Golden

My new roommate. Zhu pai in chinese. Porkchop in English.

Mandi and I at my birthday party. She made mint chocolate chip ice cream. It was awesome!

Hey everyone. Here's a quick update. This week, some high school students from Taylor's chrch are visiting our school for their spring break trip. They prepared a lesson and have been teaching it to some of our classes. It's been fun to see them teaching as well as my students reacting to American students who are their age. They're pretty excited!

Last Wednesday, March 28th was my golden birthday. I'm 28 years old! I still can't believe it. Our school schedule has been pretty crazy the last few weeks. We're working this weekend to make up for the holiday we'll have on Wednesday. Because of that, I didn't really expect any kind of a party on my actual birthday. Rebecca and Mandi usually have a girls' group on Wednesday nights, so the guys just said we would go get pizza together that night. However, Mandi had left her book at the apartment, and Nathan said he had left a book of his at the Carpenter's (where they have girls' group), so we needed to stop by on the way to pizza. I was piecing together that this might actually be a trick, but they had a few other good small lies so I was never too positive. When we got to the Carpenter's there was a group of Chinese and foreign friends waiting to surprise me! We had a great time playing games, eating pizza, and watching some American TV shows. They gave me a bike (since my last one was stolen) and a hamster!

However, I was the one who pulled the biggest surprise of the night. I didn't know that they were going to throw me a party, but I decided the timing would be perfect. So towards the end of the party when things were dying down, I told Mandi I needed to see her in the kitchen. There, I got down on a knee and asked her to marry me! She was initially shocked (as was everyone else), but once she calmed down she said yes! Needless to say, it was a great birthday! Once we figure stuff with the wedding, we'll be letting everyone know. We're both extremely happy and excited!

On Tuesday, the two of us are headed to Beijing. My sister (Becca) and her best friend (Ginny) are coming to visit us. It'll be a lot of fun to have Becca here to let her see what my life in China has been like the past few years.

That's all for now! Happy April Fool's Day!