New Zealand Day 1 & 2 &3

Hi all!
I figured I should update you all on our trip to New Zealand!

So we left on Sunday December 23 at 10:40 PM. We arrived the next day, Monday December 24, at 2:00 PM. The flight was smooth and uneventful.

Day 1: Dec. 23:
We arrived in Auckland and met our driver. He took us to our hotel where we were left to fend for ourselves. Most of the shops and such were closed because it was Christmas Eve. We ate at a restaurant called the Waterfront. It was a very good restaurant overall. After that we walked around, up and down streets. Dad wanted to see if the old Church building was still there. So owe walked up Queen's Street to find it. And it was still there! Amazing. So we took some pictures and what not, then went back to the hotel, where the kids went swimming, and I promptly fell asleep! We also found out that our driver is some how related to a teacher at school. Crazy!

Day 2: December 25:
The next day we met our driver at 10 for a driving tour around Auckland. Dad wanted to see where his old flat was, so we drove around and down the street where he used to live on. It looks as if his old house (which was a large house) had been destructured and made into 4 or 5 houses. So we drove around and ended back up at the airport, where we flew to Queenstown. When we got to Queenstown, we walked around (it was now Christmas day) and went up the gondolas to the top of a montain so we could look out everywhere. All the stores were closed, as were the restaurants. So we ended up eating room service, which was still good!

Day 3: December 26:
Today, we started out the day looking at our options for what we could do. We knew we wanted to do a Shotover Boat Ride, and a Lord of the Rings tour. So we booked the LOTR tour for tomorrow morning, since its a 4 hour 4WD tour!! And we did the shotover jet boat ride this morning. It was way fun! At the beginning, Camille didn't want to do it, so mom and her decided not to go, but then Noelle began to not feel well, so she stayed and Camille ended up going! It was so much fun! The driver does all these cool tricks and such! Before that though, we went up to Arrowtown which is where most of the gold was found. It was a really small town that we walked around. Oh and mom and dad have been driving us around! They didn't have a van, so both parents had to drive. So after the boat we went back to town and drove around looking at shops and got a small snack. And that puts us here! Another funny bit of info: This morning when we were booking what we wanted to do, I saw a familiar face! We knew one of my teachers and his wife were coming to New Zealand, but never thought we would see them. Then in he walks!!! It was so funny! And then we saw them again later on in the afternoon.

Anyway! I don't have any pictures right now, but I will post them when we get back!


Hope you all had a great Christmas, and we hope you all have a wonderful New Years!

I am going to try and post every couple of days, but it all depends on the internet connection!


Love, The Busaths

IM IN!!!!

So..........

I GOT INTO BYU!!!!!!!!!!

I am so excited!!!!!!!

I was on the radio!!!

SO!! For all you San Joseians who listen to 106.5, Bill and Marla host "The Too Freakin Early Show", which is on at 5 AM your time, which is 9 PM our time. I have been listening to it for a while and I have wanted to call, but never done it...till tonight!! They always ask why you are up so early, and I wanted to say that it wasn't early but late for me! It was awesome!! But then I didn't hear me on at all...and I was bummed. I mean I had one of my friends go to the website so he could hear me and everything...and nothing happened. Then 50 minutes after I had called and talked to them (I did talk to them, but I didn't think I had made it to the air), I hear, "So who is this?" And I hear, its Andrea...and I was like...THATS MEEEEEEE!!!! I was soo excited! I ran upstairs so my fam could hear (It was now 10:30 PM!). I didn't think to record it till halfway thorugh, but there is still two minutes! It was awesome, especially from China. I was hoping that my seminary friends would hear it, since I thought it was live (which it isn't because they edited out a little bit (like the time...they asked me what time it was in China)). So I'm going to try and post the sound so you can all hear it!! And when you do hear it, ignore the loud talking (that wasn't on the radio) and the typing.

I am so excited!!


-Andrea

BYU News...

Well, I got a letter from BYU, but it wasn't what I was hoping for. It wasn't an admittance, nor deniance letter. It was a letter saying my application has been put in their "On Hold" pile. They said that they need more time to consider my application and compare it to other applicants, which isn't always a good thing. So...they said they will make their final decision on or around MARCH 15!!!! So it looks like now I won't know till March, which is really hard because my best friend here in China has already been accepted to BYU, and my other best friend who was supposed to be a Senior this year and applied for BYU over the summer and got in is already there. So these next 3 1/2 months are going to be torture. Unless they for some reason decide to accept/deny me before then, which would be awesome. I just want to know whether or not i have somewhere to go next year, or if I need to start looking at other schools, which would be a big pain.

So that is the scoop about BYU.

-Andrea

Long Time, No talk!

Hi Everyone,
So I guess it has been a long time since I last posted. We can't view blogs very well here, so I don't know when I last posted! Anywho. Halloween came and left. I can't believe it is already the middle of November, and that Thanksgiving is in 6 days, though we don't get to celebrate it till that Saturday.
So Halloween: I didn't really dress up. Noelle was a 60's girl with some of her friends. Ben was a girl. Camille was Dorothy from Wizard of Oz. I went around trick-or-treating, as did the rest of the kids, and then I went to a small party at a friends house where we watched a movie and ate food.
School is going good for everyone. We all (minus Dad) had this past week of for some random reason. They like to give us a week off every month...crazy. We didn't go anywhere because we are going to New Zealand in like...35 days! So exciting. So we all hung out around home. I babysat for two days, which was wonderful. The kids sat at home, like I did when I wasn't babysitting.
Church is good too. I am still the Branch chorister and 1st counselor in the Laurel Class. Noelle is President of the Mia Maid class. Ben is President of Decans Quorem (sp?). Camille is just having fun in Primary. She has actually invited two friends to church, who have come for Primary. They have the primary program on Sunday, which is always my favorite Sunday! Dad is 1st Counselor in Elders Quorem (I believe) and Mom is Relief Society President. So we are all busy at church.
I have finished my application to BYU-Provo and BYU-Idaho. They said to expect a decision in 4 weeks for Provo and 6 for Idaho. But if I get mine as fast as my friend here, Tessa, who got hers in 4 days, then I should expect to have it tomorrow. I will let everyone know as soon as I know! So it is very exciting.
Well I think that is pretty much all. No pictures of anything, but I will probably have some after Thanksgiving. Oh we are having Thanksgiving with just a few families this year. Not the whole branch like last year!

Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the festivities! We miss you all and send you all our love!

Love, The Busath's

你好

你好我们的朋友

我撰写这个在中文。学校诨号。十二月我们去新西兰。 我们魂开心。

Ok. So basically what that says is hello our friends,

I am going to write this in chinese. School is good. In December we are going to New Zealand. We are happy.

Ok on to stuff I couldn't say in Chinese.

We are all doing well and are adjusted to the new school year. I am taking a couple AP courses this year, and getting ready to apply for colleges! :)!)!)!)!)! Yeah, crazy I know.

Noelle is doing well as a freshman. I think she is pretty adjusted to having a laptop. JK. :)

Ben is doing well in 7th grade. We don't see much of him at school, so I am going to assume things are good.

Camille is have a great time in 5th grade. She is in a donut making class on Wednesdays and a dance class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or maybe it is drama, I'm not sure.

Dad left (or is leaving!) for Germany today for a week for business.

Mom has just been having fun hanging out. Oh and she is now relief society president. Our relief society president is moving up by Beijing to be with her husband, so now my mom is relief society president. How fun for her.

As I said, we are going to New Zealand for Christmas for two weeks. So we are all very excited about that. Not much else is going on. My mom wanted me to post some pictures of our new campus so here they are.

These three pictures are of the middle school.

This would be a bathroom in the high school.

These were pictures in the high school.

And this is our wonderful library. It will have shelves...eventually.

If you want to see more pictures, go to www.sis.org.cn and click on "Click here to see pictures of the new beautiful Bayside Campus".

Hope everyone is doing well! We miss you all!

Love, The Busath's

Back in China

Well, our long awaited summer vacation is over. We arrived safe and sound (and under 40 hours!) back to China. We were actually afraid that we would end up with another 40 hour flight when my dad told us that there were typhoon warnings. Luckily they were cancelled, but to be safe we took cars into China rather then the ferry as planned. We had a great time in the US. It was wonderful to see everyone, and if we were not able to see you, we are very sad. It was great to be able to have the freedoms in the States that we do not have here, just like worshiping as we like. It was amazing to go to church in a ward, with an acutal building, even though our old ward is smaller then our branch here! It was also cool to be able to say the pledge of alliegance and to sing patriotic songs. Noelle, my mom and I had a great time at Girls Camp. I was on the rapelling staff as a 6th level, my mom was in the kitchen and Noelle was a 3rd level. It was a great week and I am sad that I will no longer be going to camp. :( Anyway we are all glad to be home, but miss all of you! Oh and Ben turned 13 while we were in the states, and I turned 17!! So as it stands, Camille is 10, going into 5th grade, Ben is 13 going into 7th grade, Noelle is 14, almost 15 going into 9th grade and I am 17 going into 12th grade! Wowsa! Does time fly!

We miss you all already!

Love, The Busaths.

Slacking

Hi everyone...
So I know I have been slacking...a lot. Apparently it has been since May 8th since I last blogged...which is believable. Its not that I don't have time, I'm just tooo lazy. So not much has been going on. We are here in the good ol U.S.A. and we are having a great time! School is over (obviously) and it was a very sad day, at least for me. I had a few people who were moving and so that was sad, and teachers were leaving, and that was sad. But now we are here (in Utah) and having a good time. Everyone is actually sick right now, except for me and Dad, so I am staying away from everyone. Me and the other two little girls have seen Transformers (so good!) and I went to see Harry Potter today! Yes, I saw it on opening day and it was quite good. We are enjoying seeing everyone again. I am not using my computer, so I don't have any pictures to post (not that I have taken any either, which is surprising for me!) But anyways...hope all is going well with everyone and I hope we get to see all of you!

Love, The Busaths.

WOW! Does time fly when you are having fun!

Ok. So it has been a long time. Lets see if I can remember all that has happened!

So Aunt Barbara left to go home on April 12 after a wonderful stay with us. Noelle and I left for ACAMIS, her for basketball in Xiamen and me for soccer in Qingdao on Thursday, April 19th, and Noelle came back on the 22nd, having taken 5th (?) I think, and she had a fun time. I came back on the 23rd, with Team B (the team I was on) taking 8th out of 10, but we should have had 7th and our A team took 3rd, but they should have taken 1st. They deserved it and were better then the team that won. But we had fun anyway!

After ACAMIS came Youth Conference. We had a few days off for a May holiday, and so we had youth conference with the youth in Guangzhou and Xiamen. All the young women stayed at our house, and the boys were at the house that houses church. It was a 4 day long event. Everyone arrived on Sunday. Monday we did a service project in the morning, tying the edges of blankets, and then we went waterskiing and wakeboarding and tubing in the afternoon. That was definitely the best. Tuesday we all went to Hong Kong to go to the temple, and we also got to hear a presentation from the Temple Presidents wife about the history of the Church in China. We then toured the Wanchai building, which houses 1o ward (I think). It has 12 or more floors, three chapels (the second and third are like one building, 4th and 5th one building, 6th and 7th one building) and then there are church offices on the 8-10 or 11 floor, and housing beyond that for the area presidency and such, I believe. So that was fun as well. Then Wednesday was our going home day. We had a small testimony meeting and then everyone left. The whole time I had several projects to do. I will post the link for the projects I did on the Holocaust and the Rape of Nanking (for my final project on my online course).

After youth conference came SAT's for me. I think I did pretty well, and we will find out soon enough. Also, I applied for a scholarship. I found this scholarship where I had to write an essay of no more then 1200 words on why it is important to remember the holocaust and what students can do to prevent discrimination, prejudice and violence in the world today. So, of course that was due DURING youth conference, so I was up till 1 every morning with my best friend, Lily, who helped me re-write it, after I had previously written it, but had my friend edit it. And she basically said re-write it. So there are 10 first place winners who will recieve a scholarship from $2500 to $10,000 as well as an all expense paid trip to Washington, DC with the other winners, and Holocaust survivors. So I am really praying that I win that. 10 second place winners will recieve a $500 scholarship and 10 third will win $300 scholarship.

The same night as SAT's, the BYU Young Ambassadors were in Hong Kong. So of course we had to go see them! They were really good. We know one of the dancers, so it was fun to see her all the way in Hong Kong. We went as a family, as well as part of the Branch President's family went. So that was lots of fun.

In two weeks I am going on my China studies trip. I mentioned back in September that Ben had gone on a trip, and Noelle went to Lijiang back in the beginning of April. I am going to the Xin Jiang province, which is the most western province in China, which borders Pakistan. I am super excited! We are going to have so much fun! The only unfortunate part is the weather. It ranges from 15 degrees C to 39 degrees C in the various cities we are going to! That is 59 degrees F to 102 degrees! So that is a big range, and we cannot take a suitcase. We have to take a hiking pack. But it will all still be fun. The cities we are going to are Urumqi and Kashgar (Kashi). We are hoping we may go into Pakistan, but the hopes of that are dwindling down.

So I think that is the lives of the Busath's up to date. We hope you are all doing well and cannot wait to see you!!! We will be back on June 30th! So until then!

Love, The Busath's

BEIJING! Finally!

Ok. So I have nominated myself to be the World's Worst Blogger. Even though I have been busy, I haven't been so busy that I can't blog about going to BEIJING! So here is the post, over a month late, but here it is. And pictures are trying to come as well! Below is what I originally wrote!

"Hey Everyone! We got back from Beijing last night (not!), and I didn't have a chance to type up what we were doing while we were there, so I'll give the full update now!

So, starting last Saturday (March 24?), Mom and I went to Hong Kong to pick up Aunt Barbara! Dad was sick, so I got to go! It was way fun, and we were so excited to have Aunt Barbara here!

Monday, March 26: Our flight left at 9ish, so we had to leave at 7 in the morning! We arrived in Beijing around 1 o'clock, and met our tour guide, Vincent (Pictured at right). We first went to Tiennamin Square, and walked around there. There are 500,000 rectangular bricks there, and each brick can hold two people, so a total of 1 million people can be at Tiennamin Square at one time, but it would be very crowded. After that, we checked into our hotel, just a short distance from Tiennamin Square. Now, our hotel was right by a big mall, but the only Western restraunts were Pizza Hut, McDonalds and KFC (and Starbucks!). So we ended up eating at Pizza Hut, which wasn't too bad. After that, we just had the evening to hang out. (I did homework!)

Tuesday, March 27: We woke up around 7:45 to get ready for breakfast at 8 (which was at our hotel, and very good, for the most part). We met Vincent at 9 in the lobby to go to the Forbidden City, Cole Hill (don't know if that is spelled right) and the Temple of Heaven. Now all of you know about the Forbidden City. As for Cole Hill, it is a man-made hill, made from the dirt that was dug up to build the moat that surrounds the Forbidden City. All were really fun. We had lunch at a very good Chinese Restaurant, and dinner at McDonalds. Also that night, we went to an acrobatic show! It was amazing! The things these young people could do was incredible!

Wednesday, March 28: This day, we had to wake up a little earlier because we had a lot of things to do in one day. We started off driving 1 1/2 hours to the Ming Tombs, which is where 13 emperors were buried. After that, we went to a jade factory, and were able to see the things that were made there of jade. Aunt Barbara bought a pair of earrings, and the kids bought a little sculpture thing. After that, we went to lunch at some government run place. It wasn't very good, it was kind of like chinese cafeteria food. We then shopped some more, and spent to much time there, because after that, we went to THE GREAT WALL! But we ran out of time there before the gondolas closed. I will post a picture of the area that we climbed, but we only made it like, 3/4 of the way up the last set of stairs (which really made me mad because at the end was where you could see the parts that had not be repaired, and I really wanted to see that). There were 6 towers that we went passed, and Aunt Barbara made it to the first tower, Mom to the second, Ben to the 4th, Noelle and Camille to the 5th, and Dad and I 3/4 of the way up the stairs past the 5th tower. See the bottom red line, that is where we made it too. See the top red line, that was how much further we had!!! And there was even more that we climbed, I just couldn't fit it all in one picture.I actually went farther then my dad, by about 20 stairs. It was so much fun! I really wish we could have gone back. After that, we went to the Cloisene factory, even though it was about to close! We bought some things there, and that was fun to go and see! That night we had Subway for dinner, and just hung out.

Thursday, March 29: We were able to sleep in again till 9. This day we went to the Beijing Zoo to see the panda bears! They were so cute and were a lot of fun to see! After the zoo we went to the Summer Palace. In the middle, there is a huge lake that makes up 3/4 of the Palace. It was a place for the emperess to go to during the summer. We then had lunch, and afterward we went to the Lama Temple. (As in Dali Lama). That night we had a Peking Duck dinner! It was lots fo fun because the power was out! It was really good, and even Camille ate it! She just called it tacos and ate it.

Friday, March 30: We started out the day by going on a tour of Beijing city! We climbed the drum tower which used to be used to wake the city up and tell them when to leave work. After that, we rode in ricksaws and rode around the small streets with kajangles (don't know about the spelling) and inside the kajangles were courtyards. We also got to visit with a local family, who were very nice. The man had a hobby of crickets and grasshoppers. They fight the crickets for gambling. He has been in magazines and things, so he is very well known in Beijing. His son just got married, and is a well-known chef. They also have mander birds that say "ni-hao" and "zai jian". It was quite funny! And they have a dog, Mao Mao whom loved Camille. After wards, we went to lunch."

And now that I am trying to finish it, I can't remember what we did! Friday night we did go to the Hard Rock Cafe in Beijing, and that was a lot of fun. But of course no one had a camera! Saturday we went shopping a little and went ice skating at a nearby mall, and then came home.

All in all, it was an amazing trip! We all enjoyed it so much!

As for the rest of Aunt Barbara's trip, she did all sorts of things. Her and my mom went to the Hong Kong temple, as well as toured around Hong Kong. They did pleanty of shopping, getting clothes made, finding things for friends, getting pearls. Everything. Sadly she left on April 12, but we were happy to have her come!

You can check out our pictures at http://s141.photobucket.com/albums/r63/shenzheners/Beijing/

The password is Busath

Everyone should be able to view it. Let me know if you can't!

Love, The Busaths

Soccer, Beijing and More!

Hey Everyone!
It's been a while since I've posted. Not much has been going on here.
For starters, we had some visitors last weekend. The Middleton's from our old ward, and the Macias' (Sis. Macias was my seminary teacher) have been on a cruise through out Asia, and they stopped in Hong Kong last weekend for two days, so we took them around Hong Kong and into China to our house and shopping! So that was a lot of fun to see someone from home!
Next, I joined the soccer team here! We had our first game yesterday, and my coach kept me in the whole time our team played, while she subed everyone else out! It was awesome! AND WE WON! So I am hoping I won't get cut, because that would be sad.
Noelle has been playing on the volleyball team at school, and last weekend they went to Guangzhou to play in an ACAMIS tournament. They took second place, loosing only once in the final round.
We are going to Bejing at the end of March, and Aunt Barbara is coming too! We are very excited to have here come!
I don't remember if I posted this, but Ben ended up with chicken pox after his appendicitis. It had been going around school and church for a while, so he ended up with it.
I will be posting pictures soon! (I know I say that all the time!)

Anyway, hope you all are doing well!

Love, The Busaths!

Pictures

I don't know if I ever posted this link for the Guilin pictures, but here it is! The password to view the albums is Busath. There are also Christmas pictures.

http://s141.photobucket.com/albums/r63/shenzheners/Guilin/

Appendicitis

Sorry I have been such a lousy blogger. To start off with, as I am sure most of you have heard, Ben had appendicitis. He wasn't feeling well on Friday, and so my mom took him to the hospital and they saw two doctors, both of whom thought he had appendicitis. So then my mom called the American Clinic, and talked to the doctor/nurse person there, who said it sounded like appendicitis and said to just take Ben straight to Hong Kong. Well, we didn't know of any pediatricians over there, so my mom called around to find a good one, then they took the ferry over and saw the doctor at the hospital. They did an ultrasound, but couldn't find the appendix and the doctor didn't really think Ben had appendicitis because he wasn't in to much pain (on a scale of 1-10 Ben said it was like a 3.) But they kept him over night, and the next morning they did a different kind of scan. Then the doctor came in and was like, sorry, but I was wrong, he does have appendicitis and so he will have surgury this after noon (that was saturday). Then the surgeon came in, felt Ben's abdomen and said he knew right away that Ben was having appendicitis, and my parents were like, how? And he said because Ben's muscles would tense up when he pressed on his abdomen. So he had surgery on Saturday afternoon, and all went well. He stayed in the hospital Saturday and Sunday night, and should be home tonight. My parents have been taking turns coming home since only one parent can stay in the hospital room and it is too expensive to rent a hotel room. I have been watching the girls and we have had fun going to my friend Lily's house.

In other news, we had China night at school where we all performed different Chinese acts. Noelle and I sang songs in Chinese, Camille danced, and Ben played this instrument called a hu lu zi. Noelle actually did a duet with this guy, Rasmus, in Grade 10. Originally it was supposed to be my friend Lucy, but last week she got chicken pox and wasn't able to perform. So Noelle volunteer on the spot to sing and dance with Rasmus. She learned the song and dance in 3 days! Camille danced to a chinese song with her class, and I sang a song called Lao Shi Ai Da Mi in Chinese with my group. It was a lot of fun. I have lots of pictures and video (my young womens leader video taped it!) So I will post those as soon as possible.

We hope everyone else is doing good!

Love, The Busath's

China's Plumbing Part II & III

So to continue on with our China plumbing adventure, the workers came back on Sunday morining, and of course, what did they find? Nothing. The toilets worked, the showers worked, and nothing was coming up from the drain. So they look around in the drains and flush them out and such, but nothing was wrong anymore. So our a yi comes on Monday and I ask her to disinfect my bathroom and bath tub. So now everything WAS good. I decide to take a shower at 10:00 on Monday night, and I worry the whole time about it overflowing, but so far so good. So I get out, and start brushing my hair, get ready to leave the bathroom and hear gurgling from the sink. I freak out because I know exactly what is happening, and of course what is it? Water coming out of the drain! So I freak out and go get my mom and Dad and they say there is nothing they can do to fix it. So my dad starts checking it out, and turning the shower on and off (since this is what set it off) and he flushes the toilet and we go and try his since it affected it last time. But of course, nothing happens. So we really do not know what is wrong, and I am against all bathrooms and hate using them because I am cursed! But anyway. It is bound to happen again, and I am worried that it will!

Happy Plumbing problems!

Love, The Busaths

EWWW!!!! Our first bad experiance with China's Plumbing

Ok. So we are currently having our first bout with China's plumbing. I don't know whether they have septic tanks or normal sewers like we have in the states, but what ever it is, its not working right now!!! So at 10:30 tonight (Saturday) I went to go get ready for bed, and went and used the bathroom and such, and I flushed the toilet and then started to leave, when I hear what I shouldn't be hearing of a "normal" toilet. I hear water NOT going down. I look over and see water rushing out onto the floor, but not from the toilet itself. I run and get my father, and where is he? IN the bathroom of course. So I run back ready to cry because I do not know what is going on! I put towels down (I do know that) and try and figure out where the water is coming from since it isn't the toilet. In the houses here in China, there are drains in the floors of the houses and such, and we put heavy duty tape over them so that the coch roaches do not come out of them. So I look over, and yup, there is sewage and water coming up THROUGH the tape. So I proceed to run around and put towels down, and while I am pulling up the shower curtain, I notice the same contents coming up from my shower drain. Great! So I am calling management, and of course, is there anyone there at 10:30 at night that speaks english? No. So I pull out my never been used English-Chinese dictionary and start looking up words for plumbing, pipes, flooding, and all sorts of things. The only thing I can rememer of the top of my head in the state I am in was "water" but that wasn't helping them! So I tell them just a minute (dung yi sha) and give the dictionary to my dad and said look up flood because I already had pipes looked up. So he looked it up and I said PIPES FLOOD! And then they were like OOOH (hao de) And so I am assuming they are sending someone but just to be on the safe side, my mom goes outside looking for one of the many guards that walks around Jing Shan. She brings him into our house and shows him. He is completely and utterly confused. I try and explain to him that "Wo men yao yi ge ren" which is "we want a person" (since I know want, but not need) and then look up the word for "fix" in Chinese and proceed to try and get the message across that we need someone to come and fix this. So he radios in something and proceeds to leave. Finally, we get a call from someone with JingShan that speaks ENGLISH!!! It was wonderful. We told him that we were having the pipes overflow, and so they sent someone. So the plummer man comes and he goes into the bathroom which has water and "other stuff" all over the floor. He turns on the water in the shower and sees that the water doesn't go down the shower drain and that stuff comes up through the other drain on the floor. He then flushes the toilet (which I knew was a bad idea) and that narrowly escapes over flowing. By now I am freaking out! Since I am the only one that uses that bathroom, mainly, I feel it is my fault that it is all blocked up. So the guy says something to me in Chinese, which I don't know what he says, picks up his tool box and leaves. I am like, great. So I go give the synopsis to my parents, and my dad says, well lets flush the master bath toilet and see what happens. I am like sure. So he flushes it while I watch to see if anything happens. And lots happens. So I say that is a very bad idea and no toilets should be used, and seeing that it is church tomorrow, we are going to need to take a shower! I should have taken one today like I felt like I should. Anyway. So we decide that no more toilets should be flushed. Then the plummer guy comes back with a plunger. I wasn't too sure what that was going to do since the water wasn't coming out the toilet, it was coming out the pipes! But I figured he knew what he was doing! So he starts out by flushing the toilet and then plunges it down, while he has his foot on the drain to keep the water from coming up (which while I couldn't see it, I bet just made it come up the bath tub). Then he needed to take off the...I don't know what it is called, but you know how in the bath tub, there is the stopper for if you want to take a bath? And it is attached to the little flippy thing that you push up or down to make it plug or unplug? You know that thing? Well anyway, he couldn't get it off, so he tried plunging over it but that didn't really work. So then he tries taking it all apart but it isn't working. In this point in time, he says something along the lines of blah blah blah ming tien (so something about tomorrow) I take it to mean that he will come back tomorrow. Which isn't good, since 1) we have church tomorrow and we all need to take showers and of course, you always have to use the bathroom in the morning and 2) you just can't live like this! So he says something else, and I think he was going to take dad down to the management office (that is what I got from his actions/chinese) but Dad wanted to check the other bathrooms and see what happened when you flushed and turned on the shower. So in the girls bathroom, nothing happened, and in the "maids bathroom" nothing happened to my bathroom, so we thing that we will be ok to use those bathrooms, but I don't want to use any!!!! I am so worried about waking up and having our house filled with water and "other things". But I know that is fesably (how ever you spell it) not possible. It wouldn't even over flow outside the bathroom. But anywho. I feel better now that I have told the whole world, but it still doesn't make my situation any better, and I still feel like it is my fault since I am really the only one that uses it. But maybe it was my parents fault too because like I said, when we flushed their toilet, the water and "other things" came out of my drain too. Well I hope you all have a good weekend. I am just glad that a plummber was able to come look at it tonight. If we were in the states and the same thing happened, I don't think it would have gotten fixed until monday!!

Love, The "pipe exploding house" of the Busaths

Christmas, Trips and more!

Hey Everyone!
It has been a while since I have updated, and in that time, we have had Christmas, a trip and New years!

Christmas: So for Christmas Eve, we invited those members of our branch that were still here to our house for sandwiches and soup. We had about 40 people and the food was all gone! A lady in our ward had the 2nd of 5 new baby boys, and so we all got to hold him. We was only about 11 days old. So that was fun! Then for Christmas, we started opening presents about 8:30. We all got books, gameboy games, clothes (except for Ben) and other fun things! It was small but good. Then we were planning on going out to dinner for Christmas dinner with a family in the branch, but they bailed out because they were leaving for Vietnam the next day. So we went by ourselves to a place called Mustang Sally's. Most of us had steak, except for Camille, who had a hamburger or chicken nuggets or something like that!

Guilin: So the day after Christmas we went to a place in China called Guilin. It is a one hour flight from Shenzhen to Guilin.

Day 1: So our plane left about 4 PM on Tuesday December 26. We arrived in Guilin around 5:30 or so, and met our tour guide James. He took us to a chinese restaurant where we had some good chinese food. Now here is the funny thing. So us kids are not very adventerous in what we eatbut we failed to mention that we don't like duck (or have never tried it) and so he ordered us some fried duck. So we are eating and eating, and here comes the duck, all cut up, but with the head still. And guess who is the first to try it, with out any pressure or taunting or anything. CAMILLE! IT was so funny! She was like, I think I am going to try the duck first. And she loved it. So then everyone else tried it, and it was really good! Though then again, anything that is deep fried is good! It tasted like chicken. Honestly. The only person who wouldn't try it was Ben. We also had this beef that was spicy beyond spicy. Ben was crying at the end it was so spicy. It was cooked in about 100 hot peppers. It was crazy. After dinner, we went and watched this type of fishing with birds that the Chinese used a long time ago. That was really neat, but was kind of hard to see because it was dark! Then it is off to our hotel for the night.

Day 2: So the next morning we have to get up kind of early to catch the ferry to Yongshuo. Now this ferry ride was 5 hours on the ferry and I wasn't looking forward to it either! The kids all sat together and my parents sat with another couple that were on their honeymoon and are from Mexico. So we had fun talking with them for 5 hours. They were really nice too! So after the boat arrives in Yongshuo, we go to the hotel (or what ever you would call it). It wasn't really a hotel, but then again it was. Anyways, we change into warmer clothes because we were going on a bike ride through the country side. This was my favorite part. The whole ride took about 2 hours or so, and it was a total of 12 miles. It was so amazing. You got to see how people live in the farmlands and everything like that! We even got to take pictures with water buffalo! After the bike ride, we went back and had dinner at a place called the Red Star. We really wanted mexican food after talking with Hector and Julieto (from the ferry ride) about Mexico and mexican food, and Red Star was the only place we could find. So Noelle and I ordered chicken enchilladas, but we got beef and Ben ordered beef burritos. Mom had fajitas and dad had pizza and Camille had spaghetti. Her spaghetti was sooooooo good. It was probably the best. So then we went back and went to bed.

Day 3: The third day we got to sleep in a little, but not to much because we were going to go on a bamboo raft down the Li River. That was a lot of fun too, except it was a little long, 2 hours! Since the river was low, there were dividers that we would have to pass over. Most of them we would stop, get off the raft and then the driver person-thingy would push the raft over the divider thing, then we would get on and put our feet up, and he would push us over the edge!!! That was the most fun part of the rafting. There were also some dividers that we would just go over the edge, like down a little waterfall. The highest one was probably a good 5 feet! That one, there was a man who went over with his wife, and he got all wet, so after that, they wouldn't let dad and Ben go over. They would have their raft go over, then they went to the stairs and got on because otherwise they would have been wet up to their waist. So that was fun! Then afterward we went to Moon Mountain. It is a big mountain with a huge, natural hole in it. Some of the family hiked up at least part of it, but I didn't want to so I sat in the bus with the driver, and he tried to talk to me, but I didn't really understand what he was saying. So I just responded with an answer to what I thought he was saying. Mom, Noelle, Camille and Ben climbed about half way up, and dad went all the way to the top with our tour guide. It was so funny. There are these little old ladies, probably in their 70's or maybe some were even in their 80's and they have their little boxes of goods and they will follow you all the way up to the top of the mountain trying to get you to buy something. And there was one lady, and mom didn't have any money, so she told her that maybe when dad came down we would buy somethings. So she went and sat down on a bench and waited there for dad to come down! She didn't go bug anyone else. She just sat there. It was so funny! After that we went and had lunch at another Chinese restauraunt, and then the rest of the afternoon was ours to shop. We then met our tour guide at 6:30 or something to go to like a Chinese broadway show. It was on the water, and the mountains were the back ground. It was really an amazing show. I don't know how to describe it really. There was some singing, not really any dancing. There were a lot of really cool light effects and other things. We then went to KFC at like 9 for dinner, since we had had a late lunch.

Day 4: We were able to sleep in this morning and that was really nice. We did a little bit of shopping, and then were on our way to this remote art hotel. It was litterally in the middle of no where and was surrounded by farmland. The hotel was the Yuzi Art Hotel. It was founded by a Taiwanese man who needed something to spend his money on. There are many acres full of sculptures. It was pretty cool, but after waiting forever for my dad to be finished taking pictures, we were done. So we went back to the hotel and had dinner. That was probably the best dinner. Everyone ate everything. I forgot to mention we were literally the onlyones in the hotel. There was no one else.

Day 5: We were able to sleep in a little bit this day. We got up for breakfast, ate, and then the family went to look at the sculptures again, since we kind of went through fast on the last section, but I stayed at the hotel and watched CNN, waiting for the execution of Saddam Hussin. SO that was interesting. We then left to go back to Guilin and to go through a cave. That was also a lot of fun. There were huge stagmites and stagtites. (or what ever they are!) After that we went and had lunch, also very good Chinese food again. Then we took a walk around the city, which was fun, afterwhich we went...SHOPPING. But by that time, we were all out of money. Oh well. Noelle got some fun things for her birthday (it is on Saturday and she will be 14!!!) After that, it was time to go to the airport and go home! It was nice to finally be able to sleep in our own beds!

New Years Eve: So we got back the night before New years Eve. On New Years Eve day, we had our friends, the Stevens, over for turkey dinner. We were planning on having them stay all night, but their oldest 3 children, Ben Jenny and Alex decided to go home. So then their daughter Michelle and I decided to go to their house as well and watch movies since my father and Ben were watchin Star Wars. Noelle and Camille had their daughters Katie and Kelly spend the night and I stayed at Michelles. We went to Sea world about 11:30, figuring their would be fire works, and apparently everyone else thought there would be too, so midnight comes around, everyone says hurray and waits. And waits and waits. And no fireworks. So everyone leaves, and we were like, ok. So that was our New Years Eve. I am hoping that we can go to Hong Kong next year since it won't be a Sunday.

Well, I think that is all. That was really long. I posted some pictures with all of this but it was being slow, so I will make a new post with some of the pictures to go along with what I talked about, and I am also going to upload some to Flickr as well, and I will post the link to those later, once I upload them!

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

We love and miss you all!

Love, The Busath's