if you cut it down, then you'll never know

these are some of jimmie's pictures of xiao wu lai that i stole from facebook :)
today was very quiet and slow but the funniest part was after our demo tonight during the parents meeting. i had to go around the room and give all of the parents my comments on their kid and after that, it was time for them to ask questions. the first thing one of the moms asked was 'is megan getting married?!' because a long time ago, i told carol the story of allen's girlfriend proposal with the little black box and my kids just saw me down on one knee and assumed i was getting married. the rumor never really died, and the moms wanted to know what the deal was.they brought a blow up dolphin. pretty fun.
balancing on a rock, which was much harder than it looks.the kids did so well though. their pronunciation was awesome, they remembered their stories, they were speaking loudly. when it was time for them to make sentences they could do it without any help. they were great. i have a special thing for this class because it's the first class i ever taught and they were little teeny babies then and they've grown up so much and done so well.

where this road i'm headed down might lead

i'm going to join a motorcycle gang. from now on, i only want to drive in packs. it is so much more fun than driving alone. 9 of us drove to xiao wu lai (little waterfall) today to swim/hang out on some rocks. jimmie's pictures are on her blog.

the drive was easy, only a couple of turns. well. a couple of real turns where you change roads. a million actual turns. the whole thing was through this neighboring city, bade (pronounced bah duh) and then over a beautiful, giant (windy like you wouldn't believe) bridge and then up a winding mountain road. my 50cc scooter wasn't totally loving it, but we made it. everyone else drives way faster than my usual 50km/hr, andd my brakes are a liiittle iffy, so i wasn't so sure how it was going to do.
(from goteamjosh on flickr).

you forget how beautiful this country is when you spend all your time in industrial taoyuan. the mountains in the north are so pretty. i was all clinched up and my abs, arms and legs were sore driving up the mountain and then i peeked over the side and felt like a dummy for spending so much energy freaking out about the drive when we were in such a pretty place.
(from radio ado on flickr).
that's where we were swimming. can't beat cold water after a sweaty drive and then eating warm picnic lunch when you're really hungry. it was like the asian version of going to dairy queen after a schlitterbahn trip (they opened one in KANSAS?).

on the way home, there was some kind of parade that went for several miles and it had something to do with some kind of .. now i can't remember if we call them gods or not. well, something that people were praying to. there was music and lights and big ornate carriages and incense and general mayhem. i'll have to get the story on that tomorrow.

tess, jimmie and i went for leg massages this evening and it was a perfect end to a really good day. reflexology hurts. and my scooter was jammed between 2 others when we finished so my massage dude had to help me get it out (which has been the case all 4 times i've gone there, for one reason or another). in the process, i smashed my big toe into a neighboring scooters kick stand. ouch.