Halloween 10/31/05

Life has been busy as usual. Last week James came down with strep throat and I spent most of the weekend sad for him and annoyed at the same time that he would dare get sick so he couldn't help me. The girls had a great time at the ward Halloween party on Sat. night. Zoe was a kitty and Marlo was a princess. They were the same things for Halloween. At the party they desperately wanted to do the doughnut eating contest and finally got their wish. I had a hard time getting pictures because they kept spinning around in circles trying to get their little mouths over the big doughnuts. James stayed home in bed so he missed all the festivities. Sunday we spent the day napping to make sure none of the rest of us got sick.
James has been doing well at work. He is two for two at passing his tests. The big one is yet to come and he has to take it the day after Thanksgiving of all days...they have tried to cajole and protest them into letting them take it early with no luck.
I started language training today. Pretty much they told us that Chinese is so difficult to learn don't get your hopes up at being more than a beginning speaker after 30 weeks if you work really hard, and I am only going to get 8 weeks....so I hope to be able to at least buy groceries or tell the taxi where to go. :) Tomorrow we get our first language lesson- today was orientation with learning style tests and paper work. It worked out well though because it allowed us to leave early and pick up the girls to head out to the Corbett's house to go trick-or-treating. They only lasted an hour which was plenty of candy.
We keep getting little bits and pieces from the people we have made contact with in Chengdu and most everything is positive. With all of the upheaval in the world I am excited to go to a new and interesting place where things seem rather calm at the moment.