Not exciting, but normal!

We had a pretty good weekend - a NORMAL weekend. Although we really, really miss watching Monk and Psyche on Friday nights, we made it through the evening without our shows.

Saturday morning we had a relatively lazy morning; we then went ice skating at a shopping mall. It's a really nice mall with a big atrium area where you can ice skate. Our friends' daughter takes lessons there so we met them, then had some lunch at the Spaghetti House (the lasagne tasted a tad funky, but the pizza is wonderful). Then the boys and I went skating while Tim took Ella with him to get a haircut. We had a blast, and it was so normal, so peaceful to just skate around and not have to worry about communicating with anyone or not being able to get my point across. It felt great.

Then we went home and spent the afternoon playing with the next-door neighbors, who invited us over for pizza that evening. We had a nice, relaxing evening having pizza and conversation with other Americans. Got some nice tips for living here and getting stuff, like the milk delivery everyone gets twice a week. Sweet deal! You can only buy milk in the little skinny cartons, and we go through several of these a week. Apparently there's a guy who will deliver as much milk as you need, as many times a week as you ask him to.

This morning Tim went golfing, which I'm sure felt great for him. For me, it was nice and normal because the ayis all have Sundays off, so it was just the kids and I. We found the church, and I was able to sing some of my favorite praise songs then I got the boys off to Sunday school. Church was mainly Asians and other foreigners - it was interesting to realize how Christianity touches such a vast number of people. I guess I never much thought about it before, but it could have been a Sunday morning anywhere in the world, and it felt so familiar and good to worship with other people.

After church we had lunch at home then headed to the playground for the afternoon. Up and down the stairs a lot, again. We had some downtime when Tim got home, then tonight we were invited out to meet our Peruvian and Irish and Brazilian and Canadian and American friends and eat outside while the kids played in the big plaza/courtyard area. It was a lot of fun. The kids are tired, and I felt like I could talk to anybody I needed to, all weekend. Refreshing!

Tomorrow I start my Mandarin lessons - can't wait!