Birthday Day Week

Hello! Happy Birthday Joab! We went of town this past week with some good friends to a nearby Water Village. Basically a small rural town that has tons of little water canals running in it. Joab got to have a huge pork leg as part of his Bday fun. You can not see it very well in the above picture but it is there!

These are really good whole fried little fish. In the background is very cute Greta- she loved eating the snails that were also served.

Some of the ten kids that we took a long. There were so many places for kids to explore and climb they had a ball.

The boats in the canals. At night they hang red lanterns all over the town as well as in the boats. It was so pretty (and romantic...).

My dear friend Amy. More about her later.

The whole gang. Big thanks to James and Gina for planning this trip for us!

In one of the last mansions on the water that we went to see Miriam fell. We were all sitting in a courtyard and Miriam as she sat up just lost her balance and fell off a small ledge backwards. I was sitting right by her when she fell- which I was so glad for. My friend Amy (who is a nurse!) was also sitting by her and was the first to see how she was. She was bleeding a lot and so we determined she needed to go to the hospital. Which was a bit of a problem since where were at does not allow cars!

Joab and James found a bike that you could sit in the back of and pay a guy to take you to the hospital. The rest of us (yes, all ten kids went) followed behind walking. Thankfully my lesson this week in Chinese class was about visiting the Doctor! Perfect.....

We got to the clinic and I just sent Amy into where Joab, James and Miriam were. I really needed Miriam not to see me- as I knew she would just cry harder if she did. Amy was able to give me a better idea of what was going on. It looked just like she needed a few stitches.

So then Amy left and I went into the ER room. A local Chinese hospital is kind of hard to explain. A lot different than Urgent Care back home. But in the end Miriam got her stitches and we left.

Miriam's T-shirt was covered in blood so Amy's husband Pete ripped it off her and we just hiked up her skirt all the way up to her armpits! My friend took a picture of this and I will post it soon.

We were sad our trip had to end this way! But we are thankful for good friends! Miriam is fine today and says "it does not hurt at all".