My first harvest

Its been a while since I've shared some of my highlights with you. Life has been pretty crazy, with school and packing and keeping up with normal life all at the same time. So here I am finally sharing some great moments with you again.

Bowling with friends

I had a friend come to visit over the May holiday,we and some of our other friends went bowling together, it was their first time ever to bowl. I had a lot of fun trying to teach them, and watching them get excited when they did amazing. They were better than me...but what can I say, its been a while. :)

My friend got her first strike ever!

We may be from different countries, but we all look the same in bowling shoes - a little weird.

Dumplings ( Jiao-zi )

Recently a friend took us to a little hole in the wall restaurant on our street, that has the best dumplings I have eaten here so far. And it's super cheap! A little less than a dollar for this platter. Yummy!

My first harvest of cilantro!

I have been sad at the reality of us moving soon, and not being able to harvest all the goodness from my garden that I've put a lot of time and effort into. I don't regret any of it though. It has been so much fun for me to watch my garden grow, and I'm glad that I took advantage of my roof top space. Thankfully I have been able to harvest a few things already, which makes it all worth it. :) The first harvest has been cilantro! Somehow it seemed like the best cilantro I have ever eaten, but maybe that was just my imagination.

Hello date with my love

We discovered a cute new dessert place that is close by, we were drawn to it by obvious reasons. :) The dessert turned out to be delish and it was a fun place to hang out as well.

Love,

Jessica

It's Spring!

   It's been a wonderfully warm week. Other then having a cold, I've really been able to enjoy the warmth and new life that is springing up all around me. Here are some of the splashes of color and good moments I've experienced this week.

1. I love that its warm enough to walk around the house in my bare feet. Yay Spring!

2. I had my first green bean sprout up this week, I feel like it came out of no where. I was on the roof around noon one day and there was nothing…come evening there was an inch high bean stalk in the garden! I was so excited!

3. My plants are all growing so much! They are all ready to transplant, we just have to get our plot of dirt prepared. See all the white paper cups? They all have tomatoes in them and are ready to give away to friends!

4. Evening walk to our favorite bubble tea shop. :)  This time we tried one of our favorites with half the sugar and it turned out perfect. Great way to end the day. Here's a picture I took while we were out.

Balloons for sale!

5. I put Instagram on my iPod. I am pretty stoked for all the cool effects it can give to pictures! Here are some of my favorites from this week.

6. This is one of the roses Ian gave me almost two weeks ago, it just keeps looking beautiful long after the other rose died. It’s amazing how much one flower given in love brightens my day every time I look at it. :)

7. Beautiful purple flowers I saw while out on a walk. These are climbing vine flowers, I'm not sure what kind they are since I've never seen them before. They were a wonderful surprise for my eyes!

d,

Jessica

A time to plant

   This week had some great moments filled with life and rest and beauty. Life is made up of many good and also hard moments, but I love sharing some of the good times with you.  It's been really fun to look back on my week and recognize and be thankful for all the big and little gifts we have been given. 

This week’s highlights

1. We have a new nephew! His name is Zeke Michael. He is definitely a highlight! We now have 7 wonderful nieces and nephews who we miss like crazy!! 

2. Having a break from school. :) There was a national holiday here. Tomb sweeping day. So we got the week off, which was nice. My brain was definitely in need of a language break!

3. Going to a flower market with a good friend and picking some beautiful flowers for my windowsill. These flowers are really helping to brighten up the gloomy gray skies and rain that we have had the last few days.

The load of flowers my friend and I took home

Re-potting the flowers

My beautified windowsill!

Aren't these gorgeous!

4. Planting more seeds! I also picked up some new seeds at the market, and planted pumpkins, red peppers, yellow cherry tomatoes, green beans, strawberries (from seed), and some flowers from seed. I can't wait till all of these sprout as well. Here are some updated pictures of my ever growing veggie plants.

Beef Tomatoes, Spinach, Cucumbers, and Cilantro

Love,
Jessica

Spinach Sprouts

   Winner of the first to sprout award goes to the Spinach! Now there are sprouts of everything! Its so exciting! We just need to find a place to get a whole lot of dirt, and create a good space for all the plants to grow.

   I did go a little (ok, a lot) over board with my planting...two whole packages of tomatoes (they were different kinds) and two packages of cucumbers. I wasn't sure if the seeds would all grow, but they pretty much all did. Yeah, I didn't really think through that one, so now all my friends will be getting their own tomato plants. :) If my plants all do well here, my friends will not be lacking in veggies!

The First sprout! 

What the spinach looked like a few days later:

Cucumbers

Painting

   I had a bunch of teenage girls over to paint one night. It was really fun to be creative, and to see the artistic talent that all the girls have. Sorry that you only get to see my painting.

Above is the first completed piece, then there was a tragic moment when I accidentally squeezed some white paint right onto my painting, so I had to change it a little. Below is the finished one. :)

  

Flying our new kitE

Ian and I have a date together once a week, this past week for our date we decided to fly a kite together. d

Kites are a pretty common sight in the sky here. It is a great way to relax. This day it wasn't super windy, but we still managed to get it in the air. 

Peach Blossoms

 I took a trip out of the city with some friends to a place famous for their flowering peach trees. It was absolutely beautiful there.

   There were people everywhere selling these beautiful flower crowns...really how could I resist, especially when my friend was so sweet to buy one for me. :)

  Happy Easter!

Love, jessica

Fishing in the city... from the tank to the frying pan.

   This past week we've had quite a change in weather, we went from beautiful sunny days, to rainy and quite cool. Such is spring. I'm thankful that we can know spring is on the way, having a taste of it just makes me want to experience more of it. 

   I think you will begin to notice some kind of central theme in my highlights through the months, I really love beauty! Especially the beauty of nature. To me it reflects the creativity and beauty of our Creator. I hope you are enjoying experiencing a bit of the beauty with me. 

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fresh new life

One day I saw these plants ready to bloom outside of our apartment building.

 The next day I saw these beauties!

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garden growing

   This week I decided I should start my garden. I am not letting our great rooftop area go to waste! So I spent some time in the dirt and planted lots of seeds in all kinds of small containers. They will remain in our shed/workshop/game room until they are big enough to transplant to a garden plot. I'm hoping that they will grow! Some seeds I bought in the States and some here, so we shall see in a few weeks which ones are successful! I planted cucumbers, tomatoes, cilantro, green onions, lettuce and spinach. It felt so good to get my hands in the dirt for awhile. I can't wait to show you the first sprouts! 

successful fried fish

From the tank to the mouth, all in 2 hours!

Yes, we leave the head on. :) 

   Sorry I didn't have my camera with me when we went to the market to pick out our fish for dinner. Otherwise you could have experienced the whole thing with me! Oh well, maybe next time. :) I have to admit I struggled a little bit watching the fish be chosen, beat on the head, and its guts pulled out while it was, I think, still alive. Okay, well it was probably at least unconscious so it didn't really know, but I did! For some reason this was harder for me then the whole cutting off its head process that I am used to in the States. Thankfully it was all over quickly for the poor destined to die fish.  I'm glad my friend was gracious enough to clean him out in the sink, not because I'm a wimp because I'm actually not, but because he was still having reflexes and yeah...anyways...he was delicious and worth the effort :).  I thought you would enjoy picturing the process since you couldn't go with me. Hehe.

Love,

Jessica

Soaking up some Vitamin D

 Highlight of the week #1 The Sun!! 

   Its just starting to become warmer here, and this week has been incredible because we have seen the sun FOUR times! And in a city that is sunless 250-300 days of the year...It really is a big deal! Usually we are lucky to see it once a week. 

   I am so thankful for a rooftop to sit on and enjoy the sun, whenever it appears that is where I want to be, soaking up some much needed vitamin D!

#2 Wind Chimes  :)   A few of my friends gave me these two wind chimes for my birthday a couple of years ago. On the beautiful sunny days we had this week, I was also enjoying listening to these chimes. Somehow, it takes me back to the States to people I love. I feel at home. I feel peaceful. 

#3 Strawberries  This was a special treat, as strawberries are not really in the peak of their season yet so they haven't really went down in price much, but they still are not that expensive. I paid about $2.00 for these. Will be making smoothies soon!

#4 Our little Hydra There is no need to explain, just look at her cuteness. :)

#5 A walk with my love.  There is nothing like walking in the warm weather hand in hand with Ian. We also enjoyed some good chocolate caramel bubble tea.

You are the best for me.

Love,
Jessica

Highlights

Hi again! I'm working on becoming a more faithful blogger...so we will see how that goes. :) I want this blog to be a way for you to get to know me more and see bits and pieces of my life. :)  So today I would love to share with you some recent highlights.

Ian's parents came for a visit! Here are some pictures from our time together:

Making Liquid Soap together

Highlights from the past week:

 Spring is coming! I took a walk one day and captured a few pictures of some flowering trees. They give me hope that warm weather is really coming even though its still chilly outside.

Ian made an indoor climbing wall! With some help from friends, Ian finally had his dream of making his own wall come true.

Laughter...I had some great times laughing with Ian and with my friends this past week!

Playing Badminton with friends. I'm so thankful the weather was nice this weekend so I could play badminton again. This was obviously also one of the great laughter moments I've enjoyed lately. :)

What has been a highlight for you lately?

Love,
Jessica