Pumpkin Party

Here in China, they take some things very seriously. Some of those things include families, respect, dumplings, and… Halloween. Most of China doesn't celebrate Halloween, but when they do, they go all out. Last weekend we had a big pumpkin carving party with the kids and it was a lot of fun. It was exciting to get all dressed up with the other teachers. And it was fun to see the cute little kids all excited running around and doing face pain on their cute tiny hands. Not very many kids showed up, but it was still a ton of fun and actually helped cut down on the craziness. Now onto our haunted house which is in a week… that's scary!

Mid Autumn Moon Festival

Our pre-dance selfie. The school had us preform the hokey pokey and "if you're happy and you know it" with our students on stage in front of about 600 people… so fun! And actually quite nerve racking. Totally worth it though!

 All these seats were filled, plus many, many people standing. It was a full house! 

I won a moon cake eating contest on stage in front of the aforementioned 600 people… that's what you get for being an exuberant American that raises her hand without hesitation! I won a selfie stick and a water bottle… good win!After I got on stage I remembered that moon cakes are really not my favorite. Thankfully the ones for the competition were super yummy! No black means or suspicious meat inside.... Thank goodness. I'm a fairly adventurous eater but I don't like hidden surprises. 

Our super cute student dancing their little hearts out. I love these kiddos!

Round Two??

So as most of you know, I recently came home from my mission for some health reasons. While I was sad to be come home, I had a lot of comfort in knowing that it was the right thing for me to do, and that it's, well, not the end of my life. Just because a trial comes up doesn't mean in time to stop moving! So my was of moving on and continuing to focus on others is going back to China! This time I'll be going as head teacher, which means I won't be directly teaching the kids, but I'll be over seeing the teachers. It's a lot of responsibility but I'm really excited!
At first I was assigned to go to a city called Changzhou where I would be one of two head teachers. But now because of some changes I'll be in a city called Changsha and I'll be on my own as far as head teaching goes. It will be me and five other teachers, so the size of the group sounds great.
I of course have been researching Changsha, and it looks awesome! So, a little bit about it;

Here it is, in the south east corner of China in the middle of the Hunan province. It's the capital of Hunan, so that's super cool! In 2010 it had a population of 7,044,118. Seven million! And I mean, that was 5 years ago so I'm sure there's many more!

Another highlight of the Hunan province is Zhangjiajie! These are the mountains where the Avatar (the blue people) movie was filmed. From what I've heard, they are absolutely amazing and I can't wait to see them!

See you soon, Changsha!