Rachel and Nicole spent the week studying, because this week is "final exam" week. It is a little bit strange, because they still have a solid 6 weeks of school after the exams. Oh well. They worked very hard, and I feel they will do well. The rest of us had a fairly normal week. I think the most unusual thing was that Mike didn't have many evening meetings. He usually has at least 4 night-time meetings a week, that are call-in meetings to North America. This was a nice change. I made hot cross buns with a friend this week. I've never tasted hot cross buns, and they are very delicious. This is an Easter tradition. The family enjoyed them as well. Friday afternoon, Mike and I were supposed to go next door from his work for a dumpling lunch with friends. Mike was called into a meeting, so I took Eli as my date. We ordered a very interesting deep-fried fish dish. It came, of course, with the head, which was a pretty good size deep-fried fish head. They had drenched it in sauce and added peas into the eye-sockets, and a cherry tomato in the mouth. I saved the fish head. I made pizza for dinner on Friday night, and instead of giving Mike his pizza, I brought him his "special fish-head" dish. The kids thought it was hilarious, but Mike didn't want to eat it. I don't know if he was more disgusted by the fish-head, or it's pea-eyes. I tried not to be offended that he didn't want his special dish, and let him have pizza instead:-)
Easter was a nice day for us. On Saturday, we colored some eggs. A friend who had brought some egg-dye with her, let us use her left-over dye. It was a fun surprise for the kids, who thought that they were going to have to use markers. Believe it or not, my kids actually like hard boiled eggs! On Sunday morning, Eli and Jay woke up at 5:30 ready to find their eggs. We told them to stay in their room for another hour (Christmas is one thing, but they have to wait a while on Easter). They came in every 10 minutes and asked...Has it been an hour yet? Finally we gave in, and had a fun egg-hunt. We had a full house for church. Some of the Chinese national members came, because we had an Easter Dinner afterward. They met upstairs during church, which is not the best scenerio. We really shouldn't be in the same building. The parents of our Chinese missionary, Jake, came for the potluck, after the church service. It was a really nice afternoon. I had ordered a ham from Shanghai, and everyone brought dishes to go with it. We also had a wedding shower of sorts for Tyler and Amanda. Tyler is an American from Utah, and Amanda is a convert from Chongzhou (about 1 1/2 hours away). They will be getting married this summer in the Salt Lake Temple. It was a great day.
