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.