this is my computer corner, and you can see i have my iced coffee while i'm emailing friends and family. jon and kristal do you see the dude from "the incredibles" behind the speakers. it's the one that you sent me. woohoo!

my kitchen sink 

my refrigerator and microwave in my kitchen 

this is my local coffee shop, in my house! 

this is where i sleep. i have a pretty nice apartment. 

since i only have a washing machine and no dryer, i use this clothes rack to dry my clothes. 

this is my hot water tank, and i use the shower head you see to shower with. i have no shower curtain in my bathroom, so the whole bathroom gets wet everytime i shower. and everynight at 10:00pm the hot water shuts off, and by about midnight i usually have no water at all.  

this is my bathroom sink and my washing machine.  

cool building at the foot of pheonix mountain, and it's a big tourist area 

check out this waterfall, and i think i was suppossed to pay something to take this picture, but not understanding Chinese sometimes has it's advantages. 

i wanted to remind what my good pinp-pong friend looks like. she and her husband own the ping-pong club. she is going to have a baby in september. i've met alot of her family and had some great opportunities to share with them.  

one of my new ping-pong friends who is related to the boss and his wife invited me over for dinner. i've met alot of the family and they are great. i love them! they know i like "jiaozi" which are like dumplings usually filled with meat and vegetables. these ones were filled with vegetables, and they were delicious! this girl speaks pretty good english so she was a great translator. i also had an opportunity to give her a "book", so that was pretty cool! 

check out this pear tree!!! it's blooming with beautiful white flowers, and soon it will have pears. there are also many cherry trees here too. i'm lovin' the fruit trees here! this in the country-side at a ping-pong friend's house.. 

spring is here! 

i climbed to top of this mountain earlier in the morning. this is the mountain right outside my city, which you've seen in some of my other pictures. it's finally warm enough to climb. there were many people on the mountain so it took about 5 hours to get to the top, but it was a great hike! 

i'm not sure exactly what this sign says, but it's on the way to top of the mountain, and I think it says, "keep on climbing and you'll be there soon!" 

two friends who climbed the moutain with me 

me and a fellow okie on top of the mountain with only blue sky behind us.  

this is me on top of the mountain, and i live in the city behind me. 

this is a pile of trash i saw after i just climbed a beautiful mountain. in America this would be an incredible fine, especially in a national park. but in China this pretty normal. the plastic bag is sometimes also known as the national bird, because they fly everywhere. craziness, uh? 

my little friends are having ping-pong practice 

ping-pong in action! 

we went on a day trip to this lake, and there were some guys fishing. i wanted to join them, but I didn't have a fishing pole.  

this guy is a new family member if you know what i mean. he loves the new puppy! 

my friend, who is also my language teacher, and me.