Screened In Porch

Dear Everybody,
I cannot remember what we did on Friday morning and early afternoon. There was some reason that I didn't spend it at the track and field events, but I can't remember what it was.
In the late afternoon Friday we went over to Lucy's and got Samuel's hair cut. Lucy bought us supper! She is so sweet. She has hired a new girl and all three of them were busy while we were there. Well, there was a short while that Lucy and the new girl took the moped and got supper while Shiaow Wei had a customer, but other than that things were hopping.
We bought Raid bug spray, went back to the dorm and sprayed the baseboards, and then we met up with Jean and went out to Sandy's house.
Sandy is a teacher and her husband is a "building" engineer, as they say it. They have a BIG house, one child and three grandparents. (They had hoped for more than the one child.) They seem like happy people. There were also Jean, Joanne, and Sandy's sister with a nice number of children thrown in. We watched a movie and then Sandy's husband made tea, and he made balloon animals for all of the kids there. Sandy likes photography and showed me lots of really good photos she has taken. She's especially good at candid, unposed portraits.
The sister had us pick an English name for her. Based on the meaning of her Chinese name we decided on Purity. It is a bit unusual, but it is lovely and she liked it.
We came home and collapsed at 11:30pm.
This morning Albert Chen's father picked us up before 8am to go home with him for "family treatment". He works nights at the galleon factory in the water filtration department, so he picked us up on his way home. He surprised Samuel by being good at shifting a manual transmission. All the other drivers Samuel has had here are rather brutal with their transmissions.
We had a very nice time, walking around their village, going down to the beach with Albert and a playmate and then playing on the computer with him until lunch time. Actually, Samuel played with him on the computer while Mrs. Chen turned on Beethoven's Fourth (the movie) for me to watch while I was downstairs with her.
You can't play at the beach, only look out at the water from the open area in front of a temple there. It's right next to a military installation, and Albert says the military guys don't like them down by the water.
After lunch, when poor Mr. Chen had had only had four and a half hours of sleep, we all went sight-seeing-- Mr. and Mrs. Chen, Albert and his sister Sherry, two cousins, the playmate and a baby that we thought was their's but turned out to be a friend's. We ran into the baby's parents while sight-seeing; they were out on a date.
I got pictures of explanatory displays at the Aug. 23rd Memorial that Bonnie might want to look at. (Well, everybody should see them, really.) I'll get Samuel to upload them tonight. He just now fell asleep.
After visiting 3 places we discovered that Mr. Chen was running a fever. He dropped Albert off at cram school and then took us home.
The cram school is the Oxford Children's Language School and is a Christian organization. Albert has little posters and poems and things on the wall about Jesus, in English, at his house. None of it is off-base doctrinely. We should pray for that outreach!!
I enjoyed Mrs. Chen. She says I should be sure to bring my younger children next time I come. I loved her attitude-- she was surprised and a little put out with me for taking this trip to Kinmen without my seven year old! She was not mollified that his father and sisters and brothers would take care of him. You could see that she made a deliberate decision to like me anyway. :)
I'm going to take a nap. I'll write more when I can!
Love you all dearly!
Mama