Outdoor Pool has Officially Opened

Today I awoke and was just exhausted. Dustin was so sweet and helped me clean the house. I think we have mentioned that the amount of dust that accumulates and the speed at which it accumulates should be in the Guinness book of world records. We had a beautiful Saturday here, with the weather in the high seventies. After picking up and cleaning, we walked down to the market and got some items that we needed for the weekend. As the day was nice and we received a notice that the outdoor pool was opening, we all got our suits on and headed to the pool.

This was the first time we had seen the outdoor pool and it was extremely nice. It has a patio that wraps around it and in the more summer months they have barbecues there every Saturday night. (We are looking forward to this.) At the other end of the pool is actually sand. There is a sand volleyball area and the rest of the sand actually goes down into the pool like you are at the beach.

Today the pool was not very crowded. It was us and two other families. The water is still a little cold, but the kids enjoyed the sand. We met a nice family from Brussels and the kids played together while we talked. (The whole aspect of coming to the pool has brought me to the funny side note of how the locals dress here for seventy degree weather. It is obviously an example of how hot it is going to get here, so do not hate us too much for our seventy degree weather right now. As it will be miserable here soon. To give you an idea of how much hotter it is going to get, the local Chinese people are still all dressed in coats. Babies our in numerous layers. I even saw a person wearing a parka yesterday (I was in shortsleves and could have been easily in shorts as well). Another funny note is that we are in our swimsuits and all the lifeguards are dressed in sweatshirts and athletic pants. They must think we are all crazy.) Anyway we had a great time at the pool and headed back to the apartment for lunch.

While Dustin watched the boys in the afternoon, I went to get a massage. They have a place right at the clubhouse, and Dustin and I were prepared to pay a pretty penny for it. I was so happy when I received one of the best massages of my life and only had to pay $33.00. What a treat.

I got home and Dustin was so sweet and made dinner. We had a little shock when we watched the news to hear them mention the little town that Dustin's grandparents and Uncle live in and near. They literally said "a little town in Arkansas, called Mena was hit hard by a tornado." They of course said nothing further, but we figured it was pretty bad if it made BBC and CNN news in China. We were so grateful that after waking Dustin's dad up in the middle of the night that he said all our family was safe. Unfortunately for them, much of the town was destroyed.

We are looking forward to Easter tomorrow. I brought things from home and they are planning fun activities for the kids at church, so it should be really nice.