starTAIWANbucks

I absolutely love starbucks. And NOT just in the U.S. It's really good in Taiwan as well. Maybe a little better. (Although, I do miss cinnamon crumb cake and Caramel apple cider. Yummy.)

Anyway, I thought starbucks deserved a post because I go there so much. (Well not so much so much, but enough that it deserves a blog post.) I mean look at it! It's so delicious!

Kaylee, Kendra and myself enjoying a little R&R at starbucks!

Plus, the one closest to us has a really cool place that we can just relax and hang out. Take a chill pill and have a double chocolatey chip frap. It's just so wonderful, you know?

Happy Halloween!

I pretty much love Halloween in Taiwan! It was just the best. Look at these cute kids in their cute costumes! ADORABLE!

The older kids didn't really dress up. So they had to be punished, hence all the walking dead that appeared later that day.

I personally loved this years costume choice. I wouldn't change it for the world. It was super easy to go from adorable pirate in the morning (don't want to scar the little kids) to a dead pirate in the evening (definitely want to scare the big kids!)

Pretty much, Halloween was a success this year. (Good thing too. I've had to make up for the last two) The only weird thing was that I didn't really get ANY candy. :( It's so sad don't you think?

a restaurant for a silly old bear

There is a restaurant right next to our chapel that I have ALWAYS wanted to go eat at. Well, the Saturday morning of stake conference was the day that I did! I give you: Bear House.

The food was surprisingly good! They served this corn chowder soup with bread. While some of the bread had regular, garlic tasting bread, some of the bread had a sweeter topping. I don't know what it was but, I really didn't like it. I don't know why but I have a hard time eating regular bread with sweet stuff. I'm fine if it's biscuits, muffins or texas roadhouse roles. LoL

The whole place was just so darn adorable!

Then we got our drinks. The first thing I thought of when they brought it out was: "MUG!!!!" Haha
We ordered noodles or rice with chicken. Two of us got rice while two of us got noodles. They all came out looking like this. AND IT WAS SO GOOD!!!!!!!!


At the end of the day, we decided that we LOVE BEAR HOUSE! I'm definitely going back before I leave. (I thought of my mom, Paula and Ryan S. the whole time. haha)

this is Halloween!

Even though there is no Halloween here in Taiwan, the school I work for still celebrates the wonderfully frightening holiday!

In my kindergarten class, I decided that we were going to make paper mache masks.

And it was a genius idea.

:)

I'm pretty proud!

Take a look

And to tie it all up in a nice pretty bow, my boss stole the masks to hang on the walls during our Halloween party. They were THAT cool!

happy moment of the day

I live in a four story building where the first three floors are the school. There are 10 of us living on the fourth floor. These are the stairs that we get to climb. They're not so bad but sometimes they are malicious after a hard day at work. If you had a rough day teaching, the last thing you want to do is lumber up 4 flights of stairs.

This is the worst part. The last set of stairs. It's basically the devil.

Where you are so close, and yet still so far away.

Luckily, there are pictures to encourage you on your way.

For example, the picture below means that you are almost to the second floor.

This picture, some ancient pottery, is the sign of the third floor.

But when you got to the point between the third and fourth floor, this is all you found.

It's not very encouraging! In fact, it's almost degrading. You've come this far but have nothing to show for it. You still have another set of stairs ahead of you!

It's the worst.

But today, that all changed.

And ^ablessed are they who shall seek to bring forth my ^bZion at that day, for they shall have the ^cgift and the ^dpower of the Holy Ghost; and if they ^eendure unto the end they shall be ^flifted up at the last day, and shall be saved in the everlasting ^gkingdom of the Lamb; and whoso shall ^hpublish peace, yea, tidings of great joy, how beautiful upon the mountains shall they be. 1 Nephi 13:37

It made me so happy! And now, climbing the stairs is not nearly as bad. I think I'll memorize the scripture so I can quote it as I'm walking up the last flight of stairs. That will make my life all the better. Thank goodness for whoever put that there.

my Dad is the bomb.com

In case you were wondering, the answer is yes!

In case you didn't know, the question was "Do you have the best Dad in the entire cosmos?"

My Daddy, who is THE MAN!, came to visit little old me

ALL THE WAY IN TAIWAN!!!!

I gave him the biggest hug of his life!

I showed him my turtles, as well as my scooter.

And like a good Daddy, he let me drive!

Then I showed him (and my wonderful Aunt) one of the most gorgeous temples in Fengyuan.

Then we went to Earthquake park where we fed the fish.

It was quite relaxing and super fun!

I introduced my favorite drink to him (I don't think he really liked it though).

OR he was really full from all the other stuff I made him try. Haha

Basically, I love my Daddy.

I'm the luckiest girl alive!

Thank you Heavenly Father for such a great Earthly Father.

I will forever be grateful for him.

the Hawaii of Taiwan

Last weekend was a holiday for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. Which meant that we teachers did not have school on Monday. We took advantage of this three day weekend to go to Kenting; the Hawaii of Taiwan. It was exactly what I needed. It was so much fun.

Next to the beach was this cool little setup.
We got the peach smoothie! (And the popcorn chicken, which was DELICIOUS!)

Later that night we went to the nightmarket. It was so busy and very cool. Some of us got some delicious cone pizzas (it's a pizza... in a cone!) and corn dogs that looked like rock candy. Haha. We got this other scone like thing too... but I inhaled it before I could take a picture. Oh, and I bought two cups of watermelon milk. Yum!