Enjoying July and August in Ordos

As the "Lazy Days of Summer" sauntered on, we were busy working on the Domes. We opened up the last 2 domes and the event was marked with fireworks and Darryl wearing a tie to work. The Chinese weren't quite sure what to think of it. 

For an Anniversary present Darryl bought me a custom made Mongolian formal dress. It is so beautiful. 

While I was at the shop for the fitting I just had to try on one of their traditional headdresses.

This thing is so heavy!! It is usually worn by brides or for very special occasions and weighs about 10 lbs. or more!

This is our beautiful young friend Trgl. (It's a Mongolian name). She designed and made these beautiful shirts for us.

Our Fitness and Aerobics team had 2 competitions and filmed one promotional video. Each evening we would meet in this park to practice.

We are the "Grasslands 'Love your Heart' Team" and promote a healthy living lifestyle.

This is one of the older members of the competition team, I affectionately call her Grandma. She is our "Big Sister" on the team and is 72 yrs. young.

Mr. Xu our team leader and a Police Chief for the city of Ordos Kangbashi.

We competed against 10 different groups in the first competition and 8 in the second. The children did exhibition dances. This is the Swing Dance group..

The little girls ballet was beautiful!

A young Mongolian dancer.;;

..and one of the traditional Mongolian dance groups.

The Thai Chi group..

The "Aunties" traditional Mongolian group. All of these ladies were living on the farms that the government bought to build the city.

Modern Dance Group

And Grasslands fitness group.

The aerobics group...

This is their rehearsal before the show -

Some of my team members were in two groups. Notice "Grandma" in the back row of the modern dance group. Way to go Grandma!

And a fitness team so big they didn't fit on the stage.

This Mongolian troupe was amazing and they won the daytime competition!

 We took second place in both competitions! I felt very privileged that they asked me to be on their team.

Of course being the only foreigner in competition does make me stand out a little.

It was so much fun and I will miss going to the park every evening and being with these wonderful people! I have been told by many of them that I am the first foreigner they have ever met. Amazing! 

More Summer Fun in China

At the end of June Darryl and I decided to visit the nearby city of Ejin Horo and vist their Water Show in the big City Park. Unlike the big cities in China, there are just no foreigners around here. We are such a novelty that people are always stopping us and asking us to take pictures with their children or with them. The day we visited the park we decided to sit on a bench and wait for the water show. For the next 1 hour and 20 minutes we smiled and posed as people lined up to take photos with us.

They had a lot of different playground and exercise equipment, and they had several different dance groups dancing in the park, but so many people wanted to take our photos I didn't get any pictures of those things. Darryl finally started taking pictures to people could see. It was starting to hurt to keep smiling. Haha!

We did have one health mishap. Darryl broke a tooth off and had to have a crown put on. They had just opened a Dentist Office in our apartment complex, which was convenient.

Pastor Dave and his family came over for dinner and we introduced them to the Redhead Express. Their son, Peter, filmed all of the videos. He was quite enthralled.

Mid-July the Grasslands "Love your Heart" Fitness and Aerobics team asked me to become an official member and gave me my uniform!

The summer was flying by!