to Bejing, Xian, and then have some time in shanghai at the end of the trip. I can't wait to see her! Then I'll head to Taiwain for the remainder of the break. It should be a nice long vacation! :)

Newest adventure - I tried gao sha tonight - back scraping! It's like a massage except they do it with a piece of bone and have oil on your bakc. supposed to help you with illness and to make the effects of a cold better. So we'll see if it helps! :) Right now I just feel sore... though it didn't hurt as bad as I expected. I'm not sure if you get bruises from it like from cupping...

Merry Christmas, and happy new year! I look forward to posting about my adventures this week so you can see all that I experienced over the holiday! :)