Sickness Strikes

We're back! We have internet and are able to access it from our apartment. It's oh so nice.

It seems like from time-to-time our holidays are ruined by some nasty virus that makes its way through most of our family. This past week I got sick and shortly after Sydney, Aubrey and Caleb all got sick as well. Its been a few days and although I'm feeling better our kids are still running fevers. We had to cancel our plans of going to a Christmas party with some friends of ours. Then tonight Heather started to also get sick. Between sickness, caring for sick kids and not getting much sleep, it's been a tough week to say the least.

But. Not all has been gloom lately. I've been enjoying teaching English here. I'm not sure if I said this before, but I'm teaching six classes of about 40 students each on Saturdays and Sundays. My students are as young as 6 and as old as 13ish. It's fun teaching them and I'm glad to polish my teaching/managing a classroom abilities.

We also are nearly done with our guest apartment! When we moved to Xining we were able to rent two apartments next to each other for a very reasonable price. The one catch was that we had to finish them ourselves. They were literally concrete shells. And a'm grateful to be able to say that they are almost done. So don't book a hotel when you come visit us you can stay with us!

Isaac is also doing well! He hasn't caught what's been going around so that's a huge relief. He looks less and less like an alien each day (also a huge relief). Really he's a handsome little man. In the next couple weeks we will be taking him in for his standard check-up. We also found out that we need to get his passport/visa in the next couple months (not something we expected) which means we will be heading to the US Embassy in Beijing sometime soon.

Lastly we found a Chinese teacher for the girls that we're really happy with! This has been something we've been wanting since coming to Xining and in the past couple weeks the girls have once again been taking Chinese classes (which they love!). The teacher is great and the girls get out of the house a couple times a week. Soon they will be teaching Heather and I how to speak better Chinese, which will be incredibly convenient except to our pride.

Well this is short, but I hope to get into the habit of writing more now that we have internet.

much love,
the petersons