Basketball Camp & Scavenger Hunt

Evan's week of slaving over multiple grills is over now and he's actually back in town.

Things went really well for him.  The cooking facilities were definitely different from what he's used to, but he got things figured out pretty quickly and then everything went great.  The kids loved him.  He had a nice group; not too big and chaotic.  I got to spend the last 3 days up there for most of the day.  I had to come back at night to tutor and then would just go back up in the morning and help him out.  LONG days of cooking they were.  I don't know how he cooks for a living.  I would die.

Evan's kitchen for the week. 

Evan decorating Alli. War paint status. 

Summary of us.

It's finals week for me now.  I am officially done with 3 of my classes. One more final next week and then grades to finish off and send to my boss.  It's almost done!

The huge camp is going on now.  Evan and I put together a pretty cool scavenger hunt in town for all of the kids at the camp.  That happened this morning.  It was part photo scavenger hunt and part timed challenges at various locations in the park.  A few of our tasks were removed due to their potential to frustrate some parents (we wanted one challenge to be an eyebrow shaving station.  Each team would get 70 pts for every eyebrow shaved off of their team members, but each member could only shave one eyebrow, not both.)  We also had an egg thing that would carry on through the whole event but I guess one of the kids is deathly allergic to raw eggs so we had to scratch that also.

One challenge required a player from each team to fit a whole order of baozi in their mouth (7 pieces). 

Hop scotch.

Evan and I rented a little paddle boat and cruised around the lake while the groups were all finishing their tasks.  It was fun.  Those boats are pretty strange.  If I paddled, it was fine, but if we both tried to we didn't really go anywhere.  It was fun though.

There are ALWAYS people napping on the benches in the pagoda in the park. ALWAYS. Sometimes homeless people, sometimes business men. Sometimes people play violin and sometimes women are knitting. It's quite great.

Last night was my last night of tutoring with my little ones.  It's pretty awful knowing I won't see most of them again.  We had a really fun night though.  We always do though.  Two more nights of goodbyes and then it'll be easier for a few days.  I am very anxious for our next few adventures once we leave LC.  And then Evan and I (really just Evan) made deep fried oreos and decided to throw some nutella & peanut butter and then roll them in cinnamon sugar... because we're healthy like that.

Oh, Gordon. Cutest little Chinese boy ever. 

Meditation after our ninja fight we had after class. 

If you see her wandering around America, it's because I snuck her back with me. 

The best part of this week has been seeing Jenny 2 days in a row.  Yesterday she brought Nicole with her and the 4 of us (those 2, myself and Evan) went to get ice cream and do some shopping.  Today Jenny met us at the park and we hung out for a bit.  We are planning on going to her hometown (near the farm) early next week.  Evan hasn't been there yet and it's one of my favorite places to go around here so that will be a fun outing.

AND... Evan bought a remote controlled helicopter. He's currently flying it around my apartment. I'm a bit paranoid. 

It's 3 million degrees here right now!  WAY HOT!  It's supposed to be rainy season but apparently all of the clouds have died and the sun is just beating down on us.  It's crazy.  It's gorgeous outside but insanely hot.

That's about all for now.  Time to start packing up the apartment and figuring out how much stuff I've accumulated in the last few months on top of what I already brought home in January. AH!

-Hails