Michaella's Birthday in C,h/n.a

My birthday cake!!

By far, my 28th Birthday has been the most interesting of all!  My birthday was held on a Friday and almost all of my students were soooo excited to celebrate their A,meri,ca.n  teachers' first Birthday in C,hin.a!  For starters, my wonderful and loving husband sent me the largest bouquet of flowers I have ever seen...

THREE DOZEN roses... and other wonderful smelling flowers.  And then I sneezed like crazy for three days..
Oh well, it was worth it ;)

Tee Hee  Like I would question him... (Rolls Eyes) <3 <3 <3 <3 

I received many fun gifts from my students and some very nice ones too!  Lots of body and hand cream, an (expensive looking) body beauty set with lotions, hand treatment, face cream and cleanser, and soap bar.  The scent is a delicious olive oil smell.  He likes it too!  One student remembers me saying I had a button fetish...(Really?  I said that?)  And made me a scrapbook page with sewn button on it, all ready for removal and usage... Now let me stop here and say, if anyone knows me, you can probably see my reaction when I saw so many buttons... I have this terrible love, affection and adoration of buttons... its so bad... i think up crafts to do with buttons...  I search the ground when I go out to hope on a popped button from some rich lady's purse...  Oh wow... This is truth people.. I gasped and my heart beat elevated when I saw this fantastic treasure in my hands.  I pulled myself from my glued gaze and said with out sounding as desperate as I felt "Where did you find these buttons??????????"  LOL that took composure... then, she answered what I feared.... "West Market"  I politely said thanks and bit my tongue because West Market is huge with hidden stairs and levels and around dark corners... sigh... oh well, I will probably never find this place.

In the mean time, I will carefully extract my awesome buttons, play with them, attach them to ANYTHING I WANT and..... only dream of finding these "deep bins of buttons" my student speaketh of!!  AAHH... Okay  the secret has been let out of the bag...........
I'M IN LOVE WITH BUTTONS HAHAHAHA

I will have to post a picture of the buttons later, I thought I had a picture of it, but I do not and it is still in my classroom.  Later this week, I should make it up there and post it then :)

After that incredibly exhilarating two minutes and 38 seconds of my day, I was given cards, earrings  more hand cream and an awesome water color painting by one student.  So talented!  I could never paint more than puddles of mud and a sun with a smiley face in the middle... nope I was not given the Van Goh painting gene.

Later on, the head PTO parent dropped off a cake and I felt like crying... I secretly wanted a real Ch.in,e-se cake complete with the singing flower candle!  I successfully fed the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th grade students and myself all of the cake, then a huge chocolate shaving mess was left to clean up and everyone was happy!

The cake was served and cleaned then class began, and my students broke out in the English version of Happy Birthday.  I fought tears of joy from the wonderful love of the day, then they sang it in Kor3a,n,  Ch,in.ese and Bangla (from Bangladesh).  Really, how cool was my 28th birthday??


School ended that Friday, then I had to chaperon one of my students birthday ice skating party... Yep, my days just kept getting better and better.  The parents are actually good friends of ours, they also teach at my school so I have gotten to know them pretty well!  They rented a big van to take the 23... yes twenty-three children ice skating  AAHHH my back was sooo sore the next day!

And so... Saturday came and I went with three of my girl-friends to get an hour long full body massage.  It was wonderful and hurt so bad but wow, it was amazing!  My three friends paid for me as my gift.  If I remember right it was 70 minutes for about $25 US dollars.... I think... or $23.  

Then my sweet husband met us for lunch at a pizza place, the lady who owns it is a C,h r-is tian and donates 100% of her profits to the orphanage the college (Doziers school) is involved in building.  I have briefly talked about this place; with out giving too much detail, it will help some VERY needy children who have been abandoned from the culture just below us geographically.  This.. is about all I can say on here...

The food was amazing and some of their ingredients are imported from the States like their powdered sugar!  It can not be found here!  Oh well, we had a great meal and my husband bought me a new scarf and some chocolates.  After we left the restaurant, a C-h,in-ese man was holding a small handmade-looking string instrument; it resembled a large ukulele.  He came near us and motioned for money, it seemed and so we gave him one yuan (that's about $0.16 US cents) and he played for us a fun song that had us smiling and loving the moment LOL  We have no idea what he sang but he just smiled the whole time he was singing and just fully enjoyed himself   We applauded, then jumped in a taxi and headed for home  :D

All of my 6th grade girls.  They all ooh'd and awe'd over the flowers sent by my husband.  I think they are in love LOL

My Ch,in-e se Cake!!  Look very closely at the candle....

TA DA!!!!  I lit one fuse and it pops open lighting the other candles and sings happy birthday.  sooo fun

Taken in front of my school.  Look at the snow on the ground!  Not much at this point but it was sure cold!

I am holding my gift and paper rose from my husband <3
Oh I am wearing the scarf!

Thank you everyone for my birthday wishes!  It was most definitely memorable!!