Hey You Guys!!!!

Well, I guess its been a long time. I always have the blog in the back of my mind thinking that I will actually get around to doing it. Well, I'm back. A lot has happened since we posted last time. I have had surgery on my back, we've been to a place called Kenting. Its a place with a lot of beaches. We have also been to a place in Taipei with a lot of hot springs. It was great going there, It was very relaxing to sit in the hot springs. They had a guys floor and a girls floor. It was a little uncomfortable hanging out with a bunch of naked guys, but I got used to it and had a good time.

Well, about the trip to Kenting, we rented a scooter and drove along the coast one day stopping at some beaches and just looking around. It was really fun. We took some good pictures, and I got to ride an ATV. That part was really great. When I was tour guiding in Hawaii, we had to be in the front and have the guests follow in a straight line due to safety issues, but over here, they don't care about those issues. They let me go off on my own racing around the ATV area. I really enjoyed it. We spent about three days in Kenting. The first day, Claire's mom and sister were with us. We swam in the hotel pool and stuff, and the food was really good. If any of you make it to Taiwan, Kenting is a pretty good place to visit.

On a diferent note, we have been excercising a lot recently. We go to a swimming pool three days a week, and I do aerobic exercise every other day. Sometimes Claire does it with me. I kind of have a goal to be in really good shape when we go home in March. I don't want to come home all fat. We are excited to go home. We are also hoping that we can find a good job pretty quick, so if anybody hears about anything, please let us know. Thanks.

Well, I bought Claire Twilight for Christmas. I couldn't talk to her for three days. After she was done, she wanted to keep reading. She's finished the first three books, and now we are waiting for the fourth (Thanks for mailing it, Mom). While she was reading those books, it was hard to have long conversations. Now we are back to normal though. Oh and she got me a science fiction book called Spin for Christmas. If any of you guys like science fiction, you might want to try reading it. It was very imaginative. I have the second book, so I am going to start reading that one soon.

The family is doing great over here. We are really enjoying our last two months with Claire's family. We celebrated Christmas together, and tried to watch a Christmas movie. Claire and I were the only ones to stay awake for it, but it was still good. Before that, we opened presents together. Claire got a really small Christmas tree. It was cheap, but festive. The family had a good time. I think it was the first Christmas that they have ever celebrated. Her sister is kind of sad that we are leaving, but she will be okay. Well, love you guys. Talk to you soon.

We are doing good!!!

Hello Everybody! I am having a pretty good week. I had Wednesday off so I was able to relax all day. I watched a couple of movies and studied Chinese. It was fun. Today all I have is one class, and its an oral test, so I don't have to prepare. I just take the students out one by one and use my test script to assess their English speaking skills. It is going to be relaxing.

On the subject of studying languages, I have recently been studying Chinese characters. I try to memorize 8 new ones a day. I only started two days ago, so I only have 16 memorized so far. I am going to memorize eight more today. I have also been listening to a language podcost that I discovered on iTunes. It is from chinesepod.com. If anybody reading this is thinking about learning a language and you have an iPod, I would recommend looking for a podcast on iTunes. It has helped me a lot with some grammatical questions I have. My Chinese isn't amazing yet, but I think it will grow.

Tomorrow we are going to celebrate Moon Festival at work, by eating lots of barbeque. I am excited. Everyone knows I love to eat. Next week, we go on vacation to Kenting. It is the place in Taiwan where they have good beaches. We really miss the beach. It is going to be very enjoyable. We'll take lots of pictures. Well, I'll try to get some pictures of me at work and post them later. Bye for now!

Hello again!

Hello Everybody! Its been a while since I have gotten on the internet to post something. It looks like my wife beat me to it. We are alive in Taiwan, though. I guess its good we are not dead yet (hehehe). Sometimes we feel like we are a little stagnant here, though. Its because we both are feeling the urge to settle down pretty soon. Claire feels we should go back to America, because we are getting old, and we need to get jobs soon and settle down before I go completely bald. I personally do not want to get a business job in America, because I just don't like selling things to people, so sometimes I am a little worried about what kind of job I can get. I have thought about joining the Air Force. I would try to get in as an intelligence officer. If anyone hears of a good job back at home that you think would be a good job for me, please let me know.

Well, to get back to how we are in Taiwan. Claire mentioned that we went with her mom to pay respects to her grandmother a few weeks ago. It was a really good experience. I got to meet her mother's side of the family and put their minds at ease about the person she married, me of course. Her uncle told me that he feels I am a good man. We also felt a connection to her grandmother, and her grandfather was so happy that we showed up. He speaks English, so we could talk to each other for a little bit. Her mother was also happy. Nobody was going to go with her, but when my wife heard that she was going alone, we both felt we should go support her. I think the experience helped us all grow closer together.

There is one sad experience that has happened here, though. I'll have to start from the beginning. Claire's brother brought home a puppy one day. He found her in a box downstairs. Someone had abandoned her. We all helped raise the dog, but my sister-in-law's boyfriend did not like the dog because it barked a lot and sometimes played too loudly with our other dog. Well, we named the dog Charlie after my brother of course. We took care of her and loved her, and one day we woke up and the dog was gone. We asked everyone in the house about her, but nobody knew anything about it. The boyfriend said that he saw her at 8:00 in the morning. He lied of course. We checked the security tape, and it showed him taking her out at around 7:30 am. He actually lied a lot that morning, but I won't go into everything. He told us he went to the park to let her go, and at that moment an elderly man saw it and said he wanted the dog. We don't know if we believe him, but we hope she has a good home. Now the boyfriend is not allowed to come to the house anymore. Claire forgave him, and I believe I forgave him for what he has done, but sometimes we still feel a little sad. We miss Charlie. We were planning on taking her back to the U.S. with us. Anyways, I wanted to write about her, because she was a good part of our life. We really did love Charlie, and we still do.

Well, other than that things are going well for us. We are still enjoying Taiwan. I will let you guys know more as things happen. We love you guys and miss you a lot. Talk to you soon.

The Kubrichts Return

Ni Hao (Hello in Chinese),

Like what Bryan talked about earlier, I got a short haircut. I think many of you have already seen it on the webcam. Life is good here. A few weeks ago, we went back to see my grandpa and my mom side of family and show our respect to my grandma. That day was the date she passed away 2 years ago. At that time, I was in Hawaii and didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to her, so this time I had a strong feeling that we should go visit her. I haven't seen them for years. This time we went back to Taipei, I found my grandpa gradually got older. However, he was so happy to see us. He is too old to stand for long, but seeing us back, he stood up many times and asked to take a photo with us. That was a good little family reunion.

BTW, we're learning Spanish online (well...actually, I am the one who is learning and Bryan just repeats what I say next to me). Check out this cool website, if you want to study some languages: http://www.livemocha.com/

Love you all lots oxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

BTW, why does Bryan wear the same shirt in all the pics?

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOMMY! :)

Its Been a While

Hey everyone. We are doing great here in Taiwan. We are still teaching English. We haven't had a vacation yet, but we are planning on having one in September. We are going to go to the south of Taiwan to hit the beach. We really miss it.

Not much different has happened around here. I did a spelling bee about month or so ago. It was okay, except that they wanted us to say, "Sorry, you're wrong!" everytime a kid mispelled a word. I felt like I was so mean. One kid looked like she was about to cry. I tried to say it as nicely as possible though.

Within this past month, we also did Karaoke. It was a lot of fun. For Karaoke here in Taiwan, people rent rooms and only make fools of themselves in front of their friends and family. Of course we went with the family here. Claire and I were happy because there were more English songs than we thought there would be. A lot of them were pretty old though. She sang "Dancing Queen." I sang "We Will Rock You." We both sang "Hey Jude." Of course we sang others as well, but none were as memorable as these songs. If you guys come here, I recommend us going together. One reason is for the singing, the other is for the buffet that is included in the price. Hehehe.

Well, Claire is turning 27 tomorrow. Now she is going to be an old fart like me. Hehehe. We are excited. We are going to take her to get a hair cut after her next paycheck. I don't know if that is a gift, but she's getting one. She wants to go short. Anyways, I will probably surprise her with something tomorrow.

On another good note, I lost weight recently. I have been running a lot, and have lost over ten pounds. Yeah. Another 8 pounds and I will weigh the same as I did on my mission. Anyways, some clothes I haven't worn for a bit have started fitting again. I am really happy. Well, I will let you guys know if anything exciting happens over here. Bye for now.