A Prophet's, and mother-in-law's, challege

We were fortunate enough to spend three weeks in Utah for our '07 Christmas break. During this time we went to Rob's parent's home for a Stephenson family Christmas celebration. Nancy, a.k.a. "momma Stephenson", gave all of her children and their spouses a copy of the pocket-sized Book of Mormon with a challenge to read a page a day. This goes along with our dear President Hinckley’s invitation to read The Book of Mormon by the end of the year. This challenge was given several years ago, but why not extend it to a yearly basis.
Well momma Nancy, we have accepted this challenge and would like you to know we completed it last night (Friday, September 26th)!; which coincidentally is our one month mark in China! It was a great experience for us, one that was oftentimes difficult to accomplish what with our different schedules, we were not perfect in carrying it out...we missed a day here and there, but we are already seeing the blessings that come from listening to a prophet's, and mother-in-law's, voice. Thank you for the challenge and the opportunity to grow closer together and learn more about our Heavenly Father's plan as a family.
I extend this invitation to each of you (I know, I sound so much like a missionary right now :)). If you're not already doing it, read a page a day and see what blessings the Lord has in store for you!

Catch up time = last few days in Hawaii

Okay, it's going to be catch up time for a little bit, if only for my own sanity.
This is documenting the last week of our life on Oahu. We miss it so much, we had awesome friends, great times, and created unforgettable memories. Isn't funny when you look back on things and recall the past that you're only able to remember all of the enjoyable times?! That's what I've found in my life and this certainly pertains to our time in Hawaii. With that said, here are some pictures documenting such instances.


Aloha Oe! This was on our last Sunday. Our ward sang "Aloha Oe" and gave us lei. I cried, Rob did a little too even if he's not willing to admit it.


Our last Sunday game night with the posse


Mario Carting it up on the WII


We had more food left over in our freezer, this tasty Salmon was one of them. So I made my first attempt at making Salmon and invited the Westras over for a sort of farewell dinner. They all told me it was tasty...we're they being truthful?


This is the one and only picture we have with our pimp mobile after we cleaned her up and sold her :( We bought her for only $1300 and sold her for $2000 (after putting about $600 in for repairs) She served us well!

More "Catch up" pictures-Goodbye Oahu!

Rob was walking with me to my last Hula class and we spotted this winner of a picture in our dear old Manoa!


Rob came to my last hula class and took some pics. As you can tell, I'm far from being a professional but I loved doing it and miss it so bad.


This is my beautiful pregnant Kumu (teacher) Hiwa. She was very patient with this crazy white girl who wanted so badly to learn about the Hawaiian culture through dance.


Co-worker and hula sister Hoku. I worked with her at J.Crew and expressed my desire to learn hula so she brought me to Halau Hula Ka Lehua Tuahine to learn from the best!




My cute hubby playing indoor soccer with Drew O. and Co. They were skins :) Thanks for inviting him Drew!


Rob made these tasty nachos as one of our last suppers, consisting of Costco tortilla chips (Danielle's favorite) Costco peach and mango salsa, black beans, and of course...what are nachos without CHEESE! It was definitely tasty.


The Oesterle's set up a goodbye bbq with many of our great Manoa Ward friends the night before we left. Thanks again guys!

Ni Hao!!

Okay, so I know I've been THE quintessential slacker, but come on, we've had a lot going on. Please cut me some slack?! :) Well, as most of you know, we are now living in CHINA!! We've been here a little over two weeks. I sent an email out to a few friends and family regarding our first few days here, so rather than describe it again...I'm going to take the slacker route and copy it on here. Sorry to those of you who may have already received this information. I promise there will be more/new information to come!

Well, we made it to the land of plenty. The flights went well...long, but well. Our 15 hour flight to Guangzhou was a lot of watching whatever movies they had in English and trying to sleep as well as one can with 5 inches of leg room. Rob was thrilled because they had National Treasure 2, I was particularly excited for Kung Fu Panda...I watched it twice :) So, after watching 4 movies and sleeping a few hours, we stepped off of the plan two days later at 6 AM to some serious heat and humidity, Hawaii has nothing on Guangzhou. My first toilet experience in China was on a "squat toilet" in the airport (a.k.a. a hole in the ground). One has to be a good aim, especially after 15 hour airplane knees. As we were waiting for our luggage to come out I made the, what I thought at the time comical, remark: "I'm going to laugh when our bags don't come out". Well...I'm sure you can guess what happened next. So off to the "baggage inquiry" counter we went. It was an hour after the plane landed that we made it through customs, which by that time our "buddy" that was assigned to pick us up, assuming he was there before, had gone. A taxi was 50 dollars so we thought we'd go for the adventure factor and try to figure out the bus system. That went quite well. We were able to see a lot of the city on our way through and it was only 20 RMB (about 3 dollars) per person! What a deal!! They dropped us off in the center of the city and said it would be wise to get a taxi to take us to our hotel. Rob used his mandarin skills and purchased a map through which we found out it should only take us 30 minutes to walk to our hotel. Seeing as we were in the adventure mode and that we only had our carry on bags and backpacks, off we went. An hour and a great spectacle for the Chinese later we slumped down on a corner in sweat and dispare. I asked Rob to try his skills again so he asked a guy pulling a rickshaw if he knew where our hotel was...he pointed up the street and in delight we followed his directions up the road to our hotel! After walking in and finding some of the guys in Rob's program we dropped our bags off and headed out to check out their new apartments and went on a search for our own for the rest of the day. By the end of the day I was more tired than I've ever been in my whole life and my knee was ready to explode it was so swollen. Needless to say we slept like literal rocks that night. Yesterday (Wednesday) we walked as a group to the university so everyone could register and get get things figured out. The school, and most everywhere else we've been, is great at making you jump through as many hoops as you could fathom and then dreaming up some more for you to try and wriggle your way through. (Side note, on the way to the school my one shirt I had to my name got pooped on :) ) We looked at another 20 or so apartments and found a couple that we liked but couldn't quite make up our minds, or our finances (they cost more than we were hoping and budgeting for). Today we started out going to the different agencies again to see if there was anything closer to our price range. In the end it was between a place with an absolutely, disgustingly, amazing view on the river with a dishwasher and a stove (those are unheard of accommodations here) for 4000 RMB (680 dollars after everything was included) or a place with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a good view and a normal shower, the other was lacking that for a jacuzzi (yeah, it was pretty random) for 3600 RMB + utilities (about 600). We opted for the latter for reasons of functionality. We just got back from meeting with the agent and land lady to sign the contract and paying a 3 month deposit! We now own a place in China, briefly. As I said, it is a two bed/ 2 bath place so if anyone wants to come visit us between now and February we have ample accommodations for you! Another great note, as I was writing this email our luggage arrived!! After wearing this outfit for four days I am ready to burn it. Our poor friends that had to smell us! Luckily we had a few pairs of clean underwear in our carry on luggage.
So after that long note you are updated on where we stand here in China! Can you believe we're in China! We still can't. I think it'll take a while for it all to set in.