Decorating

Well, Chase and I had another fun weekend. We work very hard during the week so it's nice to just relax and do fun things. Funny though, I went into work this morning from about 9:30-1. There's so much work to do. And I don't work well during the week as I am tired from being with the children. So the weekends are when I get most of my classroom management out of the way.

I met Chase at Starbucks in Jianwai SOHO (the group of buildings where I work). Here's a picture of where I work. The school is the three story building admist the taller white buildings. If you look closely you can see the white Christmas tree I get to see every morning when I get to work. Lovely!



SOHO is also where our gym is. So we worked out. Then we went to a place in SOHO called "Grandma's Kitchen" for lunch. It's American home-cooked fare. And it's cozy there. We had major ordering issues. Chase asked for a Mint Chocolate Chip milkshake and made sure they understood he wanted the chocolate milkshake and the mint one to be combined. We ended up with two.... one chocolate and one mint. We sent it back and they just brought us what they combined. We ended up paying for two milkshakes, etc. Anyways, we came home and had a great Chinese study session. We love playing "students." Makes us feel young.

Oh, here's a picture of what it was like outside today. We call it "nuclear fall-out" days when the pollution is this bad. Some people might say this is just what winter looks like but you should smell the air and then make a judgement.



Then we made it home to start decorating our Christmas tree. We are having a very IKEA Christmas. That's where we got our Christmas tree and ornaments. Yesterday we went to a shopping market that is more Chinese and Chase and I couldn't stay there more than 1.5 hours. It's a place where you can bargain and great deals, but the sellers hustle and try to get you to buy things to get ripped off. It's a lot of work to barain. Anyways, we opted to go the IKEA route. We are happy with our tree in a box. Here's Chase opening up the bubbly to set the tone for the evening. Notice he is shirtless. We literally never turn our radiators on. Our floor is insanely hot. We believe someone else inadvertantly has left their radiators on and is creating warmth for us and 20 other residents. We tried to open the windows to get some fresh air because it's so hot in our apartment, but the air was so bad today that it stank up our whole apartment.



At IKEA I bought a cool new mouse apron with hearts all over. Here I am putting it on.



Before...



After...





Yay! We have Christmas in Beijing! Chase is out to the Landmark Flower Market tomorrow to find some Christmas lights for the tree and maybe a tree skirt. It's simple, but it's a start.