Too Many Foreigners in Karamay

Hello everybody! We hope that all of you are doing well and that the weather has been good this summer (especially you in Texas who we read are getting a lot of rain and floods!). We have finally finished our first year of school and have enjoyed this time of "relaxation" for a week or so. I put that in quotations because although we haven't worked, we have been anything but relaxed.

Last week a couple from Louisiana that worked at our school last year visited for a few days. It was really neat to be able to get to know them for the short time they were here and it made us wish we could have spent some time working together to get to know them. Their presence here was also a good occasion for many large banquets and even a chance to go bowling. The picture you see here was taken immediately after a big meal at a restaurant near our apartments that we frequent. From left to right they are: Wei Gong (our boss), Lisa & Blake (the teachers from last year), Heidi (a Chinese friend), us, Kyle, Dr. Best (the man who helped get us this job), Carolyn (a teacher at our school), Susan, and Bill (our boss's son and Josh's student).

Well, our first year here is coming to a close and as much fun as we've been having recently we're not ashamed to say that we're excited and ready to go home. We have a summer program where we'll be teaching for 3 weeks, something we have been dreading all year but will probably turn out to be enjoyable, I think. We leave on the day the program ends, so that will make for a good light at the end of the tunnel.

So that's it for now. Tomorrow will be the kindergarten graduation (weather permitting) so we'll post a slide show of all the cute kids on the website in the next day or two if you want to check back. Less than a month until we get to see many of you face-to-face again! Thanks again for all your thoughts and support (and for some of you, packages and letters). Take care!