the becky and kansas update...

so heres whats new in our neck of the woods... not a whole lot.. .still planning on traveling.. getting all my crap together to start that.. and actually im planning on starting down at mom and dads.. if dads okay with it.. ya maybe we need to talk daddy... anyways.. need to get all the way out of debt before i travel the us....
oh and i got my hair cut a few weeks ago at mom and dads.... heres a decent pic... and a pic of kansas in the pumpkin costume i bought her then returned.. but hey all i needed is a pic.. then i have no use for it.. haha.... i love you all!!!!

cut off from the world

Hi Family...
This is just to let you know that our blog has been censored and I cannot "View Blog" anymore. :( It seems that I can still post things with no problem (at least for now), but I won't be able to see anyone's pictures. No good... Anyways... both this blog and another one that I have been writing on with some friends, have mysteriously stopped working... sad. So I cannot see your pictures and I cannot comment. But I can still read the posts in the "Posting" section... Love you all! Tami

Hi Family...
This is a picture of Billy showing you all how excited he is about the fact that he was just offered a job today! YAY! Of course I am a touch more thrilled than he is... especially seeing as I had a dream last week that I opened a backery here in Beijing in order to support us. Teehee... So he was just offered a job by a US company named Tibco. It is an enterprise softward development company based in Texas. He has been hired to be a Senior Technical Writer. GO HUBBY! So, I guess you all can call off the canned food drive for us... we are going to be OK afterall..

With love...

Final boat spin

Took our boat out for one of its final spins in the bay yesterday. It was super nice. It made me whine even more about not wanting to leave. Then on our way home took this picture of some fishing boats getting ready to be hauled out of the water for the winter til next fishing season. I'm really going to miss this place. I'm gonna need a LOT of Perrier David. Love you guys
C

Good Morning

Beautiful sunrise this morning, wanted to share it with you. We're just trying to chill and relax for the next few weeks before our lives kick in to crazy work mode again. Two weeks from today, at this time we'll be flying to Portland. We had a such a great summer off. It went by too fast of course! Looking forward to seeing everyone.

more of China...

Since I am home sick recovering, I thought I would post more pictures while I have ample time. It is very boring to be home sick in a foreign country... it is also uncomfortable being sick in a foreign country. You know how everyone will tell you to eat chicken soup when you are sick there, well... here everyone thinks the solution is kongi (rice cooked with lots of water turning out the consistency of tapioca pudding...with NO seasoning...iiiikkk). Anyways... the pictures...


This is Billy and I at Chau-Yong Park in east Beijing. It is a huge park and very nice, especially being in the middle of a city with 20 million people! Like most parks in Beijing, there is an entrance fee... which is annoying... but which also makes it nice because few people go to the parks, and it gives the park the money to keep it very nice. So in a huge city bustling with hordes of people, the public park is an escape. It was a lovely evening and we actually got to watch something of a sunset! (rare in this city)







This is an old worship site at the park also. Now they have replaced the altar/or place for burning incense with a bell that rings now and then... It looks pretty cool with the moon there. (Sorry, I couldn't figrue out how to get it rightside up?!)






Billy loves Italian food... it is his favorite kind of food and he has managed to learn how to make many different Italian dishes (the authentic way). So... being the engineer that he is... he did research and found out about this restaurant that is said to be "the most authentic Italian in Beijing". So... we had to go! :) It was really good! A nice change from rice and seafood! The funniest part was that we asked for bottled water to drink (because if you don't ask, you just may get polluted tap water... I mean really polluted). So they brought us out this water that is imported from Italy! One bottle cost as much as one of our entrees!


I love this picture because it is so typically China. These are two school boys playing with the lid of a manhole. I mean... really playing. We watched them for awhile. People actually get seriously hurt here falling into open manholes. I mean, someone removes the lid--probably for a legit reason like working in it-- and then doesn't put it back... the result... you are walking one night and fall in! Anyways... these boys are near a busy street and lots of people were walking and riding by, but no one said a word... so China of them! :)








Lastly, this is me at our dining room table studying Chinese. You can see a little bit of our view... and you can see that Chinese diet has slimmed me down (a welcomed change!).




OK... that's all for now...

tami

medical advice

So this past weekend I developed my fourth bout of illness since arriving in China two months ago. This time, I was still coughing from the cold several weeks ago (or possibly simply from pollution). Anyhow, Saturday morning I woke up with a very sore throat and felt ikky and had a headache and stuffy head. I dozed on and off all day. I developed a fever in the late afternoon which peaked at 101.5 and stayed there for several hours... it eventually broke sometime in the morning. Sunday I still was in bed feeling yucky. Monday I stayed home as well but was feeling up. Then Monday afternoon I developed an AWFUL cough! I don't have the ability of coughing UP anything... I cough it up and it goes right back down... so I can't tell anyone what color it is or if it is bloody. All I know is that the cough is horrible! I made some sort of home remedy to help me sleep (cayenne pepper, honey, vinegar, water..yuuuumm). I also developed a low grade fever around 100. Then today, Tuesday, I woke up feeling just awful... still coughing up my lungs and blowing out brown/green/yellow things from my nose... YUCK!... and I have developed lower back pain as well...blunt but not pleasant? Not sure if that is mabye from coughing so hard? So because my coughing was getting worse and worse, we decided to go to the doctor... which resulted in an argument because I was firmly inclined on going to a western style hosptial. After being in a hospital in Shanghai with Billy Grandpa, I decided I would rather die alone at home. Anyways... the international hospitals here cost an arm and a leg. The Chinese ones, are dirt cheap. We compromised and decided to check out my schools clinic. It was actually not bad at all (I guess Billy won the argument!). All they did was take my temperature, listen to my heart and ask me questions. Then they decided to draw blood... which consisted of a man taking my middle finger and gabbing (VERY HARD) a razor tip into it and then squeezing the blood so that it would come out. He then took a little, tiny tube and put it there to make the blood go into it... interesting... and more painful than the vein way. They said that something was high in my blood....They prescribed me four things... three of which are Chinese medicine (herbs and such) and one is Azithromycin. Can any of you tell me if that sounds right?? I think it is a sort of antibiotic?? Anyways... we are home now and I am resting again... Any suggestions would be nice... the things you can buy at the "drug" store here are more like ground bat wings and scorpion juice (I kid you not)... no Nyquil option. Let me know all you nurses in my family! Thanks..... Sick in China

travel update

so the plan is still to leave here in feb. starting to stress about the part where i quit my job and sell and give away everything that doesnt fit in my car.... but im really excited!!! still not sure where i want to start but i have time for that. as far as finishing up hiring stuff i have a doc appt next week to get titers done and have him fill out the paperwork saying i have all my shots and all that and going tomorrow to the notary to have them do the I-9 form. then i send it all off and get to start the rest of the stuff. ill keep yall posted.

pics of tami in china... yall will like them

so joel had some pics on his ringo with tami as the white girl. haha... thought yall might like to see!

the one on the left is in tianji. the guy next to billy is joel, i went to high school with him.... and on the right is her fried scorpian experience!

another travelling nurse?

its true... i applied with fastaff yesterday.. still have more paperwork to get to them and all that fun stuff but if all goes as planned by feb i should be in the travelling nursing business. =) and yes kansas can go with me, for those concerned for the well being of the pup. haha.. also it looks like my road trip to oregon in november is a go.. which means ill be up there the 8th to the 16th. we dont have an agenda really so ive decided since mike and caroline will be there until the 10th... we can start in portland. im very excited!!! anyways... ill keep yall posted on whats going on with me travelling and all that fun stuff...

Sorry!

Hello Family...
Sorry for the silence. We have had lots going on here and for the past week haven't had internet at home. But at last I am sitting down to give you an update. We have been in Beijing for about a month now. We are settled in an apartment about a 10 minute bike ride from my school. I started school two weeks ago. I love it!! :) Billy is still jobless. Heehee... that is a matter that needs to be settled soon or I will see you all a bit sooner than I had hoped! He has a second interview with a US company next week... we will see. Here are some pictures to give you a little picture of our life...

We live on the 23rd floor of an apartment high rise. This is the view from our west-facing window. What you see is neither sea-air nor beautiful mist--- rather it is the SICKENING POLLUTION of Beijing... it is one of the most polluted cities in the world, and it is obvious from our window. Only 2 or 3 days of our month here have we been able to tell that there are actually mountains biking-distance away from our apartment... right behind the cloud of pollution you see. I believe that living here too long is bad for your health... and I wonder why in the world they are having the Summer Olympics here!! Poor atheletes!!

This is the parking lot in front of our apartment building.... and below are our wheels here in Beijing... mine are the ones on the right and Billy's are on the left......











This is a picture of a donkey in the bike lane. He is pulling some kind of building materials. Often when I see them, they are carrying a huge load of bricks. They share the bike lane with me on the way to school.


These three-wheeler bikes also share the road with me... they carry anything from fruit to furniture (huge peices!). The men in the background are playing Chinese chess. Whenever you see a group of men gathered around looking down, they are playing chess.... they do it all over and are VERY passionate about how they play!







This is us eating GoBuLi baozi (the meaning of the name is something like "No dog would care". It means that the dumplings are so stinky and yucky that even dogs wouldn't eat them!). I actually really liked them.


(aside: this is also Billy's bad Chinese haircut...)




These are scorpions at the night market that we went to last night... they were alive on the stick in this picture. When someone buys them, they fry them...............

Billy was too scared to try them.....














I DID IT!! :)

he he he he....







And these are skinned snakes and a baby shark... also prepared for human consumption....

I did NOT try these... :)











This past week has been a National Holiday in China. The government decided that it would be 7 days of holiday, beginning last Sunday and ending this Saturday night. That means that they announced that last Saturday and this Sunday will be normal work days... hard for the American brain to comprehend... yes... I went to school last Saturday and have school this Sunday... and EVERYONE had work last Saturday and has work this Sunday! It is crazy!! Anyways... on the holiday we went to Tianjin, the third largest city in China near the water. This is us on a street with lots of fun shops. We had a great stay there!


And this is for you Dad and Mom... this is the fruit that Billy and I were eating as we spoke with you on the phone... Fire Dragon Fruit... good stuff... it is the texture of a kiwi and tastes a little like an avocado and a kiwi mix....






OK... that's all for now... more later. Love you all lots... I really should just write more often, so that when I do I don't fill up the whole blog! :)

Much love to everyone!!
Tami (and Billy)

more boating

here are some new boat pics. the outside of the hull is essentially done, i just have lot's of sanding then lot's of painting to do. i could flip it over right now and put it in the water and it would float as good as it is going to. i guess, technically, that means that i have finished building my first boat. it's still a long way from the water though!

Get outta my yard moose!

Just a little pic of our lovely friends exiting the garden after chowing down on the flowers... brats! My new haircut too! We leave one month from today. Can't believe our little summer off is coming to a close. Looking forward to seeing Dave and Becky and the Portland crew though, and of course spending some time with the families in Long Beach. Mike won't let me post any further boat progress pictures until the spray rails or on, which he says will happen this week, so stay tuned for that! He's working really hard. It will be so exciting to take the boat that MIKE built out! Well, hope everyone is good. Tami and Billy, get on those photo's and love to you all!
C