Shenyang Shower

A few weeks ago, the ladies in our community put together a fun baby shower for me! I walked over with an umbrella, and came back with all these gifts! I have yet to finish writing and delivering all of the thank-you notes, but if any of my Shenyang friends are reading this, thank you so much! I had a lot of fun, the food and games were great, and the gifts are such a huge blessing! I was loved and encouraged by your presences, words, and intercessions. Thank you, thank you!

So many fun and creative games were played, and a cute little baby book for our little one was put together by the ladies throughout the party. What a sweet idea, and I'll keep that book forever. In the picture above, you'll notice an opened package of Pampers. My Shenyang friends wrote messages on all of those diapers. Some were very creative, and even crossed into the realms of poetry. I look forward to reading those diaper messages in the future.

One of the teachers on our team crocheted these adorable booties and bib! She also crocheted a perfect little blanket. I'm amazed by people who have this skill--and I am seriously going to frame these one day.

Since this is going to be the baby-post of the week....I am now in week 31 of pregnancy. Oof. The aches and pains are there. My belly button has all but disappeared, which is fine with me since I am positive that it had drifted off center. I have 10 days of teaching left, and about 17 days until we board our plane for the US.

We now know what kind of visa the baby needs to apply for, so that's a relief. And little details that have been pestering my subconscious, like insurance, our visas, and translating our marriage license--are being calmed by answers.

As we wind down at school, organize our apartment (done!), and prepare to pack our bags, we realize that lives are changing very rapidly, yet again.

Here are some requests to "think" about on our behalf:

*Adam and Julie's classes (preparing subs and plans for the two weeks they will not be teaching)
* That the rest of Julie's time as a 3rd grade teacher would go without a hitch (we have two more field trips coming up, and there are several concerns with specific students or parents that could make the end difficult)

*That Julie would be able to go to the doctor before leaving for the US--there hasn't been time to go in the last 6 weeks. This is especially important so that I can get my records and also get medical permission to travel.
*Safe traveling--that there would be no problems going through customs and that the airlines would allow me to fly....maybe even bump us up to business or first class... :)
*That the baby would continue to develop healthily. That we would be able to find out the gender of the baby--preferably before we leave China.
* That our time in the US would be a blessing to others/us.
*That Adam would be able to find out if he needs knee surgery or not--and if so, that surgery would be quickly schedule and safely executed.
*That there would be no difficulties in transferring to the prenatal care and delivery services in the US.
*That the labor and delivery would be safe, on time, and as natural as possible.
*Baby's paperwork (social security, birth certificate, passport, and visa) could be completed as efficiently as possible.

That's probably enough for now. Thank you....

~Julie

Fundraising, Flowers, & Funnies

One thing that I will miss a lot about teaching is the random laughs I get while grading students' work. Mostly, I find grading to be extremely monotonous and have to force myself to get through it. My attention span is very short when it comes to grading. But once in a while, some piece of work will surprise me--I love this kind of entertainment!

You may have to click on the images if you want to read them--I'm not sure if it will be possible or not, but I either find the next few pictures either very endearing or hilarious.

Here is a an essay about a treasure that has been buried by a character the student invented. Without being given the idea by anyone else, she decided to write in pirate lingo!

Some other buried treasure maps and essays....

I thought the name this student invented was cute...."Scabbard Jones"....

Grading one memory verse after another can be grueling...read this one carefully...the word "ministers" has been spelled in an interesting way.

This little boy is very dramatic. Here is his journal entry about not liking to sharpen pencils. He is an English Language Learner--first year in an English speaking school.

Answer #3 is answer the question, "How do you use electricity?" The textbook wasn't very clear, but I think it mean, "How do you use electricity in your life?" I think his answer is funny. So matter-of-fact. It reminds me of my brother, Tommy.

During our urban communities unit, I never once remember mentioning night clubs. Maybe it's a lost in translation thing....

As part of earth day, the elementary students painted planters and then planted flowers in them. These flower boxes were later put on the window sills of our school to help "beautify" our dreary exterior.

I'm getting really good at taking pictures around school without including any students' faces.

Now for the real story!

We read a book called, "Rent a Third Grader" in my language arts class. The book itself is mediocre and uninteresting, in my opinion, however there is a neat opportunity for fundraising projects that can be emulated in real life. Last year, we raised money for a foster baby's formula. This year, we decided to raise money for the Red Cross in Japan. I made fundraising notebooks for my students, where they could record the work they did to earn money, write their common goals which they developed together as class, and track the total money collected. They also used these notebooks for brainstorming, poster proposals, and reflections. We were doing so well--after a week and a half, they had earned just a tad over 200 kuai by doing odd jobs and chores in their communities. The next step was our bake sale. Ironically, I made three pretty big mistakes that could have hindered the sale in a big way. It's ironic because in the book, "Rent a Third Grader", the characters are always falling into bad luck.

Mistake #1: I forgot to send the letter home that was to inform all the elementary students about our bake sale on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Mistake #2: I forgot to buy brownie mixes over the weekend, and on Tuesday night they were all sold out. So....no brownies!

Mistake #3: I forgot the large bowl of cookie dough that I had made Tuesday night (to replace the brownies) in my fridge...so no cookies!

Wednesday seemed like it would not be a good day for the sale. I had brought mixing bowls, measuring cups, baking pans, pot holders, and spatulas, but had forgotten the doughs and batters. I had forgotten to inform our customers about our little sale....I even announced in the morning staff meeting that we would postpone the sale until the next day.

However, my students impressed me by arriving to school with shopping bags, ziplocs, and picnic coolers filled with baked goods that they had made at home on their own! Wow! We were still able to have our bake and craft sale on Wednesday because the students happened to be more prepared and responsible than their teacher. Have I trained them well or am I losing my mind?

Here's some of the pile of food that the students brought. One girl even brought a brownie mix, which was perfect, since I had brought everything (even the oil!) but now mix.

We got to work, and worked from 8:30-10:30 on making posters, book marks, greeting cards, and other little crafts so that we would be ready for lunch recess and the bake sale that we planned to have during that time.

Here are some poster proposals that won and were copied onto larger posters.

Our first bake sale day, which I thought would be a failure, had an awesome turn out! We had lots of food: banana bread, fruit kabobs with drizzled chocolate, brownies, rice krispies, and pop corn. And we had a lot of crafts to share too!

I was so thankful for my students! I began the morning with confessing and apologizing for my three mistakes. I thought I was going to have to tell them we would have to postpone the sale, which I knew would disappoint their excited hearts...but they pulled through! :)

Cute bookmarks that they created.

Part of a poster....since I can't share pictures of the actual kids, this student's rendering of what the bake sale looked like will have to do.

Even though no one really knew about the sale, the kids still made about 300 kuai! That's quite a lot actually! That left us with a little over 500 kuai--the third graders are trying to reach their goal of 1,500 kuai.

Later that day, a lady bug kept following one particular student around. It was very humorous. So we wrote some sentences about the lady bug and corrected them with proper punctuation.

Thursday's bake sale was more ambitious. I finally sent the letter home to all the elementary students announcing the purpose of the sale and how all items being sold were made by third graders and being sold for 2-5 kuai. We continued making crafts and we baked up a storm! I didn't get a picture of it, but we had two ovens in our classroom, baking non stop for almost three hours!

Cute little paper bird some girls were working on making for the sale.

Setting up while our students ate. My TI and I had a stressful job trying to make all the goodies fit on the table and shooing all the elementary students away--"Go outside or else you don't get to buy anything!" became the overarching threat.

Lots more food. Three kinds of cookies, cinnamon muffins, cheese cake, cheese sandwiches (a cute little girl made since she doesn't know how to bake anything), rice krispies, dozens of brownies, banana bread, more popcorn....so much food! Even cupcakes...

One of my cute little girls made these cookies and then packaged them very sweetly. She is an only child and her mom has a lot of cute ways of packaging food (she sends me snacks sometimes). It looks very impressive for an 8 year old to make, but I totally believe that she did it on her own! She's that kind of over achieving, incredibly talented students that just melts your heart with sweetness.

The back of her cookie package! Looks so much better than my plastic wrapped cookies.


Ok--so the line today at lunch recess was insanely long! I did take a picture of it because it wrapped around the lobby where we were set up and even went outside a little bit. Some people stood in line for almost 30 minutes! My students were able to raise over 700 kuai on today's sales alone! They now have 1,242 kuai in their treasury! With one day left to sell and another week left to work in their communities, they will for sure reach their fundraising goal!

I hope that through this project, they will learn the important of helping of others in need (even their enemies--since there is some cultural animosity there), and that they can do so much to help the world even if they are young. It has been great to watch them take ownership of this project. I will share the common goals another time, but they sound like official statements that could be posted on company websites. They came up with their ideas and voted on everything very democratically and one their own. What great students I have been blessed with this year. I will miss spending time with them very much.

One girl kept saying over and over again, "I just love crafts....I just love crafts". The boys were singing strange songs about mother's day that they were making up as they made greeting cards. There was one little girl who delighted in helping with the cookies because she had never baked cookies before. What a fun opportunity I was privileged to be a part of!

I will miss teaching.

~julie

Death by Heartburn

...or, 29 Weeks.

How do I feel? That's the question I get asked most often lately.

1. I've never had heartburn before. I didn't even know what it felt like. Well, for the last few weeks, whenever I eat I seem to get heartburn. Bananas are the worst.
2. Leg cramps. Holy cow! Leg spasms in the middle of the night--probably one of the most shocking and unexpected pain I've had so far. Yet another symptom that I am totally surprised by. It took me a whole week to recover from the last set of leg cramps.
3. Lots of pressure. The weight of the baby is starting to bear down. It hurts to do everything--like getting out of bed, putting on my socks, and climbing up the steps.
4. Always being thirsty means always having to pee.
5. One good thing is that I'm learning to cope with my back pain a lot better. It's almost unnoticeable to me now, in comparison to other aches.
6. The baby moves like crazy. He or she wakes me up in the middle of the night with calisthenics. This baby is a crazy mover! I think that this might be part of the baby's personality--very, very energetic....all the time!
7. A crooked belly button. It's to the right...

Ok--that's enough about pregnancy for now.

~julie

Getting Ready

Over spring break, the plan was to get our apartment more prepared for baby Johnson. I had a long list of things to do, places to organize, and stuff to buy. But, my plans were cut short almost immediately when I got sick on the first day of break. We were still able to accomplish several things around our home.

We rearranged our living room for the 4th time since moving here. I never thought I would be one of those rearranging people...

We finally put pictures in our various picture frames hanging up around the house.



The baby's room is currently very girly and will have to go through some make-overs if our baby is a boy. The light on top of the wardrobe is not ideal...but we already had the lamp from before and there's no where else to put it.

Adam has the camera on the middle school spring trip right now, so I don't have the rest of the pictures, but there will be another post about the baby's room soon.

~julie

Adam's Birthday Cake

Adam's mom sent us a red velvet cake mix, cream cheese frosting, and sprinkles for his birthday...in October. At the time, I was feeling very sick and did not go into the kitchen at all. Adam did all the cooking, or we ordered out, and I rarely ate at home. Everything about food was disgusting, including cake!

Adam has been a very understanding and supportive husband, but that didn't stop him from teasing me about "not making my birthday cake". I did feel genuinely guilty about it. We didn't do anything for his birthday--I think he made his own dinner and ate by himself! So, long story short, I finally made Adam's cake! Yay!

...and he ate it all...ok, I ate a lot too! :)

~julie

Rise of the Leg Cramps

...or, Week 25

Getting a little larger and feeling a lot more comfortable in maternity clothes.

Look! We're getting more wrinkles...

~julie

Confession

If you've been keeping up with my updates, then you know that quarter 3 ended on Friday. Thankfully, we have a few extra days to submit all grades and comments before report cards are printed and distributed.

After Treasure Island was finished, I devoted myself to catching up with grading--about a month's worth of tests, quizzes, mindless worksheets, essays, projects, and endless workbooks/journals. I had basically caught up in all subject areas by Friday....but I have barely touched language arts. 62 x 8. Whatever answer you come up with, that's how many language arts assignments I have to grade. I'm not even going to mention their science journals.

Sometime soon I hope to blog about when Adam visited the frozen waterfalls outside our city. I would have gone, except we had rehearsal at the same time.

Last night I had a dream that we had more "Treasure Island" performances to do, and I couldn't find the materials I needed my subs to do for "Charlotte's Web" and then one of the actors called in sick and I was desperately trying to convince the administration that we needed to cancel the performance. What a random and out of place dream!

Adam is at the international fellowship right now, listening to a friend share. I would have gone too, except I needed to use our computer for grading. Ok. Break time is finished.

~julie

Hot Pot & Turtles

Tonight, Adam and I went out with some friends in our community to celebrate another friend's birthday. We were happy to try out a new restaurant and celebrate the beautiful life of our friend!

We went out to a interesting and nice hot pot restaurant. What is hot pot? Boiling broth, usually spicy or blandly flavored, that sits on some kind of burner system on the table. You order vegetables and meat that is brought to your table hot. You cook the food in the broth and then eat it. Sometimes there are sauces and garnishes to go along with it. Tofu noodles, or egg noodles too. Everything is done with your chopsticks, or maybe a ladle if the food is too slippery.

I wish that I had had the forethought to have someone take a picture of Adam and I. Oh well. Here's some of our dear, Shenyang friends! :)

Maddy is such a cutie! She smiled on cue for the camera! :)

The waitresses at this restaurant were a little aggressive in their desire to help with the kids. They wanted to play with the kids and feed the kids....very interesting.

Adam's little set-up.

Now for a few very blurry pictures. The man in white is twirling dough around to make noodles for us. We have a few videos, and I'm trying to post them on facebook--so you can check out his kung fu noodle dance on my profile.

Amber's birthday gift for Rachael included a small, and very much alive, turtle. It's very active and miniature. Adam almost dropped it on the floor later on that night when we were sitting at Starbucks! Oh brother...

I'm so full, I could burst! It's an unusually late night at our apartment tonight. I've been trying to upload pictures and videos, and Adam is playing is 360. Tomorrow, we're going to the international fellowship in our city to hear a friend deliver the message. Lot's of 3rd quarter grading and comments to finish for report cards. I wish weekends had several extra hours to spare. They just fly by so quickly!

~julie