April

I'm excited about this month. Let me get down to reasons.

For one it's my month and 16 is just around the corner! I cannot wait for my birthday. It just makes me so happy.

Two: The warm weather seems to be rather settled into Suzhou now and I'm hoping it's here to stay.
So April maybe could you help out with that?

Three: It's the month before we leave for our vacation! I'm beyond excited but don't get me started.

Four: I'm planning my party. I'll tell you all about it once it's planned! Sweetness.

Five: Just living my life... my family and friends are the best and I'm darn thankful. Oh and another thing? I love living in the city. Suzhou is the best.

I think I'll start another notebook about all this. About April.

Looking forward to quite a bit!

Yay for the month of April. I love you.

Love, me

p.s. I'm posting more often!!! Yes. Oh and I got this new shirt... I really like it. I also got several bracelets. I love them too. Pictures soon!

in the dark

Last night my little sister and I went outside and took pictures. It was dark and we sat on a trashcan, posed with one of our neighborhood guards and stood in the light of the street lamps. I had on my brothers big hoodie and no shoes. It was pretty perfectly warm and the sky had a bit of color left in it. Fun? I think definitely. 

Earlier that day I ate lunch with my best friends, shopped and enjoyed the amazing sun. It was da' bomb. Oh and as we were leaving there was this big screen next to the shopping center and it was playing this really cool song... Lydia and I danced to it and rapped just a little. I wanted to see who the song was by so I waited and it was "One day" by Matisyahu and I was like "I know this guy!!". It made me happy. :) You should definitely listen to it. Anyway, yet another lovely day. I'm blessed with such good family and friends and a fantastic city to live in.

Here is six or seven pictures that I put all together to make one weird picture... I guess I was kinda lazy.
You can see I have several feet and a few heads and then you can see the trash can and there's some bokeh thrown in there too! 

Pictures by Elisabeth Jones.

Love, a

p.s. I just drank a Coco (pearl milk tea) and I wished that Mikayla was beside me. Yeah that would've been fun. :)

Today= a buzzing city

Here's my journal entry for today... and I'm not sure if you'd call it a journal.

Tuesday, March 27th, 2012.

Today it was actually hot. Sweating became a reality again. The city buzzed as I walked through Times Square, shooting random pictures with my sisters, and for some reason the warm weather reminded me of home... actually it kind of always does.

My cold Coco drink tasted really good and of course it made me thankful one more time that I live in China. (I actually live in China isn't that weird!!!?)

As we drove past the lake on our way to dinner, it looked rather calm... but the gray-blue water with the silhouette of the Suzhou skyline was gorgeous. That lake is my favorite. It makes me sooo happy everytime I go by it. 

I think Suzhou is ready for Summer... I didn't say the people are ready for it... just the city.

Shirt and tank: Target.
Jeans: Random, Chinese store.
Belt: Fake market.
Shoes: Auchan. (My new ones, which by the way, I got a pair of red ones and white ones yesterday!)
Glasses: Fake market. (I love my glasses so much).
Backpack: Guan qian jie. (Walking street).

Three sisters! Photos taken by Elisabeth Jones.

Hugs and kisses, a

現在

Right now I'm successfully finishing my algebra and listening to this brilliant, Chinese artist. She's new to me and I'm taking to her quite well. Thank you to some of my best friends for sharing this music with me!

My tomorrow holds more school (as you all know), hanging out, pizza with friends and then a sleep over with the same friends. I'm looking forward to it because they're the best.

Yesterday held some excitement too... after church I went with my brother Andrew to a small, Chinese service where we met up with some of his Chinese friends. After the service we went to KTV (karaoke) which was super fun. It's pretty common here and the Chinese seem to love it. We all sang for a couple of hours and then we went out to dinner. We had north-eastern Chinese food. Pretty delicious! At about 8:00 pm Andrew and I headed home on the bus. I really enjoyed hanging out with them and am excited about getting to know them better.

10:00 pm: I'm sitting in the dark, finishing my math, listening to "Scream."

Oh, and Suzhou is warming up :) Hurray!

What have your past few days looked like? Did you eat any Chinese food? hehe.

The post title means something like "now" or "right now" in good old mandarin.

Goodnight.

Love, a

something like perfection...

...to me. I really love this picture. The background completely catches my eye. The yellow boat, the water and the green trees lining the little, Suzhou canal. And then there are my two sisters who are absolutely gorgeous. Becca's gray hat, Bethy's orange scarf, it all matches.

What do you think?

Happy Sunday friends! 

You all make me happy.

Love, a

I'm happy

You may ask what are some of the things that I am happy about. Maybe it's because I haven't told you in a while or maybe it is because it's good for me to think about all those things. I think there are quite a few.

1) This post. Maybe because I feel the same way and I'm not just saying that.

2) This song.

3) Wonderful friends. *Fēi cháng hǎo. 非常好.

4) An upcoming trip to Shanghai.

5) New, black backpacks and the fact that my friend has the same one. Oh yeah, we bargained for them together. :)

6) Fresh ginger + hot water.

7) Dates with Leah at McDonalds.

8) Burger King dates with Lydia.

9) The color gold.

10) The Chinese language!

And much more than that.

I'm going to elaborate on #4 a bit.

On Sunday night Lydia, Leah, Becca and I are jumping on a train and heading to Shanghai until Tuesday! We'll spend the whole time with my big sister Rachael and the five of us girls will do some more galavanting around humongous Shanghai. Can't wait.

What are you happy about?

With much love,

love, a

*The Chinese I used means "very good" or "very wonderful" and the characters mean the same thing. hehe.

a couple of words and a picture to tide you over

Picture taken by Malachi B. on Christmas Eve of my whole family. :)

So sorry it has been so long friends.

Full length post up hopefully by tomorrow!

Enjoy the picture.

Love, a

cozy season

It's crazy how listening to one Christmas song sends countless memories flooding into your mind.

The day after Thanksgiving we always hiked up into the Colorado mountains, hunting for the perfect Christmas tree. Snow always spilled down, transforming our little town.
Everything was magical.

But... guess what? I'm not in Colorado anymore and everything is still magical. And I'm so excited for this Christmas season! 

China loves their lights, so naturally they put up lots of Christmas lights and decorations. Sure they might be really big and tacky but I, at least, am thankful for them. 

Classical Christmas music has already been playing in shops and restaurants for about a month. Now we can actually enjoy and listen for it.

It will get bitterly cold too. The kind of humid cold that settles in your bones. Burrr.

I miss Colorado a lot right now but as you know I love where I live and I love that I will spend Christmas here! And this won't be the first or the last time. 

Last night I made myself a cup of tea, went up to my room with a candle and our Sara Groves Christmas Cd.

I turned off the lights. But then I kind of wanted to cry. Then Bethy showed me a picture of New Castle... So I decided to listen to the Cd as I went to sleep instead.

A couple of days ago we started listening to our Christmas music and decorating our home with the same, familiar decorations and in a few more days week and a half my brothers will be here... Yes, yes let me put some exclamation points in there---!!!

So here's to the month of December, which has yet to arrive, and to more Christmas posts on azalea blue. 

Shirt: Target (Brand new, brought over with my cousin!)
Tank Top: Target (brought over the Summer.)
Jeans: From a friend (they're used but I love them!)
Shoes: Hand-me-downs from my Mom and before that, my Aunt Judy.

All three photos taken by Becca.

Love, a

Give this song a listen,

and this one! We have too many favorites.

 Look at these shoes! (I don't know if I could wear these but I think they're really cute.)

Did you check this out???

New design! YAY! I guess the "cozy season" got to me.

p.s. To ALL my friends out there, I miss you guys. So much. <3

thanks

This year we were in Shanghai for Thanksgiving. It was wonderful so let me tell you about it.

We headed down on the fast train on Thursday morning. When we got there we went to my sister's apartment and ate lunch near there. She lives in the middle of Shanghai and I love it. It's fun visiting my big sis. Also we saw Hannah (cousin) again. After that my cousin Aaron had a basketball game, so we went to watch it. Personally I love watching basketball and hanging out around a bunch of high schoolers!

We planned to do our big dinner on Friday night so the next day was spent cooking and enjoying everything. That night a bunch of people came over and we feasted! My family (extended and immediate) is the best. I had lots of fun with my cousins and I continue to be thankful for them all.

 Thank you Lord for a lovely thanksgiving.

I guess I already did my Thankful list so, Happy Thanksgiving friends and family, I LOVE you all and I'm so thankful for you.  

                                                

Love, "thankful" a

p.s. Another Christmas post coming up ;)
p.p.s. You definitely want to look at THIS!

                                                

Maggie Moo

                           This is my new cousin!!! She was just officially matched with my Uncle and Aunt!!!

                                          I am so happy to have this adorable little girl in my family forever.
                                                                    Love you to pieces Maggie Moo :)
                                                                                      Love, a

the Bund

This week has been a happy one. Wednesday evening was spent in Shanghai on the Bund with my wonderful family.

My Grandparents came to China and during their visit they came to Suzhou to spend time with us... After they'd been here for a couple of days we went back to Shanghai with them on the train. We headed straight for the Bund.

It was a holiday and there were (let me just say) so many people. We strolled up and down the crowded sidewalk as I snapped away.

I feel like I can't quite tell you how good of a time I had. My pictures can't show you how beautiful this place is and can't give you the "Shanghai" vibe.

My uncle had made reservations at "Lost Heaven", a fancy restaurant on the Bund (Woo Hoo!) and that was just perfect as well. As I sat at the long table in the the dimmed light with my Grandparents, Uncle and Aunt, five cousins, Dad, Mom and siblings I felt blessed.

Delicious food such as Green beans, Chicken, Broccoli, (all Chinese style) was piled onto the table.

My Grandma and big sister Rachael (now a Shanghai native :D)

My night came complete with pictures standing beside young Chinese men (not my doing, they ask.. don't worry!) I wore black boots and my new gray sweater. I feel so blessed to be able to do things like this. To be able to be near family and make such good memories with them. To be able to live in a city and visit Shanghai... even though this isn't the first time I've been on the Bund it is the first time I actually took pictures. 

                                                 It was a wonderful night and like I said, I am blessed.
                                                                                    Love, a


p.s. Want to know more about the Bund? Click here and here's a picture of The_Bund_of_Shanghai.jpg

This is the place...

This is the "old" part of Suzhou. It is super busy. This is the place where people squat on the sidewalks. The place where if it's hot, men pull up their shirts and rest them on the bellies... yeah! The place where babies have "split pants" so they can go to the bathroom whenever and wherever they want. The place where people are always saying "Hello!" and looking at the Americans walking by. The place where you can bargain for anything you buy and get it for what YOU want... yeah pretty awesome. The place where scooters fly by carrying a family of three or four...!
The place where the ladies wear high heels through thick and thin and the young men have crazy, poof-y hairdo's.

So now, pictures of the old part of town.

One street trying to fit in buses, cars, e-bikes, bikes and people can get pretty hectic. I love going down here and doing a bit of shopping and eating. Most of the time we eat at "Yang Yang's" (which has Sweet and sour chicken!)
This is the place where we live, and it's called Suzhou. I love our city even though we don't live in the old part, and I can't wait to show whoever comes to visit us all around Suzhou. So come!
      
                                                                                Love, a

A flurry of things

Last night my Dad, Andrew, my two little sisters and I decided to take our e-bikes (Electric scooters) and ride to McDonald's. It was about 9:00 pm and one of my sisters came up with the idea of a night ride.
We jumped on. My Dad, Bethy and I rode on one e-bike (Oh-so-Chinese) and Becca and Andrew on the other one. It was dark, but the city is never truly dark. The moon was split in half and reminded me of a Sour patch fruit candy which made me miss America. The air was warm but the wind rushing by made my bare legs cool. My Dad likes to drive rather fast and take turns sharper then I would like but he has lots of experience! It took about 15 minutes to get there and we sat down to eat our ice cream cones and two large fries. YUM!!
Then we went home.

Today we rode them down to Times Square and bought our favorite... Pearl Milk Teas and then I spilled it all over myself and had to walk around with brown stains on my shirt! hah.

Becca and I are constantly taking the e-bikes out for rides around the park. They're swift and it's fun driving something :)

Next post designated to writing about such things as: What I'm looking forward to or what I fancy as of late and other things, sound good? 

I couldn't decide whether to put up a lot of pictures or just a couple... I chose neither and went with just one. One that makes me happy and was taken today, by me.

                                                                            Love, A

Photo's of the month~

Hey everybody! I am not back to China yet but I thought I would share a bunch of pictures of the last month! This last month has of course been AMAZING!!! There's gonna be plenty of story's to tell everybody when I get home!

Colorado is SUPER DUPER gorgeous!!! The sky was breath-taking most everyday!! 

Magical day! 

Mikayla's (She's in the purple) birthday at "Zheng" restaurant!!!! I'm in the Red and Becca is in the Yellow :)
(Taken by my sister, Beth Jones)

  Bubbles!!!! 

The AMAZING swing ride, up at the Glenwood caverns that takes you out over the canyon!!! I've been on it a total of 12 times now, counting when I lived here :)
Look it up on google!!!!

Love, A

I've been busy :)

Hey there friends!!! Please don't abandon me! I am on my vacation in America (since I live in China now) and it's my first time home, so I've been hanging out with all my friends, and doing everything! It has been SO amazing. The weather, seeing everybody again after nine months of being away from them, and being back to amazing, ol' Colorado!! The weather has been beautiful blue sky's and our mountain's have been so green and bold. I've enjoyed being here so much, although I do miss being in China.

Okay thats it for now, since I only have my little camera and I haven't uploaded most of the pictures to our computer yet, I'll just put up a picture I did on Polaroid (or is it Poladroid?.)
I love you all!!!

                                                                            Love, A

America :)

Well hello there!!! As you have heard (so jubilantly!!!!) I am in America!!! My days have been spent doing such fun things... Two days ago we got to spend the day with our great friends the Landino's. Since it was only one day we packed in so much talking! They have 6 kids and we hadn't seen there newest Violet Mei yet. Violet is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! We were SO happy to see them again and to see Violet for the first time! There three girls, Paige (15) Claire (12) and Ella (9) are us three girls good friends so we had a blast with them! I love you all Landino's!!!

Yesterday I woke up and my cousins Sam and Hannah took my sisters and I to Ice Cream on this adorable street. It was so much fun and I got Lemon Custard ice cream, because it was that sort of day. After throughly enjoying our ice cream and chatting like we do non-stop we stopped at a little store and I got a piece of paper. You know the big, fun, print kind of paper?! Mine has hot air balloon's on it and I'll probably do something amazing with it.

Then my Papa and Grandma arrived!!! We've had fun so far and we'll only have more fun with them!

Today I'll just spend time in this amazing house with my awesome family :)

I love you all and I'm so happy to be spending these 6 weeks in America, my home!!!!! Pictures to come sometime, although I don't have the nice camera with me so they'll be mostly to show you what I'm talking about :)
                                                                        Love, A
                            

Photo's of the fam.

I suppose it's always fun to see more photos of my family :)

Everybody except Rachael and Andrew, (so not everybody :)

Bethy on the morning of her Birthday with her brand new "Kanani"

Finally a picture of my parents! In front of Royal Peninsula (our compound)

These are some good ones! Enjoy!

My, oh so good looking siblings!!! Andrew and Rachael.