Just a day in Shanghai

Today I did just a normal day. I got up, got the kids off to school. Then Heather and I walked Daisy and went to the gym. This is our new routine as we are trying to get ready to come home to Texas and dawn swim suits. Then we headed out to the fabric market. I had to pick up some sun dresses that I had made for the girls and Heather wanted some things made. It was not a pleasurable experience today. Not very good bargains and the beggers outside where quite aggressive. From there we grabbed some lunch and went by Ava's school to drop off paperwork for Ella to see if I could get her into the same school as Ava for next year. I took my camera today and snapped some random pictures of things we see in Shanghai everyday. We are getting immune to it but you will probably wonder how we could stand it. Well, we just laugh a lot. In the pictures are the fabric market, laundry day, a group of employees playing musical chairs before work, a lady with a baby bed set up on the side of the road and street sweepers taking a rest. Yes, I saw all of this today. So, as you can imagine it is quite a different world here.

Ella turns 5!

We had a great birthday week for Ella. On Wednesday (her actual birthday) we took cupcakes to school and had a family dinner of "pea pie" and a molten chocolate cake creation. Then on Saturday we went with one of Ella's friends and one of Ava's friends to the Shanghai Barbie Flagship store. It is 6 stories with a spa, boutique, Barbie design center, runway, and restaurant. The girls got to go thru and find out about fashion design. Then use the computer to create their own Barbie. Afterwards, we went to the restaurant and had an ice cream and pink lemonade while we waited for the Barbies to be put together. Finally, we had all the parents and kids back to the house for hamburgers, potato salad and more birthday cake. Ella finally fell asleep on the couch and I think she was quite satisfied with her birthday. Now I may need a vacation just to recover.

Easter In Shanghai

Well, Easter was a little different this year. Good and bad. We did not attend church all though we did talk about the meaning of Easter. We pulled together enough overly priced items from various stores to decorate cookies and a neighbors husband was coming back from the US (Bedford, TX none the less) and brought us some Easter grass and plastic eggs. So I think the girls were pretty pleased with the Easter bunny's visit. He also brought me a Southern Living magazine!! Oh was I in heaven. We went to an egg hunt at the German Center and they hid colored hard boiled eggs. So, we really just enjoyed them for the moment and then quietly got rid of them so as not to have a salmonella outbreak. Finally we ended up at a little restaurant with a group of friends and ate dinner while the kids played some more. If fun is measured by how dirty you can get then I believe the girls came home having had as much fun as they possibly could. I will enjoy spending time in the US where they might be able to play and stay relatively clean. Anyway, hope your Easter's where good.

Xian 2

We really enjoyed our trip to Xian (She Ahn). We went on a guided tour with 10 other families. Our tour coordinator is awesome. She has lived in China for about 8 years. She sets up the trips to be completely kid friendly and has plenty of snacks and activities for the kids to do. We will definitely go with her again. So the first day we flew to Xian and then went and ate a big Chinese meal. It was raining so we changed from going to see the city wall to going to an art museum that showcased traditional Chinese art. The kids got to try their hand at calligraphy while we heard about the history. Then we went to our hotel which was very nice and checked in and then off to the Bell Tower. From the bell tower you could see down the avenues at both modern and historic buildings (and lots of cars and people). Then we went to a 40 course dumpling dinner and stuffed ourselves silly. On Saturday we went to the site of the Terracotta Warriors. This was really neat to see all the different facial expressions. When I get all the way thru the pictures I'll post some more. We ate another big lunch where the kids got a chance to make dumplings with the chief and then headed back to the city wall to take a bike ride or a golf cart tour (that is what we did) around the wall that is about 10 miles. The next day we went to a really old mosque that dates back to the silk road days of China and it was amazing. We even got to witness some of the praying. Not quite like you see in the middle eastern mosques. We also went to another site with more artifacts. It was interesting but not as much as the warrior site. The day was so pretty that we rushed thru and then let the kids play outside. Then we got on a plane and came home. All the Chinese food that we ate over the weekend was not the spicy kind that we are used to. So when we got home we had to hit the Indian food restaurant for some spice. That is our new form of a Mexican food outing. Anyway, it was a good weekend but we are happy to be home. It was funny listening to the kids begging to back home to Shanghai instead of back home to the US.

Xian Trip

Land Family Art Day

One of the great things about living in Shanghai is that they have this street with store after store of cheap art supplies. So we can experiment with all kinds of art creations with little money. Yesterday, Ava and I went into one of the shops and she picked out all the canvases and today we did family painting day. Mark only got a drawing done because he was working while we painted. Ava started out making a picture of Poppy (my dad) and then decided to make it a girl and then she said it was a chinese girl. Ella made a butterfly garden. And I tried my hand at pulling together some pictures I liked into one painting. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Random Photos

Well, we are officially settled in. We've got our daily routines and they aren't much different than in the US. We had a busy time for a while. Ella did a double whammy ER visit one week. First we went because she had some breathing difficulty and we thought she was going to have to be admitted but then they gave her a round of breathing treatments and she cleared up and not 2 days later she fell off a chair and broke her arm. Then Daisy, our dog, got an imbiblical hernia and had to go into surgery and stay at the vet's for 5 days. But we are all better now and like I said, life is as normal as it can be for us.

Ella's 2nd day of school.

Would you believe me if I said I chose the 2nd day to take picture of Ella starting school because she is the 2nd child? Please believe it because I feel like a heel for not taking a camera on the first day. She is loving school. We had a set back because she got sick this week and had to miss a day but overall she is excited to go everyday. And she gets to do big kid things like eat in a cafeteria and go to the library and check out books like Ava.

A day at Yu Yuan Gardens

Last Sunday was a beautiful day in Shanghai. We've not had many of those since arriving. It was also the last day of Chines New Year. So we thought we would take off and do some more sightseeing. We decided on Yu Yuan Gardens which is world famous mostly for the traditional dumpling type things they sell there (I forget the chinese name for them). People will wait in line for 2 hours to get them. Anyway, this garden has been referenced in a book I read, on travel and cooking shows and is a populare tourist stop here in Shanghai. So we were really excited to go. We were dropped off they the taxi on this old street and he pointed and said over there. We didn't see anything that looked like a garden "over there" but we got out and armed with the address began walking. We saw a lot of really neat things. We came across a park that I suppose was ment to be the garden but didn't look very exciting and so we decided to give up and just walk around. Then we found the market associated with the garden and the place where the dumpling things are sold. Oh my, we definetly were not the only people thinking of going to the Yu Yuan Gardens that day. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Chinese New Year

Oh I may never look at 4th of July the same. We can buy professional grade fireworks at the firework stands and shoot them off on our street. I think that the neighbors who stayed for Chinese New Year have their garages packed with explosives right now. Most Expats choose to leave and go on vacation outside of China because of the noise, traffic and the fact that for 3 days the city practically shuts down. Here are pictures from Chinese New Year's eve. We had a family dinner of "Pea Pie". For those of you who don't know that is my kids name for pork chops, mashed potatoes and peas. They then mix them together and call it pea pie. They have not seen pea pie since we left the states but I was able to assemble all the ingredients once our sea shipment arrived. So in Chinese tradition of a big family meal, that is what we had. We then went outside to see our neighbors shoot some fire works and they were amazing. We were invited down to have dumplings a midnight with some neighbors (that is a chinese tradtion) but the girls fell asleep. Mark went to represent the family and I thought I was going to turn in. Then midnight came and I was shocked out of bed by all the noise. It sounded like the biggest baddest thunderstorm you could think of. So I ran out to witness the site and every bit of the sky line was filled with fireworks. They do this to ward off the evil spirits from the year before so they don't follow into the new year. The next night we went to a banquet hall that can seat about 1000 people. We expected to it to be full because many chinese take their whole family out for dinner during this time but the place was empty except for us and another party. So we had the whole restaurant to ourselves. The kids ran, listened to music and danced on the stage. We took a tour of the kitchen and watched our food getting prepared. They would not let us take pictures. One guy did and they asked him to go sit down. But it was surprisingly clean. The woks were huge and they had fish tanks with every sea critter imagineable. So it was really a neat experience. And that is what we have done so far during Chinese New Year.

The Girls

The only thing good I can say about these pictures is that Ella grew hair, finally. Otherwise it just shows how fast they are growing up.

Chinese New Year Celebration at Ava's School

We went to a Chinese New Year celebration at Ava's school. It was supposed to be outside with fireworks included but due to rain was moved inside and no fireworks. It felt like a pep rally until the band began. It was drummers beating loud and then the dragons showed up and put on a show. They were kinda scary looking but the kids seemed to really enjoy it.