Almost Downtown

I spent the night at my friends house the Wirgau's (awesome people) and the next day, my sister's and brother came and spent the day "Downtown." They live near the old part of the city, so we went and got Coco's and walked around and had a lot of fun and made jokes about stuff :) The big building is one thats near us and so far the biggest one in Suzhou.

Phone booth,
Girls,
Really big buildings,
Shadow's,
Limo's

There all good for photo's :)

Here they are!!!! I love you all my lovely followers!!! And only 21 days until home!!!!

Oh and one more REALLY cool thing. One year ago today was the first time I set foot in Suzhou. The day we came here to go to "The SIF" otherwise known as My church now!!!! It's really amazing.
Wow!!!!! (Some pictures are taken by Beth)

In celebration of Violet Mei Landino!

                                             Bethy's sweet, little bunny, out for a photoshoot.

                                                  

                                                

Welcome to the world Violet Mei! 

Our good friends, the Landino's just had a baby girl on May 20th. This year is the "Year of the Rabbit" 

So these pictures, and this post are in Celebration of baby Violet :)

I can't wait to see you Violet!!!!! (And your family!!!) And i'm so happy for my amazing friends the Landino's!!!! I love you all! 

                                                                         Love, A

Just commenting.

I'm running low on comment's :(

*My New Castle city* (It's really a town)

I LOVE NEW CASTLE! I can't wait to go back and see every aspect of it again, including all my friends who live in it and around it. We will be leaving China on June 19th, flying to California, spending two weeks there visiting all our old friends and family and having a jolly time! Then we will head to Colorado for Four weeks!!! We arrive on July 3rd. The next day we will see most everybody at our annual Fourth of July celebration!!! So exciting!!! So if you can't tell, I'm really excited.

Colorado is so beautiful. The Sky is so naturally blue. The air is so fresh and beautiful. The grass is very green although the climate is dry. You can swim in the water there, making the Summer's more bearable!
I'm not bashing China, because I love China :)

The feelings you get in New Castle around the Holidays are so special. We had such lovely traditions there, as we will and do have here, but different (Obviously?). I had and always will have GREAT friends there. I miss seeing them all the time and saying "Hey do you want to come over and spend the night?" Or "Let's go to Glenwood together." Ahhh. Glenwood was so nice too. There's more of a buzz there since it's a city, and the little shops and places to eat are lovely. I am so looking forward to doing everything. I know I can't do everything but not living there but still having it my home I want to enjoy it. It's confusing. :)
Anyway, I'll be there soon. I love you all and really WILL see you soon!!! Oh and here's the Chinese for that... Cong lui yue shi jiu hao dao ba yue wu hao wo men hui mei gua! Translation: "From June 19th to August 5th, we will go back to America!"

This picture was supposed to be of our Van driving away but I guess it was another one! So sad, but beautiful!

                                                             Colorado here I come!!!!!


                                                                        Love, A

*My Suzhou town* (It'a really a City)

I've been in my new home, a.k.a Suzhou China for 8 months. It's amazing and I love it. But theres obviously things I miss A TON about America and Colorado. Anyway this post i'll be talking about China. Next post i'll be posting about America and going home, sound good? Okay.


So Suzhou has been really great. The city, buses, taxi's, Chinese people, new friends, train's. Let me start with the first one, The City... I don't have much to write right now about living in the city but mainly it's just fun after living in a small town for so long (i'll talk about missing colorado soon).

The buses... Okay so I can get around Suzhou on the buses. I don't go by myself but I could get home and to certain places on the buses. The buses are a way to be with the chinese people all the time and try to speak some chinese. You get to your bus stop and see how many stops there are until it gets there. Let's say 4. In about 5 minutes it comes and you jump on, drop in your two qui (about $0.30) and either find a seat or if there all taken, stand up. And sometimes your SO, incredibly squished. Thats when there's about 60 people on the bus...!!! I figured out that i've been on a bus approx. 450 to 500 times since i've lived here!!! So I do like/love the buses. "Xie Xie bus driver." The taxi's are basically just, if we can't get a bus or it's easier. It's a little more expensive and the drive really fast so...

Chinese people. I say "Ni Hao" to a lot of people. A lot of the people are just people in our neighborhood, or our guards. Some people smile and say it back, but some people just stare---
In the bus a lot of times somebody will get up from there seat and offer it to one of us, which is sweet :)
There are a TON of them!!! Everybody know's that. Lot's of scooters and bikes and cars. I'll definitely tell so much more when I see you. 


New friends. Well we obviously have a lot of new friends from the Church and such but like my new friends? Lydia and Leah Wirgau are our very good friends! They have nine kids and we met them at church, and i'm very thankful for them! I love them.

Train's. We take the high speed train about every month or so. We'll go to Shanghai for certain events or birthday's or a three day visit or something so thats when we would take a train. They go like 210 miles an hour and cover about 100 miles in 18 minutes, making it very convenient and fun, to go to Shanghai on :) Oh and it's about 5 bucks each way.

Subways. We don't have a subway in Suzhou yet (another 6 months and we'll have "Line 1"!) but i've been on, I guess quite a few in Shanghai.

Sometimes it's really hard to believe that "I" actually live in China. I mean I don't always think about what that means and you know, living in another Country! I live in China! AHHH!  It's just pretty crazy. And fun.

Okay well I suppose thats enough about Suzhou. Although I can't wait to tell you in PERSON! All my friends and family, i'm so excited to talk about everything with you guys!
I love you all and miss you too!!!!

Jinji Lake as we drive by on the bus. (Can you see the pollution!? But the water is pretty in this picture)

Becca's, Beth's and I's room. It curves to the Left and there's a hallway with closets and a bathroom over there.  Were on the third floor.


Love, ARLJ

Blue Sky, blue eyes

I love the Sky! Okay... well Suzhou doesn't have the nicest air and the bluest sky, but somedays are so blue and beautiful. I love how God made the world SO incredibly beautiful. The Sky, the water, the air, the various, green foliage spread over the earth. I love the dark, night sky with the Stars making it look freckled and musty.

The clouds, all towered up or, stretched out like a cotton ball, being pulled apart.
What if God had made the Sky green and the grass blue? I can't help but think it would be ugly. But since thats how it would be, then we would think it was just as beautiful.

(Two of these pictures are a little tiny bit color edited, no need to know that I guess) 

The hot Summer air, making our skin feel wet.  So here are some picture's I caught just before the Sun went down, and just in time.

                                                                        Love,  A

:)

Hey! Here's a picture of "our" ferris wheel next to our house. I love this picture a lot!!!!!


I'm looking at buying some new CD's since I hardly have any of my own cd's and there's several that I want such as... Owl City that I haven't really heard! And the new movie Rio soundtrack, I'm excited because I like cd's :)


Today we went to Old town and we got these things called Water babies and there pretty awesome.
There gelatin balls that grow!

Let's see, well my really good friend Mikayla (who lives in the States and I don't) made a blog and I think you should all look at it. It's called redheadintherockies.blogspot.com

Goodbye for now! I love you all :)

My Birthday part 2

My beautiful birthday cake and candles! Look down and there's me sick on the couch, like I was all day!!!! 

                                                               (Taken by Elisabeth)

My adorable little sailor mug from Bethy!!! I love it. 

Also from Bethy came my little boat~ 

My bright yellow lamp from Andrew. 

Banana!!! And a sister ring from Becca!

Cute flip flops from my Mommy, which are so cute. 

MY SHOES! There red and have adorable insides (not that, that matters) and bright colored shoe lace's and lace on the front. Yes there super cute. 

And my purse that I bought in Shanghai on the day before my birthday/party.
It's so colorful and cute!!!



So there's some of my presents! I love them all and am enjoying my new things :)
Love, A