Hello everyone! Most of my friends and family know this by now, but just in case anyone is wondering, I wanted to announce on my blog that Camille and I have decided to come back to China for a second year! Our first year is rapidly coming to a close! We leave China on June 27th to go back home for the summer! Thats just a short week away!

Heres whats been happening lately in Huangshi. Camille's mom and sister came to visit! YAY! It was so nice to have some familiar faces floating around our city! Ms. Terri, Camryn, and Camille spent a week in Beijing and then spent a week here in Huangshi doing normal life with us! 

Mrs. Terri, Camryn, and Camille outside of our apartment headed to school for the day!

They went to all of Camille's classes with her that week. 

Camryn got a little tired, so she just sat down with the kiddos. Does she stick out at all?

The view of the entrance of Huangshi Experimental High School from a 5th floor classroom!

The view of the back of our school. There is a track, a soccer field (minus the grass), basketball courts, and ping pong tables. 

Camille and I at the front of our school.

This is one side of the back of our school. It actually looks really cool because the entire school is covered in ivy.

The back of the school. 

This is our little school store that has a plethora of Chinese drinks and snacks. 

We were taking a lot of pictures because Camille's family was here, but also it was the last week we would teach most of our classes. There is no school this week because middle school students are taking their high school entrance exam at our school, but next week, we will teach a few more classes before we leave on Wednesday. Since it was my last full week of teaching, I tried to take as many pictures as I could of all my classes!

We played a game for the last class of the year!

Then I attempted to take class pictures, but the classes are so large that I can't get all of the students in one picture! A lot of students are camera shy and refuse to look at the camera for pictures! 

These two are some of my bad students who sit in the back of class. They were ducking out of the group photo so they got to take a special photo by themselves!

This was the one Grade 2 class that I taught this year. They would be Juniors in an American high school. 

I love this class so much! They knew that it would be the last time I would teach them, so they surprised me and wrote me the sweetest goodbye letters. I started to cry in class because I was so surprised and I will miss them so much! Next year, they will be under a lot of pressure as seniors preparing for the college entrance exam, so I will not get to see them very often!

More of some of the sweet girls from Grade 2!

This is Grade 1 class 9! They are a very fun class and I was actually able to get them all into one picture! I popped in the second picture! Can you find me? 

Well, as usual, Camille and I never know anything going on at our school, and we thought this was our last day of teaching so I started taking pictures with as many students as I saw. Turns out, its not our last  day! We will go back next week and teach for two more days before we leave! The above picture is with Ken and Ben. They are best friends and they are my original "punk students" that were always causing trouble. Since the beginning of the year, there wasn't a single week that went by that I didn't have a story about Ben and Ken. In March, the students changed classes and Ben and Ken became Camille's students. Lo and behold, it turned out that I actually missed having them in my class! Below are Fred and MJ, short for Michael Jackson of course. They are also best friends!

HUANGSHI

Here are some more random shots from around Huangshi. 

Outside of our apartment, older Chinese men and women always gather to play cards or Mah-jong.

City workers always use these brooms made out of branches to sweep the streets.

Fruit vendors on the street. These giant melons are in season now.

Shoe shiners.

Mario handing out pamphlets. Totally normal!

Camille and Camryn with some of our students.

The teachers we shared an office with this year. 

More students.

Matching purses from a store called Sanfu!

This is our friendly neighborhood chicken. He lives right outside of our apartment. This is the alleyway that we live down. 

This is the store at the bottom of our apartment building. 

Alleyway.

This is our apartment. We live on the 3rd floor. We are the third floor windows on the left without anything hanging outside! At the beginning of the year, we purposely didn't put these pictures on our blog. But now that both of our mothers have been here and have seen it in person, it is ok! It really does look a lot nicer on the inside than on the outside!

Driving in China is usually a terrifying experience, but I have gotten pretty used to it. People drive whatever speed they want, on whatever side of the road they want, and no one wears their seatbelt! This was on the way to Wuhan to bring Camille's mom and sister to the airport...strattling the center line  surrounded by a bunch of 18 wheelers...has to be safe!