Vanessa's Journal

Feb. 19

As ridiculous as it might sound, I actually hiked down the mountain again today and then hiked back up in the afternoon. Obviously, my efficiency has not been at its best lately. But there was an important document to deliver to a colleague in town that just could not happen yesterday. Besides, I also wanted to get a birthday cake for Lao Yang, whose birthday is tomorrow. I had a nice hike down in the buckets of snowfall that accumulated last night. On my walk back to town, who did I run into but “the four amigos”, the motley crew of 12 and 13 year olds from yesterday. They were walking in the same direction as I was on their way to a friend’s house and were excited to see me again. They all showed off their skills of sliding across the ice in the street (when no cars were coming of course!) and laughed at each another when they fell. Boys will be boys. 

Once in town, I was excited to find another package of chocolate from my mom. This time it was a humungous block of chocolate-peanut butter fudge. Something tells me that will not last long. Before hiking back up the mountain, I stopped at Lao Wang’s house and helped his other grandson with some math homework. 

At night, it was decided that we would wait to have Lao Yang’s birthday cake until tomorrow, as that would be his real birthday.