"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade"

We have passed the one year mark! As we sat on the beaches of Dalian, we couldn't help but reminisce about what our life looked like exactly one year before that day. Scrambling around adding the last minute touches for the wedding, packing up and saying our goodbyes as we were soon heading off to China, and then paving the way to start our first year of teaching! While I could take this entire post to open up all of the ways that He has led (and shielded) us through this year, I will instead just share our lastest memory. A memory that truly captures how we made it through this year as a strong team, best friends, more in love than July 18th of last year. This entire year, we strove to find the positive in things...whether we were battling students who didn't speak English, ourselves who didn't speak Chinese, or just plain homesickness. The quote "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade" comes back in my head often as I think about what our life here would be if we had lived it half-empty. It's so easy to just grumble and complain about everything that doesn't make sense and "Isn't fair". So....back to this memory I was going to share with you:

It was Saturday night and Dave and I had just arrived in Dalian anxious/excited to celebrate our first anniversary together. We stepped into the hotel room to find a dingy room with two seperate beds! What in the world??!!? What a let down after traveling for four hours all built up with expectation for this wonderful weekend (Apparently the pictures on the internet had not been updated in years). After taking a few deep breaths, Dave pipes up and goes "If they won't give us one bed, we'll make one bed ourselves!". Curious to see how he is going to make this work, I documented his successful efforts : )

Lucky for us, after we subtly expressed our disappointment to the hotel manager, they gave us a king-sized suite for the next night (at the same cost)!

*A quick note, this post went up right after a back to back trip with my parents coming to visit us. I will post some of our favorite memories soon, or you can look at a majority of the pictures through Facebook. Love you all!