Tim's Engaged!!

They dated for four years, two months and are now engaged to be married at a TBD date following their May 2016 graduation from Appalachian State University.  Those pictured below (plus the father of the bride-to-be, who took the photo) were all at the Somerville home in Montreat to share in the excitement the evening after the proposal and acceptance!

One Month Out

Just because we've been gone from China for a month now, it doesn't mean we're done with that part of our lives... as evidence, I submit these photos... the one at left of a group we had dinner with in Jacksonville last week that included Cory Zhu, the Chinese-American former student of Grace's who stayed with us three days in June ...the other, from one of mine (pictured front and center) who spent part of his summer in New York (and sent this picture with a note saying he has had a great time in "my" country.)

Lana's Ashes

I obviously lack the skills to get a good panoramic photo with my borrowed iPhone, but this poor attempt will give readers some idea of the specialness of yesterday's ceremony in which we finally fulfilled my late wife's request to have her ashes spread in the woods behind our old church in Gainesville, Florida... plans are to erect a gazebo on the site by the first week in October.

All Five Kids!!

Rare have been the occasions in which all five of our 'kids' have been with us; Saturday's event brought them, our grandson Josh and all but Bonnie's husband, Andrew, in the category of "significant others"!

Site Prep

Rick employed the right equipment for clearing the area where we plan to put up the gazebo (the first week in October), and the crew pictured below along with Mary Alice Dennis spread the mulch...

The ceremony is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. Saturday, July 25th on the prayer trail in the northwest corner of the Westside Baptist Church property at 10000 West Newberry Road... join us if you are in the area!!

Honoring a Request

My (Greg's) first wife, Lana, requested that her ashes be spread in the flowers around a gazebo off the prayer trail at our home church in Gainesville, Florida...

Since she left this earth April 9, 2008, the fulfillment of that request is long overdue, but this is the week!  We plan to clear the site and clean up the trail in preparation for a short ceremony July 25th!

Back in the U-S

Yes, we are back in Florida, blessed to have a house from which to base our three month transition from China to Nicaragua.

Pictured having dinner with 60% of our "kids" in Jacksonville!

Nest Empty (Again)!

It had been five-and-a-half months since these two were together (the day Anna left for her semester in Seville)... Grace and I sure have enjoyed having Tim (and our youngest) with us here in China the past month...
Will should be back in Jax by now too... we took him to the airport yesterday morning.  Grace and I have two more days of goodbyes and packing, and will be back in Jacksonville Monday night!

Last Classes

85 Information Science and Electrical Engineering majors in two freshman Oral English classes... their two-part final exams were this afternoon, the oral portion of which is already graded... now to grade the written one (evidence that they were listening attentively to their classmates' oral presentations.)

I will miss teaching classes like these next year!

Last Office Hours

Great having both Will and Tim there for my last Office Hours of the school year... just a super time chatting with current and former students about everything from favorite movies and music to college and plans for the future...

The bearded ones will be spending the next three days in Xi'an, best known as the city nearest the Terracotta Warriors... they will be riding a sleeper train tomorrow night!

Hot Pot & KTV

What better way to spend a Saturday evening when our two youngest sons are visiting than dinner out and three hours of Karaoke with two of the more talented vocalists on our campus?... the two pictured at right held their own (on the English-language songs.)

Michael and Harry sang in 4 different languages!

Ryan's Graduation

Ryan is on the top row, third from left.

Grace and I aren't the only members of the family who have been in China the past three years... My sister, Betsy, and her family have been in Shanghai with Disney during the same period.
Today is my nephew, Ryan's high school graduation date, and Tim is there to represent!

Niece Nicole is in the Class of 2016 at Shanghai Community International School... we'll have to see who can be there for her graduation!!

Special Guest Lecturer

I had him speak in all three classes today to the delight of all my students.  In the freshman oral classes, I asked Tim to do a PowerPoint presentation like the one all of the students have been doing to introduce themselves to their classmates (and me), and since in some of his pictures he appears clean-shaven, the most common feedback he received from my students was that he looks even more handsome without his beard!

4 Sports in 2 Days

Tuesday evening it was soccer and ping-pong, last night he tossed the pig-skin with the flag-football team players, who were amazed by his one-handed catches, and then a little basketball. Today, he'll be sharing in all three of my classes... the schedule is filling up with student requests... Grace and I just love having him with us, and look forward to having Will join the fun in a couple of weeks!

Tim's Here!!

No jet lag for this young man... his flight from Seoul was shorter than my subway ride from the other side of Beijing, and he will be here for the entire month!

Small World

19 years ago we hired a terrific Israeli Science teacher for our school in Managua, Nicaragua... he's been back in Jerusalem for 16 years now, but since modern technology (social networking) makes it possible to stay in touch across time zones, here we are getting to know his cousin, sister-in-law, niece and nephew over a fabulous Mediterranean lunch in their villa three hours away from us (but still in Beijing)!!

Dinner for 6

These sweet junior English majors insisted on fixing us a meal...

Grace and the three pictured at right set out at 9:30 to buy the groceries; by 1:30 they had the fish and chicken marinading, so they took a short break; at 4:00 they began cooking, and since we only have a two burner stove, it was 6:25 when it all hit the table, but as you can see from the second picture... it was quite a spread.

These four were freshmen our first year at BIT... they will all be on the main campus next year, and we will be on the other side of the planet... Not ready to say our "Goodbyes" quite yet! 

May Coffee House

A photo of the "Clean-Up Crew" for the last Coffee House of this school year... 7 foreign teachers and 25 terrific kids!

Tim's 24!

After nine days in Taiwan, the man is celebrating his birthday in Seoul, as part of his studies in Appropriate Technology at Appalachian State University.

This picture was actually taken before he left North Carolina... His biological mom may be in Heaven, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have an incredible team of mom's looking out for him... this celebration was at Ginny Pierson's lake place and the young lady in the photo is his girlfriend's mom, Ruth Ann Somerville!

His step-mom and I plan to spend the entire month of June celebrating with him here in Beijing!  And then there are his two grandmas, former teachers...

Tim's in Taiwan

This is the photo he shared on FB upon arrival Wednesday... he'll be at Chien Hsin University of Science and Technology through next Thursday, then in Seoul through the end of the month (in some sort of internship through Appalachian State University), to Beijing to see us June 1st, on the high-speed rail to see his cousin graduate from high school in Shanghai (June 11th), and finally back to Beijing to help us close out our time in China!!

...oh, and then back to NC to see his girlfriend, who has spent the entire semester traveling around Europe (as part of her college education.)  Kids these days... aren't they great?!!

Team From Texas

We rarely have visitors, but have a team of seven from SAGU (Texas)... a couple of TESOL profs and five of their students; they have visited classes, shadowed our teachers, and hosted an evening event open to anyone available Monday night... this is the group that showed up!

At the end of our event I set the 10-second timer on my little camera and snapped this photo (can you find the foreigners?)

AFC Champions League

Didn't want you to think it's all work and no play for us here in China...

One of Grace's former students insisted on buying me a ticket to the round 5 game between the pro soccer teams from Beijing and Brisbane, Australia...

We wore the colors of the home team, but they, unfortunately, came out on the losing side of this contest 1-0, and now must win their final game in the group stage to make it into the Asian Champions League version of the "Sweet 16"

复活&清明节

Pretty cool that Tomb-Sweeping Day (a festival in which people all over China honor the loved ones they've lost by visiting their gravesites) should fall on Easter Sunday (the day we celebrate our Elder Brother's tomb being empty!)

The service was PACKED this morning (this 600 seat sanctuary and the overflow room downstairs)!

First Week of Classes

I took this picture Thursday morning at 7:55...  It's a class of 31 freshman English majors that starts at 8:00 a.m.  I had their final exams from last semester waiting for them when they got in, and here they are, all 31 of them, poring over their three page tests in search of clues as to how they can do better this term.

Not hard to find motivation to be the best teacher I can be for them!

Moving Ben

We have a new teammate from South Carolina this term (Anna Mathis, pictured far left.)  One of our veterans (Ben Brewer, pictured far right) offered to move to an off campus apartment, so that his new teammate wouldn't have to (such a gentleman!)...

The apartments are only a couple of hundred yards apart, but with security gates, curbs, and nothing with wheels besides a bicycle to lighten the load, it ended up being a nice little workout for the five of us!
(pictured at the half way point between the apartments)

Back in Beijing

This year, our flight back from our annual conference in Thailand had a lay-over in South Korea, so we decided to take full advantage and visit some of our former students who now reside there... it turns out there are seven currently enlisted in the Korean army!

One of the highlights was spending time with the one pictured below (JinSoo Moon, NCA Class of 2008) in the Ministry of National Defense compound (South Korea's Pentagon.)

Tea, Cookies and Conversation

What do Chinese college students do when they are done with classes to break the routine of studying for their last final exam before the Spring Festival - Chinese New Year Holidays?

Why, hang out with their foreign teachers, of course!

Majors: Automation, Accounting, Computer Science, English, Japanese, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Law, Business Administration.

Hosting Students

This is what our apartment looks like when we invite students to come over for tea, cookies and conversation... a couple of hours of a really good time with some terrific young people!

National Museum

With grades done, we're taking the opportunity to spend a little quality time with some of the students we've gotten to know through our regular routines.  Steven and Jessica are graduate students who plan to marry at some point in the future, earn PhD's in Mathematics at a yet-to-be-determined college in the US and become college professors.  They say they plan to have two kids, which is now permissible for all Chinese citizens (without fines), provided at least one of the parents is an only child.

Photos taken in the National Museum on Tiananmen Square (2 hours by subway from our campus)

Final Exams... Done!

54 Freshmen Automation and Electrical Engineering majors... nine students over the class cap, and quite a large number for a Speaking and Listening class, but we made it work!

...now to grade a large stack of English major exams, and average grades for everyone!

Finals Week

Grace and I taught through Christmas and New Year's Day, and are currently in the middle of final exams.  I gave my first two to the classes pictured here... big gender ratio difference between the English majors (pictured at right), and their Mechanical Engineering & Electronic Science/Technology counterparts (below.)  We, of course, love them all!

Big shout out to our grandson, Joshua Strickland, who is celebrating his 3rd birthday today!