No, we're not in Japan, but this might be as close as we're going to get. We gave making sushi our best shot.

First: the cucumber slices, carrot slices, beef strips, rice, and seaweed sheets.
Second: cover the seaweed with a thin coating of rice.
Third: Lay strips of veggies and meat.
Fourth: Roll it up.

Perhaps our downfall was the lack of a sushi mat, or really cheap seaweed sheets, or that our rice was too hot or too wet... but there was definitely a downfall. It was still good; it just looked more like a seaweed massacre than an elegant night at a Japanese sushi restaurant.

In a country practically devoid of turkey, sometimes one must make their own. The first is a picture of a fruit turkey Austin and I made for last Thanksgiving; the second is a picture of a turkey cake we made in the basement of my old dormitory a few years ago, back when we were "just friends."

We had vacation from school this week because it was the country's birthday. It has been so busy, and to be honest, I am met again with that it's-the-end-of-vacation-you're-supposed-to-feel-refreshed-but-you-don't feeling.

In two weeks I will start grad school. I don't know exactly what that will look like, just that it will be more hours of studying, though i think it will be interesting... and a good chance to use my Chinese since I'll have to be going into schools and talking with students, teachers, administrators...

I'm also preparing to run a book club, well it actually turned into 2 book clubs. I offered to host a club with about 10 students-- a maximum of 15-- but our school, completely not understanding the idea of small classes or interactive discussion, "offered" the idea that I include 20 students so more could participate. With these students and their English levels, 20 would be disastrous in my opinion, so now there are 2 10-person book clubs. Then, I bought a book, "Peter Pan," a very simplified version, and the school ordered 20 of them. I made a study/discussion guide for each chapter and felt like we were good to go. Then we found out that the school had accidentally ordered the MP3 discs for the book, but that the book itself was unavailable. SO... back to the semi-distant town with a bookstore that carries English books, and now I'm working on a discussion guide for "The Adventures of Pinocchio."

With the arrival of mini-muffin tins, and the discovery of making healthy soft pretzels and savory scones, you could say that I've been keeping busy in the kitchen once again.

Of course, when there's nothing to be done, there's always the endless mass of Chinese words, grammar, and conversation to be studied and practiced.

And just when I was getting bored... here come the students... it's almost time for class.

Really though, we do have a most excellent life here. There are more pictures of our weeks on our family blog, but here are a couple of pictures from our time together this week.

I turned 24 this year. TWENTY-FOUR! That's a big number! Besides a quarter-life crisis, making sure I wasn't wasting my life, I spent my special day with my wonderful husband and students. That weekend, Austin threw me a birthday party with some of our friends from the local college. Here are some pictures:

First, we had an instructional Ants on a Log making session. They loved it!

Then, we had some birthday charades... this was really fun. We made them up ourselves and chose all kinds of random things, like "a spider eating pizza," "pizza eating a spider," "purple dinosaur," "the man of my dreams," and lots of others.

Sadly, when it was time for cake/brownies, the candles were really cheap and melted upon impact with the warm dessert.

Some people say the best part about a party is the people. They lie. Let's just be honest here, it's the dessert that takes the cake. Austin made a chocolate brownie/cake to be eaten warm with some ice cream (soft-serve ice-cream with oreo pieces mixed in, frozen... yeah, that's cookies and cream ice-cream!!!) It was amazing!

Our friends held the plates in their hands and were so amazed-- "Wow! Cold on one half. Hot on the other half."

I just love him, and from the look on his face, I think it's mutual.

On Sunday, July 25, Austin took me on a Christmas in July date, which started with him making doughnuts for breakfast, our new family tradition as of last Christmas. He even made chocolate doughnuts. Delicious. Impressive. And full of holiday cheer.

For a few weeks we'd heard rumors that our summer break would start soon. One day last week while students were testing, we called a teacher who told us our summer break had started 5 days earlier! Yay!
We'll spend most of our summer studying and hanging out with students and each other, which is really exciting. To kick it all off, Austin asked me on a date last Saturday. He's amazing, alright! We went to the nearby park and had a picnic he'd prepared! I've put a picture of the main ingredients below: sour cream and onion pringles (which we can find in a town not far from here!), tomato flavor potato chips, an amazing slushy that he whipped up, Asian-style bread, and cold cuts! Now, this was the first cold cut sandwich we've had since we got here, and it was AMAZING! Austin cooked and prepared the cold cuts himself. I love you, Austin!