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Been a while-here are some of the things we have been up to---i will backtrack
Yesterday (Sunday) we went to an indoor waterpark with about 20 other teachers and their children to some resort about 20 minutes away. It was a great way to spend a Sunday morning with the kids-they had various pools and slides for all ages. I didn't get to go to the natural springs hot tubs but i heard they were nice. They boys were worn out and we all took 2-4 hour naps that afternoon.
The night before was Valentine's day. We had our daytime ayi come over around 4:00 to watch the boys and riley and i headed downtown to a Thai place to have dinner. it was great food-turns out our 5:00 reservations were for a different place with the same name (the Bistro not the restaurant)...but since there was only one table being used at the time, they let us in. The food was great and it was a nice relaxing dinner with just the two of us. After dinner-we walked to a newer movie theater in a place called the village. I had been to a movie there a few months ago with a friend-so we were hoping to see one. After struggling to figure out times and which shows were actually in english (there were 3 to choose from), we opted to go get Cold Stone and check out the local DVD shop and get a movie. We ended up getting all three movies that were playing at the theater and about 5 other ones all for 68 RMB (about 10 bucks!) You can't beat that! So we headed home with our new movies and got to play with the boys a little bit before they went to bed. Then we threw in the movie Slumdog Millionaire----fantastic movie! if you haven't seen it yet-i highly recommend it! Great movie to end the night with!
Friday night we took our ayi and her son out to eat at an American Restaurant (he really wanted pizza) and then we went to our school and watched the ISB Jedi Jugglers. Basically 3rd and 4th graders who are jugglig experts. The show started with the lights off and all kids juggling 3 pins with glow-in-the-dark sticks on them (very cool) and it ended with 5 students juggling sticks with fire! Unbelievable! The boys all really enjoyed it!
The week before was pretty typical-school is going well. I joined a local website called Beijing Cafe to get updates/advertisements on baby stuff. i contacted a local lady who actually lives in the compound next to us....and i ended up getting a swing, bouncy seat, and a double stroller-all barely used! Great prices too-everything here is SOOOOOOOOOOOO expensive if you buy it new! i went to a second-hand store with a couple of other pregnant ladies-kind of like a miniature version of Once-Upon-A-Child in the states-but about 1/8 of the size and much more expensive. I am glad i went, but didn't see anything i would buy. Good experience though----in the basement of an apartment building in the middle of nowhere!

That night Riley went out to celebrate a friend's birthday. A taxi-full from our compound carpooled and met up with about 20 other folks at a HotPot restaurant where a bachelor teacher had everyone playing drinking games (Riley had a blast!) and then the whole lot headed out to some Karaoke bar. Riley said the karaoke experience was another one to chalk up as part of the experience here in china. Sounds like music is played and the microphone (or microphones-i think there are 2 of them) are just passed around and if it is in your hands, you have to sing (glad i wasn't there!) Anyway-riley can fill in the details-he just said he had a great time and he had to take a couple naps the next day!

One thing i forgot to mention was Monday night's fireworks warzone. Monday was the official end of the two week long celebration of Chinese New Year. We drove around to a couple villages to see a few of the shows-it was unbelievable! I don't know what was more spectacular the sights or the sounds! it truely sounded like a warzone-constant booming-nonstop from about 7:00-midnight. Riley had a couple people on skype and took the computer outside just to make people listen to the sounds-they couldn't believe it! Riley did spend about 20 american dollars on fireworks and got some dynamite to blow off one of these nights. Back in the states-for one of the things he bought-it would have cost him 20 bucks-and he got about 10-12 different things! Being the pyromaniac that he is----he got two HUGE reels of blackjacks ---the little fireworks that don't light up at all-they just explode loud! i think each reel has 1000 blackjacks connected to it-and i think his plan is to try to set them both off at the same time!?!?!?! let's home we all survive! Seriously though-it is unlike anything we have seen before-and we were even gone for the actually New Year's Eve BIG celebration! Next year........i will see if Riley will take a picture of his fireworks before he shoots them off.
i think that is it for now-this has gotten long-need to update more frequently so there is not so much!
We hope all is going well for you all! We just purchased our plane tickets home for the summer-so we will be home from Saturday June 13 until thursday August 6. We hope to see all of you while we are home!
We love you all-God Bless!
The DuBois Family in China