A quick look back...

I think January is one of my favorite months. It's filled with hope at the beginning of a new year, and often includes some time off for winter vacation or Chinese New Year. If all goes according to plan, I'll be in Thailand next January completing my second study term for my master's degree!

I was thinking it would be fun to take a look at some of my January activities in the past 5(!) years.

Last year, 2009, I went to the Philippines for New Year's and celebrated Chinese New Year with the Chen family, and had lots of fun with my favorite girls.

2008 - the first speech contest I entered was in January!

2007 - I had surgery to get some pins out of my leg and my parents came!

2006 - I went home for the first time after being here in Taiwan for almost a year and a half.

2005 - Teaching new friends in Yuli how to bake cookies.

This is really fun because that's exactly what I'm planning to do this month! I'm having students from my bible study and girls from the high school over in the coming weeks for some baking classes!

Here's an excerpt from that blog entry dated January 16, 2005:

Around 4:00 I had a little baking class, which was pretty fun! It's Sherly's birthday tomorrow and so she asked if I would show her how to make cookies so she can bring some to work. I agreed and suddenly there were all kinds of people signing up! It was kinda crazy, but we had fun. Eva's daughter, her name is Anna I believe, was a big help, and actually did a lot of the work, because the other ladies kind of got tired of it after the first few trays. Anyways, at some point they got the idea to start making shapes and then words out of the dough, which actually baked better than I thought....

That was also the day we unwittingly went to a Mormon Thanksgiving celebration. Oh, the memories!