Camp highlights

Time to catch you all up on our last few weeks:)

We did an English camp a few weeks ago.  It went great.  We packed our bags, sports equipment, and packed into 3 vans and took off for a rural city to hang out with kids from a rural school.  It was a fun week of teaching kids (about ages 16-19).  Luke lead the sports activities with another guy and the youth loved it all.  We were told that the last time they got out for a sports day was about in 2007.  It was about time that they got out and played some games!  They did football (soccer), dart throwing in buckets, games with blindfolds, basketball, softball, tug-a-war and more - all of course in English, since it was an English camp.

Highlights:

• Being with the youth and investing in them.
• At the end of the week they did a survey and 90% of them said that their favorite part of the week was the sports.
• William taking his first steps!
• Being in a rural place and seeing the kids and youth's excitement to practice their English with foreigners.
• Working with a great bunch of people!  We had a lot of fun and forged some great friendships.

Challenges:

• Luke, Will and me all in the same room with our friends all next to us.  He woke up one night at about 2 am and it took about 2 1/2 hours for him to go back to sleep.    
• It was a good challenge learning to be more flexible with his food, eating patterns and just meal times in general.  At the school, hot water was only available at certain times, so often we weren't able to do baby rice or heat up baby food jars.  We fed him mostly in his stroller or we used a thing to strap him to a chair:)  He was quite good about eating new things though.
• In general, being away from home just meant a general change of routine for Will.  So we often had to think out of the box and come up with new ways to keep him clean, entertain him, etc.

Will LOVES his friend, Sophie.  She helps him walk and they have good times together.

Kids come from all over the rural part of town and they board at the school.  Here are some pics of the school and area...

The youth...

William...

A little restaurant had a slide with a swing and ball area.  It was SUCH a blessing!  

Since the camp, we've been busy with life but we also had a few days out as family.  It was fun to see a different part of China and to have a break.  We enjoyed it heaps.  I brought us back a cold, but well, I'm told that "it's in the air" anyways.  

It was wonderful to be get back, have William eating in his highchair again, give him back his own room and enjoy being back home.  That's almost all for now. 

Just want to share 3 more pics... Our friends threw William an early first birthday celebration.  Can't believe he's almost one!  And boy did he like chocolate cake!