Recent stuff

So, it has been a while since I have posted. Not because I haven't desired to but being over here and doing the stuff we are doing really limits me to what pictures I can show and what I can say. :( But I did want to update so here it goes.

It is a time of good-byes here. Mere and Heather just left to go back to America and the rest of us will be following shortly behind. We are saying good bye to our friends, which I am finding out is really sad and difficult to do. One friend today gave me a kiss on the cheek...We were taking good-bye pictures and in one she plants one on my cheek, I just went with it. I have my week lined up with 3 appointments pretty much all in a row and that continues through the weekend. I am leaving next monday and tuesday free to finish packing and get last minute details finished. I need some flex time. Then EARLY wednesday morning we head to the airport with the summer group who is here to go help them debrief and do some sightseeing.

On the 3rd we will leave and fly to San Francisco to go visit my sis and brother in law. We are so glad we could arrange a stop to see them. Laura will be having her first baby at the end of July so I am glad we will get a little time with them before baby Schultz makes his arrival!

On the 5th we will travel back to Texas! whoop! And visiting people begins.

This past weekend we said good-bye to one of our favorite cities over here. We took our last personal weekend and here are some of the fun but crazy things we experienced while there.

 Here we are at our favorite Mexican food place. Seriously I would go there if they were in America! YUM!

Here we are eating a Krispy Kreme doughnut!

The weekend wasn't all about the food...but a good portion was! Plus, I can't post the main touristy pictures because it would give away where we were! 

Ok, seriously what is this?

For all you Chicken Express lovers...here it is Commando style! I don't want to know.

It's WILD out there!

Before I tell you this story, I should let you know this is a daily occurrence in our city but also in many others in this area.

So, as I was walking by the lake, minding my own business, listening to some good tunes on the ipod I saw a group of people standing around some trees. These people were pointing up to the tree and many had their cameras out taking pictures of this tree. I think to myself  "self, why are those people looking so curiously into that tree?" so I also proceed to look up at the tree and what do I see......?

A squirrel!  Yes, a plain, boring, ordinary squirrel. Well, I think about it and realize I have never seen another squirrel in this country. never. So, I stand their with them and take a picture of the squirrel too. And, I also take pictures of the people taking pictures of the squirrel. As I left the site I just couldn't help but laugh :) 

Look at those lenses! Crazy! 

Ok,so my picture of the squirrel is not that great, but you know what one looks like! 

Gifts from friends!

Here is another gift I have received recently!
As always I receive them thankfully and graciously and with a little smile and laugh in my head. I am thankful for each of my friends here and am especially fond of the girl who gave me this purse. Maybe this gift was given to me because I am from America, more specifically Texas.

Check it out and let me know when you want to borrow it! I don't think you could find something like this at Brighton!

Admit it, you are a bit jealous! :)

Dinner out with the Gang

For many of our meals we will eat out with the gang. 1. Because it is cheap! 2. Because for the most part it is delicious. and 3. Because we love spending time with them and we know we will always be in for a good laugh with them.

Recently Meredith was on a quest to eat some "soupy jiaozi", otherwise known as dumplings in soup. So we loaded up on our scooters, some chose to walk, and we met up at a dumpling shop. It was the first dumpling place we ate at when we arrived here. Here are some pictures from what followed that evening.

There are many kinds of dumplings: fried, steamed, boiled, and boiled still in soup. These pictured here are the fried kind....mmmm!

Here is Meredith with her dumplings in soup.

And, our dear friend Jason ordered 3 plates of fried dumplings for himself. When 1 plate costs you less than $1 it's not a bad deal!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Everyone! 

We had a great time here celebrating Easter here with our friends. For us on Sunday we listened to an Easter talk from last year and of course ate some great food! Here are a few pictures of us with our friends here after our meal. We had a great brunch filled with waffles, cinnamon rolls, breakfast casserole, and delicious fruit. 

As you can see from the pictures we also had a lot of fun! 

Flesh eating fish!

You can't travel or live in Asia with out hearing about the Dr. Fish. If you haven't heard of such things let me tell you. Looking inside the windows of these shops it first looks like a large aquarium then you look closer and you see there are people sitting inside. You get curious and see these people are sitting on the side of the tank with their feet in the water and the fish are swimming and eating on their feet! From the first timers you hear shrieks of laughter and excitement as the fish swim up and nibble on their toes. During a conference a group of us decided to partake in the fun a laughter.

For both Jared and I it was the first time we had willingly let fish nibble on our toes...we even paid for this kind of torture treatment! We had a great time with our friends and lots of laughter. It was a little bit like torture, at least for those of us with sensitive feet!

Here are some pictures from our fish adventure! 

Pictures from vacay!

Here are some pictures from our travels. We went to Koh Phi Phi, Thailand. We were quite surprised by this little place. This island was pretty much destroyed by the Tsunami in 2004.  It has been quickly built back up and restored. You can still see some of its effects throughout the island, especially where some of the locals live. There are no cars allowed on the island, but it doesn't really matter because you can get anywhere you want in a 10 minute walk. There are a lot of narrow streets with tons of shopping and delicious restaurants. Thai food is yummy! Since there are no cars you must take a taxi boat like the one on the left to get to                                                                                          to more secluded beaches.

Here is a beautiful sunset view from the viewpoint on the island.

These two pictures are from our favorite beach we went to. We got to do some snorkeling while we were here. You had to take a taxi boat or kayak yourself out here from the main beach. Because it was out of the way there were very few people. This beach had the softest sand and the clearest water! 

  

These two photos were taken at the main beach. There are 2 beaches on the island you can get to without taking a taxi boat and this is the better of the two. Since the inhabited part of the island is so small they have packed as many bungalows and hotels in as they can which means it is filled with people by 11am. We enjoyed being here since it was easy to get to and you could go get food or drinks or headback to the room anytime you liked, but that meant you had to deal with a packed out beach. There were many nice people, mostly Europeans, but we met a few other Americans + another Aggie! 

 
 

You can't see it to well but these are the roots of many trees. After spending some time at a beach we decided not to take the taxi boat back to the main area and find our way back. It was a well marked path but our option was to climb over some slippery rocks or climb through these tree roots. Guess which we picked!

Back from the sand and sun!

Well folks, we are back at our home in East Asia. We enjoyed to beautiful sands of Thailand...highly recommended if you have a chance! I have attempted making some Thai food in the past and I think I will continue trying, curry is just about one of the most delicious things out there and there are so many types! 

We did have some adventures while we were there one of which resulted in us pretty much ruining our camera but SD card is still good so we didn't lose any pictures....HUGE sigh of relief! We had a great time going on excursions, hiking up to look out points, snorkeling, kayaking, getting massages for super cheap and laying in the sun.

It was hard to step onto the plane to come back to a colder and well..more polluted place. At the end of out trip we came back and celebrated Jared's 26th birthday in one of our favorite cities in Asia and just returned home last night. The vacation is over and work and school will begin shortly (actually just in time for many of our friends in America to be getting off for Spring Break!) We will be celebrating Jared's birthday with our friends here tomorrow, but for today spend time catching up on e-mails and tv shows! The only thing we have seen of the Olympics is curling--not so exciting. Most of the other foreigners in Thailand were just interested in Soccer--again not so exciting. I will post some more tomorrow when I can get the pictures up.

It has been a long time....and it will be again!

So, it has been a while since my last update my blogging friends. As many of you know not much has been going on here....literally not much at all! I hope you have been reading my emails because I can't fill you in here. So Jared and I have been filling our time watching a lot of t.v.shows (Mad Men and How I Met Your Mother), trying some new recipes (some curry dishes), playing wii (we love Super Mario Bros.) and I have been at work on updating my resume and applying at school districts in the Dallas area (one of us needs a job before we get back!). I have been trying to get in touch with many old friends teaching in the Dallas area to give me some advice and so if you see this and I haven't talked with you please send me an email! Getting all of the paper work together and being overseas has not been so easy.

In just 4 short days we will be heading out for some beautiful beaches in SE Asia! Out of the cold rain and into the sun and palm trees! We will be going to a conference and then on to personal vacation time. We are looking forward to some time together and getting to process a little bit more of our next steps after we come back home in July. We both just recently took a personal assessment called The Birkman Questionnaire and received the results. As we both just sat here and read the results, which someone will go over with us one-on-one at our conference, seemed pretty darn accurate! It was quite an extensive assessment with 33 pages for my results and suggestions for what I need to be aware personally and in relation to others. It also gives some advice of how to best use your strengths in a work environment. Maybe I should look into some other options other than teaching? :)

This was my top "job family"

Administrative Professionals
Administering and monitoring administrative systems or
procedures; includes benefits administration, internal
auditors, credit administration.

My lowest was in sales...I am staying far away from that profession!

Good bye blogging world, we will be back at the end of February! 

Pandas

What is black, white and cute all over? Pandas of course!

We recently had the chance to see these cute animals. We have probably 200+ pictures of them so I just chose a few so you wouldn't grow bored.  When we were first there they were just eating their lunch, but just after they were pretty active.

Jared and me with some Pandas

Now this was a fun panda to watch, we even have some video of him (or her...we don't know which).  We watched him begin to climb up this swing then onto one of the branches. Once he finally got onto the branch he didn't know what to do or thought it was uncomfortable, but we saw him on his journey back down which was filled mostly with us being amazed at how strong this animal is. We got scared a few times he would fall, he didn't until the very end.

A sleeping panda. If I were  to do this I would have major back and neck problems.