Christmas 09'

Hello, Merry Christmas!

Some cool things going right now:

- We have both taken some new classes in addition to our current ones. In addition to kindergarten classes, we will both be teaching a couple of classes for 8-10 year olds. We've also been working tonnns lately, subbing for a friend who went to America for the holidays.

- Our church is beginning a series of prayer-walks in an area about 30 minutes from our house, which we're both going to be a part of. I'm excited because I've never done this type of ministry before, although Brian has done prayer-walking in Italy. Soon, there will be some opportunities for mission trips to some neighboring countries, like Malaysia or the Phillipines, which we're really excited about.

-Yesterday, we went to a museum in Taipei to see a new Dinosaur exhibit- it was wicked- I've never seen a life-size Tyrannosaurus skeleton! They also had huge dinosaur models that moved, which were really cool.

-Christmas Day was good this year- we most definitely missed our family at home, but we had some cool traditions of our own together. We also got to spend some great time with our friends, both at a Christmas party and TGI Fridays, on Christmas Eve and day. We can't wait to see friends and family in America again, but Taiwan is really feeling like home.

Christmas Eve party food

and Jenny's cute little gift table

a little jade ring Brian bought me at the night market for 2 dollars- i love it

shoes, anyone?

choc etc. covered strawberries and cherries

mmm these are good

our favorite night market

Merry Christmas!!!
These photos were loaded in a hurry. We are going to the city's Dinosaur Museum and will be back to add more photos and put them in order.

Cheers!!! Brian

hahaha trying to get the corniest Christmas card pic- this one wins

me and my friend Katannya ran a 5k in the pretty city of Banciao 

our Taiwanese apartment

Hello everyone! Sorry we've been slacking w/ the blog- we've been super busy! We've been traveling around a bunch of different cities in Taiwan, acting in plays at each of our schools for Moon Festival, shopping in the night markets (i'm in love with the night markets), and teaching teaching teaching!

I've (Rachel) joined a yoga class which I take with 5 of my Taiwanese (and one Canadian) friends every Tuesday night. Brian's found a rock climbing gym near our home that he's really excited about. We've also been having cooking parties at our friend James' house to get our fix of familiar Western food- sometimes I can't take anymore rice! :) We made Mexican food the other day and it was heaven.

Brian is planning on climbing the tallest mountain in Taiwan, Jade Mountain, sometime this winter. The trip will take several days, so he has to wait until we have some time off work in January. We love and miss you all!

Our hiking group from Wulai a couple Sundays ago

At Fulong beach a few weeks ago

This is our living room- our TV has 10 channels in English- CNN, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Animal Planet, and 5 channels that play movies in English 24/7.

The little room leading to our patio door

Our bedroom- everything is from Ikea :)

The Japanese style doors leading to our bedroom

Our hallway

10/10 is one of Taiwan's national holidays- the flag i made w/ my babies at school! we marched around the school shouting "Jiyoa Taiwan!" (spelling?) which means, "Go, Taiwan!"

our street in front of our apt and some of our neighbors

Me on our awesome porch- we LOVE our mountains!!!!!

Brian on our porch!

Our lovely neighbor- we love her! she lives below us and she speaks no English, so we get to practice our Mandarin with her

We saw Mr. Miyogi in Danshui!

Only in Taiwan... we see dogs EVERYWHERE dressed in tu-tu's, rain jackets, and shoes. oh and riding in purses and strollers. really???

A Sunday in Danshui- a cool little college town in Northern Taiwan

The night market in Danshui- crazy packed

Hey, we live here

Rachel and I by the beach!

At an awesome beach in Keelung. Keelung is port city north of our house, which is quickly becoming one of our favorites. There's beautiful beaches, unique rock formations (like below), and a fairly large city with a great night market! The Keelung Night market is not the best for shopping, but the food is really good.

Rachel with our friends Wes and Daniel- we took a scooter ride over the mountains and up into Keelung city last weekend- it was wicked. This pic is at one of the beaches we swam at.


This is Hsin Hu, the kindergarten that Rachel works at- it is brand new and just had it's grand opening two weeks ago. She really likes her school, and most of her Chinese co-workers are her age- right out of college- which is really cool for her. She has been picking up some Chinese from them at her school too, and they all speak English too.

This is the Dahu Kindegarten were I teach a class of 3-4 year olds and a class of 5-6 year olds. They are some of the smartest 3-6 year old kids I have ever met. They call me "teacher Brian," and they laugh at everthing i do- they are really cool kids.

I have been driving our scooter for about a week now. It was pretty crazy at first adapting to the wild traffic in Taipei but I've really started getting the hang of of it. There are a lot of cars on the roads, but most definitely more scooters. At a stoplight, there can be hundreds of scooters waiting, and they all pull up to the front of the cars at the lights, which is normal here. Isn't she a beauty!

Rachel and I took a Saturday drive through the mountains and to the beach on the other side

Our scooter is the bomb

This is one of the mirrors that helps us see what's coming around the windy roads in the mountains.

After driving through the mountains for about 40 minutes we arrived at the wonderful beaches of Keelung.

A really sweet temple we passed on the street in Keelung, right outside the night market

We arrived in Keelung and joined our friend Tim for some of Taiwans best night market food. We have really loved the food in Taiwan- though sometimes we have no idea what we are really eating!


me, tim and our friend katie watching the fireworks in Keelung

After we spent the day at the beach and at the night market we made a fire and drank tea on some rocks by the ocean. We all jumped into the ocean to swim, but the waves were pretty fierce and we kept being pushed up against the rocks. Since it was so dark, we got out quickly.

Rachel and some of her friends from our training group- Katie and Shoshana

Today Rachel and I took a trip to Taichung with our land lady to hold babies at an orphanage for the day. We really fell in love with those babies. We actually loved them so much we adopted 3 of them. On the way home our land lady Sophia bought us these very tasty "famous" Taiwan cookies.
Kidding about adopting Taiwan babies......but it was tempting.