Finally in a rhythm!

Mandi and I about halfway up Hua Shan 

Some parts of the Hua Shan hike were pretty steep

Spider climbing and jumping off of the Xi'an Wall

The past month and a half in Jingzhou have been great.  However, just like anywhere in the world, switching cities, jobs, and homes means a lot of little things to work out before you really start to feel settled.  Mandi and I are both finally beginning to feel like that thankfully!  We're into a rhythm with our new schedules, our apartments are starting to feel more like home, and we have found some good places to eat!  I will hopefully be able to update my blog more regularly now.  Here's what I've been up to the past month or so.

- The Chinese teachers at the school found out that I like to play basketball, so they have been inviting me to play in their competition.  Different grades are competing against each other.  I think they take the games very seriously, but not the competition as a whole because they've had me play on just about every different team!  It's been a lot of fun to play, and a crowd eventually always shows up to watch because it's not every day they see a white guy playing basketball in the middle of China!

- Mandi and I headed back to Wuhan for a weekend pretty early after leaving for Jingzhou.  Zhong Relations had a team get-together with (just about) everyone this year.  Our group has grown a lot over the past few years.  We now have about 30 different teachers in three different cities.  That doesn't include former teachers who are still in China studying Chinese (Kirk and Rebecca), working at an orphanage (Melodie), or opening an ice cream shop (Taylor)!  It was good to catch up with some of our friends doing new things as well as learning about the new teachers' experiences.

- We recently had a week off of teaching due to two holidays (National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival).  Mandi and I traveled to Xi'an with Paul and Jacqueline Johnson and her younger brother Beau.  I had already been to Xi'an, but it was still a great time.  We hiked to the top Hua Shan Mountain, and the two girls even went out on a plank walk with a couple thousand feet of nothing below them!  I was considering it, but there were A TON of Chinese people traveling due to the holiday (the national government decides the days off for holidays, so everyone in the country has the exact same amount of time off), and there was no way I was going to be up that high with me and a hundred other nervous people crawling around!  Besides that, we just walked and parkoured our way around the city.  Beau is really into parkour (basically running, jumping, and climbing anything and everything), so we all decided to join in.  It was a lot of fun.

- Besides that, we've been teaching, starting the school's first English Corner, and celebrating our 9-month anniversary by watching Taken 2 at a theater that is about a 5 minute walk from our apartment.  I love living in the city center!

Unfortunately, my camera was stolen in Xi'an, but I will still try to use Mandi's camera to take pictures for the blog.  Next update I hope to show you some pics of my apartment and school.

Hope you are all doing well!

Romans 8:31-32