4 weeks

map by John

Four weeks from today John and I leave for China. We'll get there four weeks from tomorrow :) I'm so stinking excited about us going. I'm excited to see friends (I only personally know one person, but have heard about a couple other people for 8 or 9 years). I'm excited to see a new and exotic place and I'm excited to have my husband to myself for two weeks.

Since we got married we've traveled quite a bit: our honeymoon (Sandal's, Bahama's) New Jersey, Mexico, Germany, Italy, Prague, Switzerland (the last four countries in one two week trip), Texas (on vacation for a week before we moved down here), Florida, Arkansas, Minnesota (at least four times since we moved and I've been up twice that he hasn't). So I guess I can't say we haven't been traveling, but this feels different. We've never gone to such an exotic place and we haven't been away from the baby for such a long time.

We were away for two nights in Arkansas for our anniversary last year and that's the longest it's been. On the way home I was so anxious to see Malachi. Now how am I going to feel on the way home. Not to mention the ride is changing from five hours to a whole day of travel.

Now some pictures:This is the bed and breakfast we're staying at in Beijing. Click here to see the room we'll be in (b/c).


This is the New World Astor Hotel in Tianjin. This is where we'll stay when we're there. It's an old English hotel and we're staying in the older part. I'm guessing that it's the shorter part, but John's reading and I don't want to interrupt him again. Click here to see a description of it. I couldn't find a website for the hotel.


This is David and Karen. They live in Qinhuangdao. We're going to meet them in Beijing and travel with them to their home. We'll get to experience a little bit of what they do there. Click here for their blog. John met Karen on his first OEX trip in 1998. She was on it again in 1999.

This is the Youth Hostel that we'll stay at in Qingdao. It looks awesome click here to check it out. It was just renovated this year and I'm so excited.

I hope that wets your appetite a bit for a future blog about our trip. We have the capacity to take about 2000 pics with our cards. I hope that we don't take that many, but either way we should have some good ones for y'all.