This past week and a half we have been able to join with many of our friends for the Mid-Autumn Festival, a birthday party, a wedding, and celebrating the national holiday with a picnic and mountain climb. We have had so much fun with our friends!
This day we were picnicking. The guys were about to go climbing. I was a little disappointed I didn't get to go, but one of our friends is a month away from having a baby so all of us girls decided to stay and chat and eat some more. 
Me with some friends.
These girls loved playing baseball so much we are considering beginning a little league team.
Some precious friends enjoying some watermelon.
Here we are. We are trying to be better about taking pictures together considering our first year here there are not so many, one of us was usually taking the picture.
Can you tell our friends are full of fun!
Our friends are really becoming fans of the sandwich...they were loving the peanut butter and jelly...the egg salad wasn't too bad either (thanks mom).
Now here we are at one of our friends wedding. 
They play some rather interesting games here during the wedding banquet. The grooms friends make them do some silly things. I sure felt bad for this couple because they are so shy. Here the groom is squirting milk through a straw to hit the brides mouth. She was supposed to be the one squirting, but was laughing so hard they made her get the milk in the face. Not a good trade! 
The Mid Autumn festival was on Sept. 25 this year (based on the Lunar Calendar). This is a time of togetherness and a celebration of abundance, one of the major holidays in our area dating back over 3000 years. It parallels the time of the Autumn Equinox, so the moon is at its fullest and brightest. Farmers celebrate the end of summer harvesting season and family and friends gather together. One thing folks around here like to do is eat lots of moon cakes. Above is a picture so you could understand what a moon cake is. The outside is kind of like a biscuit/cake but the inside you never know...its always a fun surprise. Now, we really like to try and partake of everything that is given to us by our friends, you know truly embracing our new culture, but there are certain things that are a little difficult to swallow, literally. Now there are some moon cakes that aren't too bad, but the kind we had the other night was pretty rough. I can't describe the taste, but on our initial bite we tried to find a place to nonchalantly discard (without anyone seeing). The people here are so generous, they just keep giving you food. It gets a little difficult at times becuase you are so stuffed or the food is not to your liking and they continue to give. Oh, but how we love them for their generousity.
Here we are the night the moon was to be its biggest and brightest. We were able to enjoy some great company and some good eats (apart from the chicken fingers). Our definition of chicken fingers and their's is very different (ours are without bone). Their chicken fingers have hardly any meat...its simply chicken fingers grilled.
Here is Aikman enjoying a chicken wing...tasty. On the grill you see the before mentioned chicken finger my sweet friend gave to me...not so tasty. 
Lovely friends. After we were done eating we went to look at the moon it was so incredible...we stood there amazed of our awesome Creator.
