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