Tuesday Tidbits

I apologize in advance for all the Chara pictures! :)

This past week we have still been getting into the swing of things. We have been pretty tired! It's hard to go back to school after 3 months of vacation! 

Hopefully by next Tuesday we will feel sane and have some grasp on our new school schedule! We've had a great week, though. 

Since Chara has to stay at home by herself through the day, we've made a big effort to take her on long walks when we get home. It's good family time. :) And relaxing after a long day. Most of our pictures from this week are from those walks. 

Get jealous Texas because fall has arrived in Qingdao and I couldn't be happier! 

• We had fresh tomato soup for dinner this past week with grilled cheese. Nice fall food. :)

•  We had so much fun playing in the leaves on one of our walks.

 Chara was super excited to play in the leaves and run free. 

 Look how big these leaves were! Bigger than my face! Also, check out that cute scarf from our care package. :)

Zachary's pretending to be Adam. You know from, Adam and Eve. ;p

 Sweet girl, rolling around in the leaves.

• I love all the landscaping in our apartment complex. I am always finding fruit trees, plants and flowers to take pictures of. This was my favorite this week. I love how it has different colored flowers.

•  I enjoyed all the sunset views on our Thursday night walk. I'm a sucker for sunsets.

Sunset reflected on the lilly pad filled pond.

•  My love. <3

Check out Z's crazy silly face. 

•  Chara is such a snuggly bear. 

 Chara always lies in our lap and then looks up at us backwards, like so. It's adorable. 

• In China you can buy beer in a bag. We never have before but Zachary decided to try it. A whole grocery bag of beer for only 10 yuan. $1.60. From looking at the bag, Zachary thought it was only a bottle's worth of beer, so he thought he had been ripped off. But after we poured it into a pitcher and still had the majority of the bag left, we knew it was way more. We dumped tons of beer down the drain. I think these bags must be for large groups or parties. 

•  We are on a tight budget for the next few weeks, until pay day. We went the whole summer job-less, on vacation, so once we started back to work, we knew money would be tight! We've been doing a great job living frugally. Check out all the Chinese food we bought, pre-made, at the grocery store. Guess how much all of this was? 20 yuan. Only $3.20! And it tasted amazing!

Bao zi (stuffed buns), noodles, eggplant, peppers and potatoes, rice and green beans! 

• This is what happens when I am blogging while toasting bread. Zachary asked me why my first response was to take a picture and not to rescue the bread! Ha. I blame it on blogging.

• As I said, we've been really tired this past week because of work and if you know Zachary, you know that he can fall asleep a.n.y.w.h.e.r.e, literally, and easily. It's sometimes frustrating because it takes me forever to fall asleep and I can never sleep on public transportation but Zachary falls asleep on planes, buses, traines, and taxis, anywhere, while I'm wide awake.

 Sleeping baby. :) He was so tried he fell asleep with a glass in his hand.

• This past week I developed a new breakfast obsession. Toast with peanut butter and banana. Elvis' favorite, they say. 

•  Since it's fading into fall here in Qingdao things have started falling. Not only the leaves but also Chara's summer coat. This is our life with a golden retriever. 

 We have to vacuum multiple times a day. 

When I see all this hair, I try to praise God for such a beautiful, soft haired teddy bear of a dog, instead of freak out! Because it would be easy to freak with alllll this hair everywhere!

• We love this look on Chara. Her lip always gets caught on her teeth when she's watching something intently or begging for food. It's hilarious and cute. 

• We had a great time this Sunday with friends. I am loving all these babies and English speaking kiddos around us. 

This cutie's name is Silas. His parent's, Nick and McKenzie, are our friends who are now expecting another baby! Silas and his new sibling will be 11 months apart! Pray for these busy parents! 

This is Silas' sister, Ella. Nick is from Austria and McKenzie is from the States, and they live in China.

 So Ella speaks German, English and she's learning Chinese. 

Ella has brown eyes, just like me. :) (She pointed this out to me one Sunday)

• This is Jason, well Justin as of today (he changed his name today, because you can do that when you choose your own name ;p ). He is one of my students and lives in our apartment complex. His mom takes us all to school every morning. 

•  We found a bus that goes directly from our apartment to the school for only 15 cents! We are praising God for this! It's super easy to go to and from school now! The bus comes every 10 minutes, so we have barely any waiting time, and our school is at the end of the line, so we always have a seat! Awesome!

• Congratulations to my Dad and Melissa who got engaged this past week!

What have you done this week?

Hope you all have an awesome Tuesday!