Hangzhou Trip

I may get a few more pictures on later, but this is a good start. Tim even helped write this one a bit (you will notice he definitely helped on the pics as they are in the right order and not sideways). Thanks hun!

Quick side note...I love ice!!! I have always loved a good ice water, but I forgot how much I really love it. You see here in China not only do they not use ice, but they actually prefer their water warm. So I have just become somewhat accustomed to have warm water, I don't like it, but it is all that they have. Anyways, I finally found some ice cube trays and just finished the best glass of ice water ever!!! Just needed to say that.

So Hangzhou....we decided to only go to Hangzhou as the mountains were supposed to have lots of rain. So we left Tuesday morning and headed to the Shanghai train station. First of all the train station was amazing, it must be fairly new. We found the ticket counter, only to be told that the train we showed up for was already sold out. The next one didn't leave for 2 ½ hours, so we bought the tickets and found a place to eat lunch.

The girls played and then Adayla needed to go to the bathroom. We are thinking "couldn't be that bad" as this facility seemed very nice.

Tim took some pictures, I don't need to say anything else. I will let you know that people don't flush toilet paper and this is the men's bathroom......

Anyways, we loaded the train that was quite nice and headed towards Hangzhou. The fast train is only 1 ½ hours direct. We can handle anything for 1 ½ hours.
Hangzhou is a “small” Chinese city of “only” 2.5 million people (it would be tied for third largest in the U.S. with Chicago). Hangzhou is known for its beautiful scenery (lake, trees, mountains, etc) and beautiful women! Hangzhou served as the capital city of the Song Dynasty during the 12th and 13th centuries, when the emperors ordered that China's most beautiful women be brought to Hangzhou – centuries later those genes are still in the city! When Marco Polo visited Hangzhou during the 13th century, he remarked that “Hangzhou is the most splendid city in the world.”

We arrived and took a taxi to our friends house. After the train unloads there is a mad rush towards the taxi line. Have any of you read about the Beijing people having to practice waiting in line for the olympics?? There is a reason they have to do this and it makes us crazy. But it is just their way of life and they don't get mad at others for doing it. All I can say that our strollers are coming in very handy in “knocking” people back into their place. We put the girls down for their afternoon nap and then headed to the most famous part of Hangzhou, West Lake.

The only not as fun part is that there are lots of Chinese tourists there and therefore we become an attraction, again.

We headed back to our friends house. These are the same friends that stayed with us a few weeks ago, the ones that got sick at our house. Then our other Olmsted friends came and we got sick. Then we go to our friends house and I get sick again. We are seeing a pattern, every time with get together with fellow Olmsteders somebody is sick. So I have solved this....we just won't be hanging out with them anymore! Really they were great hosts and we enjoyed staying at their beautiful home. Adayla and Tally loved playing with their kids and their toys.

The next morning we walked around a different part of the lake and took a boat tour on a hand crafted wood boat.

The tour guide rows you around the entire lake. Quite different views than we had seen before. Thankfully it was a bit overcast and so it wasn't as hot as it was the next day. Tally loved the boat, she just wanted to only hang out the side. Her parents thought this wasn't a good idea and so she screamed for a good 20 minutes until we got off the boat. The tour was round trip with a stop at little store for shopping, we happily declined the return trip and continued around the lake.

This was early on in the trip, we have pics of Tally's grumpy moment, but we will keep that to ourselves.

This is not a pic of the big pagoda, just a cute one of Tim and Adayla.

Eventually we came to a big Pagoda right on the lake. We were able to go all the way to the top (it had recently been reconstructed and they added some elevators!) The top had amazing views of the lake, we loved this peaceful place.

What to you think of the two individual strollers? We decided to buy another single because the double jogger is just too big to fit in the taxis and so we can't take it out of town. This works and we don't have to carry one kid half the day. Now they only fight about who gets to sit in the new stroller.

Tally and her mom at the top of the pagoda.

We returned back to our friends for the afternoon nap and the guys took the kids swimming to give the moms a break. We enjoyed it while I “helped” fix dinner. She is Russian and we had some tasty Bierocks! It is good to get together with other scholars to compare notes and get some ideas off them. So we had quite a bit to chat about.

My friend took me shopping that evening and took me to where I could buy a cake for Morgan's birthday! There were no birthday cakes, per se, so I bought the next best thing – a cheese cake. It was a beauty. We brought it back and surprised Morgan with it. We sang “Zhu ni sheng ri kuai le” and Morgan blew out the candles with the girls' help. Like so many desserts in China, it looked so good, but they forgot to add the sugar! It was good, but was much better the next evening when we thought of putting Nutella on the cheesecake – Mmmm! That was Morgan's first of THREE birthdays here in China as this fantasy assignment comes to an end in September of 2009.

The next morning we headed to an ancient Buddhist Temple. The grounds were again amazing. And the inside was interesting to say the very least....

Tally and Adayla outside the temple taking a rest off their feet from all the walking....

Tally at this point had this monster mosquito bite on her face that made 1/2 of her face compeletly swell. She looks quite normal in these pics, but ahh, it was kind of scary.

Tim goes to buy the tickets to the temple and he comes out to a gathering crowd....

He knows where to find us.............

I think the best part of it all was at the end we found the closest thing to snow cones in China. It was crushed ice with a strawberry flavoring on the top. Usually you can find all sorts of food and deserts that look absolutely fantastic and then you taste it. As Tim noted above, the Chinese forget to add sugar to almost everything, but this was sweet, cold, and very refreshing.

We then headed back for another quick nap for the girls (see how our lives revolve around the naps), but that is just our life. We packed up, thanked our friends, and headed for the train station. We arrived with about 30 minutes to spare. We lugged all our stuff up the stairs and showed our tickets to some folks to find out where we needed to go. They started laughing at us. We had gone to the wrong train station. The other one was far away and there was no chance of making it. We would have arrived in Shanghai at 8 pm and decided that the later train was not an option. We called our friends to say we would be heading back to their place for the night. This is what we will now refer to as the Hangzhou curse. We are not as cursed as them or we would have made at least one visit to the emergency room. Tally's big mosquito bite that swelled half of her entire face was just her body reacting to the bite and after two days her face returned to normal. What the heck, we enjoyed another night with them. We made it back on the 11 am train and arrived home just in time for afternoon naps, this time for the entire family. Tim was also still able to squeeze in his now weekly massage.

Saturday morning we had Chinese class and Tim had Jane help him translate the information on his weekend get away. He will be joining his classmates this upcoming weekend for some get to know you and team building exercises. I will let him tell how it went next week. The rest of the day was quite lazy, we didn't even go outside. The girls were happy to be home and playing with their toys. We woke up and went to church today. A few exciting things happened. First, a Japanese family sang a beautiful song in Japanese that brought such a peaceful feeling with it. This family faithfully attends each week, though only the father speaks English. They are a great example to the rest of us. The second was that Tim and I found out we would be teaching the 3 years olds. They will be quite a handful, but I think we will like it. Lastly, another family just moved into our complex!! They have a 3 year old boy and one due in November. We are very excited! There are mostly Chinese in our complex and quite a few Germans. It will be nice for Adayla and Tally to have an English speaking padre (and nice for their mom too!)

That catches us up, we are off to bed!

Add a comment if you like....

I have figured out how to view my comments and actually view some of your blogs! Most blogs are blocked here in China and it does take a bit of work to be able to view others, but well worth it to see how our friends are doing! So feel free to say hi, if you are peeking in on us!

Today....really!

Today was busy. We were planning on leaving to go to Hangzhou this morning and staying the night with our friends there. And then heading up to Huangshan in Anhui province, a beautiful place in the mountains, but it looked like it was going to rain all week. So we axed that part of the trip and are now going to spend a few days in Hangzhou, just to get out Shanghai and see other parts of China.

Jane, our Chinese tutor, came today. I don't think I have said how fantastic she is, Tim and I both think she is great. Next time, I will have to post a picture of Jane the Tutor. We are so lucky/blessed to have found her. She speaks great English and her Chinese is decent (haha...she is Chinese). She motivates Tim to study and he continues to improve. The girls like her and she is just quite pleasant. I spend part of my time talking about Chinese culture, which is also helpful in understanding things here. She comes to our house twice a week, but we are thinking of having her come 3 times a week. This Friday we are going to take her swimming at our pool. Swimming for the Chinese is very expensive and so many Chinese have never even gone before. She is going to go shopping with us next week as well, it should be good times. We are just trying to convince her to not get a real job and just be our tutor! Seriously, things really seem to be just falling into place here in China and we are so grateful.

Adayla went to preschool and happily went in on her own. Sometimes she has a bit of a struggle, but I think it is mainly because the other kids are crying or have their grandparents with them. She loves it and still speaks mostly in English, but will respond as her teachers are speaking Chinese to her.

Tally is continuing to speak more and more, she is doing quite well at imitating words. She will say Ayi, Ayi! It is quite cute. Yesterday we went over to some friends from church who had a dog and Tally cried when it came near her. This little thing was all of 5 pounds, but it made me sad that she has already forgotten Binx. (Don't worry Binx, Adayla hasn't!)

One American living here in Shanghai told us this story and I see myself telling it a few years down the road about Tally. His little boy was at the table with some of his cousins back in the states and they were talking about their favorite foods. One kid was like, I love pizza. Another kid says, chicken nuggets are my favorite food and his boy chimes in, I like rice! Tally loves rice! Tonight at dinner she saw the rice and started going berserk.

This evening was the first time we let Ayi cook since the day of poisoning at Taco Bell Grande. Her food is yummy! We don't even bother to go try to eat Chinese food. It is impossible to just go and order off the menu. It just isn't good. We tried this on Friday night, we thought surely we can find something tasty....yeah right. We found a little place a few blocks away that brought a fondue bowl out filled with food. We saw something that looked good on another table and said we will take what they are having. They brought it out and we thought the meat looked “interesting” and found out we had just ordered frog. Tim said it tastes like chicken, but I didn't see him eat more than one piece and I didn't dare try it. We also ordered a shrimp pot and so we were able to eat a little bit, but mostly we will be dining within the walls of our own home.

A few more quickies about some things in China. A few weeks ago and I thought I need a haircut. There are a few places outside our complex and I thought I would try one. I go in, decide on the 80RMB stylist (prices vary by experience) and I went with the more expensive one. He was about $3 more than the other. I am thinking this will take 30 minutes to an hour. Ha! Two and a half hours later I left with a nice looking haircut. They washed and massaged my head, cut my hair, massaged my back, arms, hands, and neck, and then blow dried each hair (individually)! So when you come visit us in China, come needing a hair cut! It is a little more than $10 to have the whole experience!

Speaking of massage, Tim FINALLY made it there after almost 2 months here. I told him he can go once a week if he'd like, but he just hadn't gotten around to it. I am thinking he will be getting there nearly every week now! An hour massage is about $9.00. We just had to make sure it was a legitimate massage place....it was and he came home feeling pretty good.

As for our Saturday, it was another one of my “adventures”. Tim keeps agreeing to go, maybe one day he will learn. There are so many places to explore and I decided we would go to a flower and bird market that also sold artwork and furniture. We have to plan around naps and so decided not to go until late afternoon. As we packed up, Tim looks at the window and says it looks like a big storm is coming. I don't worry about these kind of things and say lets go. We took the metro there and when we exited the station it was POURING. And as Tim is saying “I told you so” he insists that we start walking to the market. Thankfully we did have two umbrellas, but they didn't do much good as I was also trying to push the stroller. Needless to say, Adayla and I were both soaked. Tim and Tally were somewhat protected under their umbrella, other than his feet. Anyways we arrived wet, but loved this little market! It had all sorts of pet turtles and fish, plants and flowers, and all sorts of things upstairs. Absolutely fascinating! We will head back next week to put in an order for some large plants! Pics later...

Last reason on why we love China for tonight. Our church here is a whole experience in its own. I think I have explained it a bit before, but here it is again in short. You must be a foreign passport holder or a Chinese married to a foreign passport holder. So we literally have people from all over: Germany, Argentina, Singapore, Korea, Japan, Phillipines, the State, etc. Most speak English either very well or just a little bit and so most of the meeting is in English. But many times prayers and during class as we read scriptures, it could very well be in another language. I just love how here we are people from all over the world worshiping Christ and God in the same way. The Spirit that is felt is just such a good feeling.

So until we return from Hangzhou and our first visit out of Shanghai.....

Christmas in Shanghai

I can't seem to catch up, so I am just starting from today with a few stories from the past. Today we had a good day. Studied Chinese, Adayla went to school, Tally had a few naps, the girls played together, Ayi cleaned and did laundry, and our stomachs still hurt a bit. We are still recovering!

The biggest news: WE HAVE OUR STUFF!!! And it is was like Christmas for the girls, except that Adayla knew what she was getting. A few days before we got our stuff, we told Adayla that all her toys were coming. She starting saying what she was going to play with, my red purse, my pink stroller, and my big baby (the smaller baby we brought with us). Tally and Adayla have played and played! It is SO nice they can finally entertain themselves for a few minutes. And we have our cereal!!!!! For those of you that have that care package started and don't know what else to add, I will get you my list really soon of a few things I wish I had brought!

That was all I wrote that day, I Tim and I have started watching movies about once a week after the girls go down. Well, we started the movie and I was going to type a bit during it...didn't happen.

Real reason I haven't posted sooner....

August 7th, 2007

So I was in the middle of catching up here and a bad case of food poisoning hit. We are now mostly recovered and it is only 3 days later. Though it took us a good week to actually get back to where we felt normal again.

Tally, I think, misses Adayla when she is at school. We play, but I know she would rather follow her big sister around. When we go to pick her up, Tally is so happy to have her back.

Last week, Tally had two more bottom teeth break through. She now has 8, 4 on the bottom and 4 on the top. Teeth just make her look like a little girl. But I guess since she doesn't have too much hair, it keeps her my baby! She is so strong willed. When we pray for the girls, we are grateful for their strong minds and we ask that they will continue to have such....I am thinking about quitting doing this. They do have strong minds and therefore like to think of themselves as independent when they feel like. When she decides she wants a toy, she lets Adayla know it. When she is grumpy, there is not much you can do to distract her. When she is mad whether you picked her up and stopped her from going somewhere she planned on or have her next to Adayla in the double stroller and she is not happy about it, she lets you know it. She knows that she can quickly give a good tug to Adayla's hair or mine. She will hit or scratch you, if she can't get to the hair. I know some of this is learned behavior, but I know she doesn't have hair that anybody pulls...she does this all on her own.

Tally learns so much from watching us interact as a family and the things that Adayla does. She knows before we have a meal, we always say a prayer. She happily keeps her arms folded throughout the entire prayer. But the funniest is that she likes to push the on/off button on the TV and she knows that she is not supposed to do it. The next time she did it, I said, Tally you go to timeout. She marched her little self right to the corner and put her nose in it. We tried to control our giggles. She stood there until I counted to ten. Then she came back out and played. I was so amazed that she knew exactly what to do, just by us having timeouts with Adayla. Next time I am going to take a pic!

Obviously she understands quite a bit. Every time she has a stinky diaper, I tell her “stinky” or “hen chou” and she grabs her little nose. We just think she is quite cute!

A few quick funnies:
When you go to a market to go shopping, the store attendants immediately shout at you in English to try to get you into their store. I don't like to just ignore them, but if you show any interest they won't let you go. I usually keep walking and will say, “bu yao, xie xie.” Which means I don't need, thanks. The other day we were with our friends and Tim was push Adayla in the stroller. I had already walked past when Tim came along. They started shouting at him, Adayla says on her own, “Bu yao, xie xie!” We cracked up!

We have mentioned that small kids her in China only have a slit in their pants. It is actually more than a slit, it is a big hole exposing everything. Quite frequently, they like to bring their little kids up to our little kids who are in the stroller. This past weekend, this lady brings her little grandson up to say hi to our girls. There he is looking at our girls, with his parts there for everybody to see. I know this is just life for them, but Adayla is going to start noticing the difference really soon. How am I going to teach these girl modesty when their are bums all over the place???

We had our 2nd set of visitors, another Olmsted family from China. They arrived Friday evening, after riding a fast train, with their 3 kids. Ayi cooked a Chinese dinner complete with homemade dumplings. I was going to help, but we got busy with other things that day. It rained hard both evenings they were here, so we mostly stayed inside and traded stories on how things are going. The older two kids are 11 and 9 and they were so good with Adayla. She loved just hanging out with them and they were very good to play games with her. They have a little guy around Tally's age. They were just happy to have toys.

Back to our weekend....
We headed out Saturday morning to see a bit of Shanghai. We took the ferry across the river and then headed down Nanjing Road over to People's Square where we went to a city planning museum. You can see the pics later. I didn't know how Shanghai really spreads out. (I don't know where else 22 million people would live, but I am in my little bubble of how to get places.) We are going to have to venture out to other places. We saw one sad part about the city...our views in 10 years will be completely gone, all we will have is big buildings to look at. So as long as it is in 5 years and not 2, we are good. But we noticed they just started a second building that will definite block our views :(
We then headed over to Taco Belle Grande to have a fabulous mexican dinner. They had chips, they had salsa, and they had cheese. Life couldn't have gotten better and it is was along 2 metro stops away! Until later that evening which led me to stop blogging and have a 3 day break...and even then we are feeling the best. So no more Taco Belle Grande.... : ( We learned all about la duzi and ou tou....

We had a great time with our Olmsted friends and look forward to a visit in Nanjing...once the days aren't quite so hot!
We were supposed to get our stuff today....we still don't have it. They called late Monday night to say it hadn't cleared customs yet. Bummer! But they called again today and set up for delivery tomorrow....we are keeping our fingers crossed.

I am hoping to improve my cooking skills while here, if not we won't starve to death, but I have the time and there isn't much else to eat other than Chinese food. I actually like it, I have to look hard to find other things to eat, but it gets us eating things outside the box!

Adayla on the other hand is a real concern for her teachers. We feed her breakfast before she goes to school (of course) and then they feed them a snack of cookies. Cookies are what they call them, I would probably call them sugarless and therefore flavorless tummy fillers. Adayla eats them and then the teachers wonder why at 11:00 am she is not hungry for lunch. First is is Chinese food, things that she is not familiar with and because she is not hungry.

I am going to bed now, more later.

Adayla's First Day at School

My sweet little girl now goes to school all by herself. I am not quite used to it, but she seems to be doing well. Here is here first day of preschool (though the Chinese call it kindergarten) in Tim's words:


I got the chance to go with Adayla to her first day of Kindergarten today! It was so much fun to watch her - she's a big girl, especially when I see her wearing her "bei bao" (backpack). Class is from 0800-1145 and includes a snack and a lunch.There are 10 kids in her class with two dedicated teachers and several floating teachers. Today there were only 8 kids in class, and Adayla was the only non-Chinese. Since today was the first day, they asked that one parent stay the entire day to help their child transition. Adayla was the only child without a grandparent there. There were only two parents there as one child had a grandparent and a parent. In China it is customary that the parents give their children to the grandparents to raise so they can go out and work.

Here's the funny for the day: So this young Italian guy comes in to teach the kids English with his heavy Italian accent. The kids are sitting around him and he just starts talking English, no Chinese at all, and says "My name is Julio, what's your name?" He did this to the first three kids and made them all cry. He finally got to Adayla and said "You must speak English, what's your name?" and Adayla told him. He then asked where she was from and she said "America." He then told her "you need to help me teach your friends English, ok?"He then played some silly song that was in English, then he said, "Now we're going to learn the alphabet." He held up a sign that had the letter "A" on it, with a picture of an apple with its name. He told everybody that this was the letter "A" and had the kids repeat it several time, which they did. He then said "A is the first letter of this, do you know what it is?" No response, then he asked Adayla, "Can you tell everybody what this is?" and she firmly responded, "Ping guo" (apple in Chinese). It made all the adults laugh - I was cracking up! A little later he got to the letter "B" and did the same thing with it. There was a picture of a baskeball with the word "ball" written next to it. He asked his English-speaking helper again to tell everybody what it was and she again clearly stated "lan qiu" (basketball in Chinese). Again, everybody laughed - I was dying laughing!He had one more sign, this one for the letter "C." I couldn't wait for this, as it had a picture of a cat and I knew Adayla knew this in Chinese as well. But this guy wised up and just told everybody that "C" was in the word "cat." Oh too bad, I wanted to hear Adayla tell him it was a "mao."

Me again, I like hearing Tim's perspective on things. One of the many great things about this program is that he gets to do many things he normally is just not around for. And the girls are getting quite used to him being around!!

August 4th

Once again, I am falling behind on my posting to my blog and not just typing it in word....so here it is....

August 4th, 2007
How is it August already? Time is going by way too quickly and you would think that I could find time to update this everyday, but..... We are still settling here and waiting for our household goods, hopefully they said this Tuesday!! Ayi will take care of the kids and I will put the things away. It has been almost 3 months since we left our stuff, I don't remember what I packed and what I stored. So if she puts it away, I might not even know that I even have it!
We have been quite busy the last 3 weeks. We had some exciting things happen. Let's see what I can remember. We had our 1st house guests about two weeks ago and our 2nd house guests this weekend. The first ones were just supposed to have dinner with us and then go home, but ended up staying the weekend...it was a long one for them and if you know our friends in Hanzhou, they can give you the whole story. It goes something like this, emergency room visit for stitches, train tickets all sold out to go home, and then ended with a case of food poisoning. We enjoyed having them and say again, anybody is more than welcome to use us for a place to stay! We look forward to visiting them and staying at their house, once the weather cools down.

We have realized some things here in Shanghai and everyday we learn a new and better way to do something. For example, taking a taxi, which is really not that expensive. About 5 bucks gets you about anywhere you need to go. The only problem is that the girls, namely Tally, HATE taxis. Okay, it is not the taxi that the hate, or the seat belts in them (that's right, they don't have them), but how they must act while inside them. The drivers are surrounded by a big plastic shield, that would make a perfect drum for a 1 year old right? She wants to bang and is quite frustrated that we are restraining her to our laps or beside us. Then she would love to crawl on the ground, which as mentioned previously, not going to happen because of all the funk. So we take a taxi to church it takes anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes, depending on traffic, and she cries a good part of the time. So we are finding that the subway system is not only really cheap, but our kids are actually happy most of the time and a millions times safer! I think the constant changing of people gives them a different focus. We hardly take taxis altogether anymore. We are walking much more and it may only take a few minutes longer if going across town. But we are much happier as the kids are quite happy!

Pics Alas....

Here are a few pics, in random order....there is a better way, I am just too lazy to figure it out. We have high speed internet here, at least that is what we pay for, but most of the time it is about the same speed or slightly faster than dial-up. So I thought it would take to long to add pictures, it did, but is wasn't as bad as I thought....maybe I'll do it again before Christmas!

Tally walking (again I think I need to edit BEFORE I add it, maybe next time)

Tally and Adayla playing at a play land in a children's market. You pay 2 bucks and they can play as long as they like. There were balls, swings, you name it. It was all great until Adayla and her Chinese friend were playing in the balls. The little girl stopped and Tim saw pee-pee coming down her legs. We realized this was not the first time.....

Playing in their new house!

Dancing in the big mall together. We love watching them play together. Adayla just loves Tally and Tally loves her big sister. Tally loves to just grab onto Adayla and hold on while Adayla walks, that is probably what was going on here....

A night on the town...

Adayla's first day at preschool, she LOVES it!

Ayi with Tally
Adayla took a picture with this girl, Adayla was happy only if she got to see the pic afterwards.

So we STILL don't have our household goods and therefore only a few toys, so we went to Toys R Us to let them enjoy some. It looks like we were the only ones there, but there were about 50 other kids playing too.

Adayla Big Day - Her first day at her new school!

Adayla was actually quite happy here. Tally loved to push and then they would switch.
A stranger wanting a pic with Adayla. Since we are in China, this is okay. If we were in the States, I would think he was a sicko....

Hot, sweaty day the with girls seeing the sights of Shanghai. We are slowly getting used to the heat, okay, not really! We can't wait for September to come!

Having a Ayi to cook is great, we said she could cook whatever and we would eat it (at least try it.) Here is our fish for the night with eyeballs and all, thankfully she already took out his guts! The fish is actually quite tasty, but it has too many bones. So we told her we prefer not to eat it. At least we know by looking at this what it was. A few weeks ago, we had some Tofu and Chocolate pudding looking stuff....so Tim tries it. I hadn't yet. He thought it had a "interesting" taste and so he asked what it was. She replies ya xue....what? Ya as in duck as we are flapping our wings and she says yes. Xue....we didn't know. She started talking about Adayla and how she went to the doctor. She then squeezes her finger. Tim went to get his Pleco (his palm pilot dictionary) and confirmed the fear...Blood. Together Tim had just eaten Duck Blood! Note to ourselves....ask BEFORE eating! Tim says, "But I never would have tried it if I had asked." Morgan says, "DUH!"

Pee Pee Sample

Daddy and Adayla had a bit of Daddy/Daughter time today....in the words of Tim, here it is:

I took Adayla today to get a physical so she can enroll in a Chinese-speaking kindergarten. I called the hospital that the kindergarten required us to use and asked them when they were open for children's school-entry physical exams and they said all day from 8:30 to 4:30 pm. So Adayla and I took the taxi over to this hospital, registered, and arrived at the office at 12:20, only to find that they were closed from 11:30-1:30. So I asked an attendant if there was some place where we could eat (I was planning on eating at 1, after the physical). The attendant took me to the hospital cafeteria. I thought what the heck, does it get any more authentic than this? I went through the line and the first thing they put on my plate was a block of rice. When I say block, seriously it was the size of a regular-sized, rectangular brick. Then in other sections of the tray they put on some sort of vegetable, curry chicken and potatoes, a bowl of soup, and a rib. The total cost was 7 RMB, so a bit less than a buck. The food was actually pretty decent - Adayla and I put most of it away. She's quite a good rice eater. The one thing is though that I can't eat chicken here as it's various parts on the bone with the skin - it's too much work to get any of the meat. I watched others to see how they ate the chicken and the rib – sure enough, they still use their chopsticks so I used mine. I'm still kind of amazed that chopsticks haven't been replaced by the “spork” but that's another topic I guess. Adayla also drank most of my 8-ounce bottle of water – we'll get to that later.

We went back to the exam offices where there was a big Little Tikes playground set up. Adayla had fun playing there. We were the only people there until about 1:15, then people started to come. At 1:35 a hospital worker came and opened one of the offices. I noticed as one couple and their baby “snuck” in before I got to the office. So much for the ticket with a number that I had... whatever. So Adayla gets measured: she weighed in at 28 pounds, and measured exactly 36 inches in height. But when they lifted up her shirt to measure her waist and chest, she began to cry very loud. They got their measurements and we went to the office next door. When I arrived there, the couple that snuck in before me were being seen, so I sat in the seat right outside. While sitting there, a lady with her mom walked their child right past me and into the office and stood there as the other folks were being seen. I thought they'd be asked to leave, but no, that's just the way you do things. So after the first family left, I stood up and went in to wait while this second family-that-cut-me-off was being seen. I'm feeling a bit awkward being in there as the doc is doing the physical exam on this kid, but then another lady comes in with her parents and her child and stand in front of us. I thought “no way,” I'm going to get cut-off for a third time. The grandma put their paperwork on the desk and began talking to the doctor. “Uh, excuse me, can you wait?!” When the second family that cut me off was finished, the grandma took her grandson from the mother and put him on the doctor's desk. Again, whatever. I need to learn how to say, “Hey, I was here first, please wait your frickin' turn” in Chinese. Fortunately the doctor told her to take the child off, that we were next. After the doc was done with her exam, she told me that I needed to take Adayla for a blood test and “xiao bian.” I knew what that was - “pee pee” - and I wasn't happy thinking about how I was going to get my girl to pee in a cup for me.

So we go over to the lab – it's pretty assembly line-like. You walk up to the big glass window, put your arm under and they do whatever they need to (give shots, take blood, give them pee-pee samples, etc). Adayla saw the person in front of us getting a “da zhen” (shot) and she did not want one of those. We were next and the technician read our paper and before we knew it, she had pricked Adayla's finger and was taking blood for a sample. So Adayla starting to cry hysterically now. I had seen a snack shop on the way to the lab and told her she could pick out a treat. While still upset, she at least calmed down a bit. They then gave me the pee-pee cup. It was about a ¼ cup measuring cup – no lid, nothing else, just this cup with a little handle. I asked Adayla if she needed to go pee-pee toilet and she said no. So we went to go pick out her treat. Adayla and I walked up and down four isles and she didn't see anything that she wanted (and she's still a bit upset). Then she saw the bottles of Coke and said she wanted a Coke. This is perhaps a “bad father moment”, but I thought what the heck, she needs fluids to pee, and the caffeine should help her do that as well, and the sugar will guarantee that she'll drink lots of it! So I bought it and we went to a lobby for a drink. We went to the lobby outside of this store to have a drink, but before she could she starts saying “Daddy, I need to barf. I'm sick, I need to barf now.” She had upset herself so much, that now she felt she needed to barf. So after putting her head into the bag that I just got at the store for a minute, she stopped dry-heaving and grunting and she asked for a drink. I then took Adayla back to the waiting area with the playground to help her pass the time as her bladder hopefully continued to fill up. As we walked back, we stopped in the men's room right by the lab and as I feared, the toilet was no “toilet” but rather “footprints with a hole.” The thought of the logistics of getting this pee-pee sample was going to be near-impossible, so I hoped that the bathroom by the playground was better. This other bathroom was interesting – it had a common area for men and women to wash their hands, but then the men's/women's rooms branched off from there. I noticed a traditional toilet in the women's room and hope that I would find the same in the men's room, but no, the men's room only had footprints with a hole. So at least I had a sitter toilet to work with, even though it was in the women's room...

So we sat down by the playground and let Adayla drink as much as she wanted. She drank a bit, then went to play for a little bit. I kept asking her if she needed to go and soon she said she did! So we rushed into the women's room to get our sample. I got her situated, got the cup ready and she went, only it wasn't that much, and I didn't have time to get the cup to where it needed to be. I asked her to go a little bit more, but she couldn't. So she was dry. We went back out to the playground. Now I needed to get some fluids through her. I had a bottle of water, but she didn't want any of that. So I gave her the bottle of Coke and told her to drink as much as she wanted. I wonder if she even thought about what I was saying. Well, in about five minutes, she finished off the half-liter of Coke that she started. There were other parents and grandparents just watching, but I was desperate. It was now 2:30, the place closes at 4:30 and I needed to get fluids through my girl, get the results back, and get them to the doctor to sign off the examination form. I kept asking if she needed to go. At 3:00 she said she needed to go, so we rushed to the women's room, but she got “stage fright” as I positioned the cup in place. After trying to coerce her for five minutes, I gave up and we went back to play. Shortly before 3:30, she said she needed to go. Again we rushed, got her into position and I was as well, and she went! Wow, did she go – my cup was running over and I couldn't get my hand out. So to avoid losing my sample, I waited until she was done and relaxed, then I could get my hand back out.
This leads to the discussion of bathrooms in China. As discussed, the standard is footprints with a hole – standard toilets are seldom found. Also, toilet paper is usually not provided. I though for sure they would in a hospital, but no even there, it's BYOTP. Finally, this bathroom did not have soap, and nothing to dry your hands. While waiting for Adayla to go pee-pee, I kept an eye on that women's bathroom to see when it was clear so we could dash inside or wait for a minute until the ladies were out of it. I saw one of Adayla's doctors go in and out and thought, you know, there isn't any soap in there. So much for the sign that says that all employees must wash their hands with soap before returning to work, never mind doctors in a hospital.

I placed the sample into Adayla's unused barf bag for some protection, we washed as best we could (Adayla now says, “I dried my hands on Daddy's kuzi (pants)), and we made the two-minute walk back to the lab without spilling! I turned in the sample, waited about 10 minutes, and then took the results back to the doc. So we were out of there just before 4 pm.
Knowing that Adayla had a half-liter of Coke in her system, I asked her if she needed to go pee-pee before our taxi ride home (about 20 minute ride). She said no and she made it home. This evening, however, she has gone pee-pee several times! She's been potty-trained for a year now, hopefully she makes it through the night...

Now Adayla is all ready to register at her Kindergarten this week. She'll start classes next month!

Tim writes much better than I! I think I will let him be in charge of this blogging thing.....

Bedroom Buddies

July 17, 2007

Tally and Adayla's big day. Tonight they officially share a room. Tally's crib is up, they both have sheets (refer to bunny story below), and so it is 10 o'clock and they are still awake. It will get better and it will make our travels in the future much easier.

Tomorrow Adayla and Tim head to the doctor. Adayla has to have a physical before she can start school. She will be starting a preschool in the fall. We aren't sure yet how much she is going to go. I know she will love being around other kids, but I am not ready to be away from her. I will miss her. Thankfully, the school is on our complex grounds and just a five minute walk away. I just don't want her to grow up, she is such a sweet little peanut with spunk!

This place is just amazing. It has given me lots of time to contemplate lots of different things, from what is Chinese to the things that are really important to me. I just need to carry a pad around so I can write them down. I don't want to forget some of the feelings that I have had over the last 2 weeks. I will try to better in remembering so I can share them.

Well is time for me to head to bed and hopefully Tally too. We know when it is our bedtime as most buildings in the city turn their lights off at 11pm. Those silly girls are still awake. GO TO SLEEP! I know this is an adjustment for them and it will take a bit for them to get used to it. They are so cute together, families are the best!

Morgan's travels....

Tim the shopper. Have I said before how sweet my husband is, he really is a sweetheart! He is the energizer bunny that goes and goes with me. It is not the shopping that really bothers him, it is usually my way of getting there. For example, last night we went to a place called Hola, which is like a Bed Bath and Beyond. We needed a few things we couldn't find elsewhere and so someone had mentioned to try there. They gave us the address which was all in English and Pinyin (the written form of the Chinese characters, very useful to foreigners, but may make no sense to a taxi driver) and we set off. We took the shuttle bus from our apartment to the subway. It was then I realized that I had grabbed the Pudong map instead of the Puxi map (which is west side of the river and where we were headed). I figured no big deal, we have the address, we can just wing it. We took the subway across town found a stop we thought was close enough to where we were headed. We found the street that we wanted and thought we would soon be there....hah! We walked a few blocks on the street and decided we were way too far and it was getting late. So we waved for a taxi, gave him the address, and off we were. He dropped us off at a big mall and we thought for sure we were close. Nope. We had the right street and I would like someone to tell me on the numbers work on it. We were looking for 88 xian xie lu. We were originally in the 900 block, so thats when we took a cab to the 100 block. We ended up taking a cab back to the 1200 block or so and we finally arrived at the mall. Literally two hours and two grumpy kids later. It was 8:30 at the time, their normal bedtime, but we found it and so I was going to shop for a few things. We found lots that we needed and it was quite worth it, but we didn't get home until 10:30 and 2 extremely grumpy kids later. Because we don't have a car here and rely only on taxi's that don't neccessarily pick up at the front door, we usually have our arms full with stuff that are already tired arms from carrying the girls, and then we need to make our way out to the street to load up. Tim remained so helpful and happy, though I know he was completely frustrated and would have returned immediately after I realized we didn't have the right map. So if you ever make it to Shanghai and stay in our guest room, tell Tim what a nice, cozy bed he helped pick out!

This was after our Saturday excursion. Pretty much the same thing. And before that, I think their was the Ikea excursion. I decide just to take off (usually later in the evening and we have a limited about of time before we get grumpy kids) and once we get somewhat close, I figure we can just ask someone. We have done this three times and it hasn't worked yet, Tim hopes I have learned my lesson. There are many people willing to help, there is just a small communication barrier. We are continuing to learn, Tim has learned, but I am still learning. This is one of the many reasons he is the best husband. I love him!

The love/hate relationship....

My love/hate relationship with Ayi. One day I love her and things are going great and the next day I am ready to kick her out the door. Just when I think she has gotten something I have tried to tell her, she does something, and I know otherwise. This week is off to a good start, we told her we would try her for 1 month and if we like her, she had a job. Last week, she was well on her way out the door, but then we figured we would have to start over with someone else. So over the weekend I made a list of things that had to change and had our tutor go over them with her. Our tutor understands English and therefore could translate it to Chinese for her. I never thought I could get so flustered with someone who was willing to clean my house, but I am learning. She understands most basic cleanliness concepts, but others... We have had to go over how to sort colors in the laundry, more than once and a few "new" shirts later. (They were a different color coming out then going in.) I have quit watching her in the kitchen. Raw meat is just like any other food to them, you don't need to wash your hands after you touch it. So she handles the meat and then touches everything, the refrigerator, spices, and etc. I had our tutor tell her and then I quit watching. Something along you can't teach an old dog new tricks. She just doesn't not understand why this is yucky. I figure, she has always done it this way and isn't sick, so we are good as long as I don't see it. She is also kind of like Shayla being at your house, as soon as you set something down she has put it away and you can't find it! (Right Brigham...:) She recycles everything, which normally I am a big fan of, except that I was recycling it my self by using it somewhere in my house. The next thing I know it is on the way out the door with her. There is a few other things to do with vegetable buying, but we will save that for later. So today, I like her and she can stay....for now.


Tally is getting used to her more everyday. But Adayla has figured out that she doesn't understand Chinese and so when someone talks to her in Chinese, she turns them off. This goes for Ayi as well. Ayi says something and Adayla tells her NO don't say that. It will take a bit more time for Adayla to warm up to her. But soon they will be laughing and giggling in Chinese.

A funny Ayi story....

A funny Ayi story....a small characteristic of the Chinese. They know what it is very pretty and are more than willing to help you pick out something that is "hen piaoliang!"
Like I may have mentioned before, their typical style is not that of a typical Westerner. They like gold, big flowers, with very bright colors. For kids, they like lots of animals on their clothes and in their room decoration. I looked and looked and looked for a nice comforter and sheet set for Adayla's room. They did have a few nice green ones, but I didn't want to do their room in green. I wanted it in girl colors and then bed is a single bed. (Their beds are different sized here, so I have to buy it here in China.) There were some that would have worked, but they only carried in two person beds. Finally, I found a nice cream and red that really wasn't little girly, but very cute for a girl's room. Only the place where I bought it didn't have a sheet to go with it, but only two pillow cases. Since it is mostly cream with bits of red, I decided that a solid dark red sheet would be perfect. I then would get one for Tally's crib and it would be cute! I haven't been able to find one and was discussing this with Ayi in my broken Chinese. She said she had a friend that could sew them, that would perfectly match the bed. She said she would just look for some material and by Friday I would have them. So we took some measurements and I gave her one of Tally's yellow crib sheets to show exactly what I wanted. I also gave her a solid red pillowcase of the one I wanted, she didn't want to take it, but I told her there are many shades of red and wanted it to match perfectly. I was pretty excited, her friend would have some work and I would have exactly what I needed. Today she comes very happy saying that they bought the material and her friend would do it today. Yeah! She then pulls out this paper showing some bright, almost hot pink material, with big bunnies and flowers all over it. She tells me she couldn't find the red that I wanted and so that this was very beautiful and the girls would love it. Are you kidding me??? I told her she may think it is beautiful, but I don't like it. She then shows it to Adayla and asks her if she likes it. Adayla says she does and she says see she likes it. Who cares? It doesn't even remotely match, but they had already bought the material and so tomorrow my hot pink bunny filled sheets will be delivered. Oh well, I will find some red sheets later....I will definitely add pics of this!

Adayla and Tally

July 11th, 2007

At least, I think, it is July 11th. The days all run together these days and I am always asking Tim which day it is. I do always know Sunday, as Adayla wishes everyday was Sunday so she can go to nursery. I am so grateful for our church even more because Adayla's recognizes its familiarity. She can even tell and we know this because of how she behaves when she is there....much better than all other places.

Big day for Tim today, no he didn't karaoke again, but he did enroll in his classes for the fall. It was a big deal this year because instead of it rotating the days, you were either Friday and Saturday or Sunday and Monday. Most students preferred the Friday and Saturday schedule, but only half can attend then. He prepared for his big day by going to the University's computer lab to sign up. Our network at our home is quite slow (only a little faster than dial-up) and quits working quite frequently. So he went up yesterday to check things out and then headed up there early this morning so he could make sure he was ready to hit the button when enrollment started at 10am. He has one hand on refresh and one on the mouse so he was ready to click as soon as he could. The class filled up in less than a minute and thankfully he was able to get it to the class he wanted!! Yeah! This means we can go to church with daddy on Sundays and spend our Sabbath as we normally do.


My little Tally, she loves to eat. Ayi is quite amazed at how much she likes to eat, alot of it ends up on the floor and on her clothes, but she can also put it away! She loves to be a big girl. Now that she is walking she can do it even better. She goes to the stairs and does her best to go up like a big person (and so we do our best at getting her off them to prevent falling on the hard wood stairs). She is very independent and knows what she wants and she lets you know it. She also requires a ton of sleep. She still takes two naps a day and then goes down early and wakes up late. For instance, last night she went to be around 7pm and woke up close to 9am. I then kept her up until 12:30pm so she could nap the same time as Adayla (a bit selfish, I know!) She then slept until 2:30, which is shorter than normal, but then was ready for bed at 6pm. We tried to push her until 7pm and she let you know she was ready to go to bed, NOW! She probably would have slept all night, but I woker her up at 8:30 for about 45 minutes. Hopefully, she'll stay down until after 8am. Tally is also starting to "talk" quite abit other than mama and dada. She will say ball and does her best to imitate other words.

Little Tally also loves Adayla. There is an amazing bond between sisters. Adayla is very concerned about Tally, but can still be quite mean. No matter what, Tally loves her and wants to be around her. Adayla can get her laughing harder than anyone else. I like to watch them interact and I think that is so sweet how they can already have a relationship that noone else besides young siblings can have.

Adayla keeps me going as well. She is smart and I am constantly figuring how to outsmart her. Here are a couple of issues that we have been working on. She loves to wear her shoes all the time, in the house or outside, she just loves to always have shoes on her feet. Well, not that where we have lived before is clean outside, but I would hope it doesn't have as many pee-pees as there are here. (You see taxi drivers all the time just pull over and pee on a wall or in a bush.) And yesterday we were at the park in our apartment compound, which is well gaurded and very expensive, I see this grandma holding her 5-7 month old grandson. How did I know it was here grandson? Because his parts were on display, he was dressed, but it had a big "vent" all around his bum. I thought, that kid is definitely too little to let others know when he is going to pee, but maybe he was trained somehow. Pretty soon there was a big wet spot on the mat covered playground and the grandma was wiping her arms and his legs off with a kleenex. Anyways, my point is that there are no shoes in our house! We have to work on this with Adayla, but she does pretty well to always take her shoes off. Tonight when we were reading a Sesame Street book about Elmo going to school, Adayla notices that the teachers shoes were on and asked if Mrs. Graham was wearing her shoes inside the house? She makes me smile everyday.
She also has the ability to do only what she wants to do and only when she wants to do it. Probably like most 2 year olds, but she is stubborn and has no connection to toys, things, blankets, whatever it is when we try to motivate her. Today she was picking her baby stroller up and just throwing it down. Tim asked her if she wanted him to throw it away since she was not treating it right and she said yeah, throw it in the trash. She happily told it bye and Tim took it out to the garbage (which is in the stairwells of our building and then they come around once or twice a day to empty it). Tim had put it in the other stairwell and then he went and retrieved it to put it away in our house while we were upstairs. A few hours later she goes to Tim's office, picks up the trash bag out of the can, and informs us that we need to take out the trash....hmm...where was she going with this one??

Tim's Big Day

July 7th, 2007

Today Tim had to go to work...he had to leave the house by eight this morning in a suit to go to an orientation for the university. Rough day and he will probably be exhausted when he gets home! It must have been from about 9 to noon and he called for a kitchen pass so he could go to lunch with some of his new classmates. They weren't just going anywhere for lunch, they were going to go karaoke during lunch. The Chinese take this very seriously and it is very popular. I will let Tim tell him of his experience and then maybe I can get an account from a classmate on Tim's singing!

Alright, Tim here. As Morgan said, I had to go to work today. It was quite fun. My MBA program has 130 students, of which I am the only non-Chinese, so as you can imagine, I get quite a bit of attention. Somehow during the orientation today, a couple of classmates called me by name over to their gathering. My name is on the top of all the class rosters in letters, then all the Chinese names in characters follow. They told me that I was in their group and that they I needed to get a hotmail account to join in their chat group. They also invited me to go to lunch with them today after the orientation. I am still wondering how I got into their group, as there are no other groups, but I'm not complaining – it introduced me to 20 great folks in the program.

Ok, back to the task at hand and talking about lunch - this wasn't just lunch, this was an adventure. You see, lunch was at a karaoke place. My only experience with karaoke was back in my flying days when I was on a mission with several jets in Japan. We all went out to dinner, then happened to pass by a karaoke place there in Okinawa. I had thought that karaoke was something people did after they had been drinking quite a bit to have some fun and make fools of themselves (and so I never went to sing karaoke because I don't drink). Well, my group of American aviators almost got kicked out of that karaoke place because the locals were upset at how the Americans were acting. You see, the Japanese take it very seriously and sing their best, and applaud good performances. My group was doing quite the opposite. Well, karaoke is wildly popular here in China and yes, they take it very seriously.

So there I am with my 20 new friends eating great food and listening to the others sing. Nobody had to dare anybody to start, they just did. Our group was evenly divided male/female, and I can't say that one liked it more than the other. I tried to play my “I don't read Chinese very well” card, but alas, the karaoke computer has American songs, too. So after agreeing to look for a song, a friend accompanied me over to the computer to find a song. I searched and searched. But the singers who have sung songs in the last 10 years were all female artists and I didn't want to sign something from Avril Lavigne, Britney Spears, Celine Dion, Shania Twain, the Spice Girls, etc. There are some guys, the Beatles, but unfortunately I'm not a big Beatles fan and the few song I know, they didn't have. I was getting desperate. It was five minutes that seemed like an eternity. What song could I attempt to sing that wouldn't be to tough? Finally I settled on the '80s band Air Supply and their ballad “I'm All Out of Love.” I still can't believe that I sang Air Supply in front of 20 people, but I was desperate. Thanks to listening to my brother's and sister's albums when I was little, I was able to belt out some great choruses! I was laughing, but then I really had to laugh as I got a couple of compliments afterwards for singing very well. If anybody has sit next to me in church, they know that I sound more like a subwoofer that just puts out unrecognizable bass in the hopes that it can tie in with the rest of the music, but by itself is not music at all. So I was relieved for a while that my turn was over, but then it hit me as the group was talking about getting together next month that this wasn't an isolated incident for me in China, but rather a beginning?!

But despite my butchering of Air Supply, it was a great time! I was able to have good conversations with the folks there. I'm really impressed by their backgrounds, where they're currently employed and what they're doing (Intel x3, LSI, UPS, NuSkin to name a few), and I'm especially impressed (and grateful) by how friendly and accepting they are of me. I am so excited for this opportunity – this is truly a chance of a lifetime opportunity!

Enough from me, back to Morgs....

That just makes me smile!

Getting Settled and Finding an Ayi (helper lady)

I have been typing these in word and just haven't posted, so tonight I am going to add quite a few updates.

July 7, 2002
I have so many thoughts to share today, I should do this more often.

Tally is WALKING!!! Well, mostly she is. She will still crawl, but many times will walk across the room by herself. She stills falls quite a bit, but can finally get to a standing position from the sitting position. It won't be long before she is running, but we are happy that hopefully soon we can finally put her down a bit when we are out and about!

Adayla is busy as ever and particular as ever. She wants her clothes on as soon as she wakes up and her hair fixed. Once we moved into our place this week and I unpacked her clothes, she started wanting to change her clothes 4 times a day. This cannot happen for a few reasons, but this one being the most important: I can't keep up with the laundry if she were to do that. Thankfully our apartment does have a washer and dryer, but they are very small. It holds about 2 towels or 2 pairs of pants and 2 shirt. That is not the main problem, the dryer that holds those 2 towels then takes at least 2 ½ hours to get them close to dry. And everything must be dried all the way here because of how humid it is. Sometimes things just feel damp, even in our apartment with the A/C on. Back to Adayla and her changing her clothes all the time, we also don't have dresser with drawers or a closet. We only have an armoire sort of thing with one shelf and mostly hanging space. So I have all their clothes piled on this one shelf. Last night, she had everything in a pile on the floor with one of Tally's dresses on. Everyday we talk about how she can only pick on outfit to wear and that she must wear it the entire day. I think we are progressing.

We also have a playroom in the center of our complex for all the residents to use. It is like a McDonald's playroom with balls, tubes, and slides. The girls enjoy going there and I enjoy taking them there to wear themselves out! Tally gets around and thinks she is on of the big kids. The ball area is poor designed as they didn't enclose it with only 2 foot wall. So balls are all over the room. Yesterday we go in and Adayla starts picking them all up and putting back in the ball pit. It is a big room with lots of balls, but she managed to get them all picked up! There are also about 10 kid-sized thick plastic chairs. These also happen to get spread through out the room. She moved them one by one until they were neatly lined up.

Big accomplishments for the week:
We started our Chinese lessons again.
We found an Ayi (maid) that we like and she started yesterday.

Our tutor we found by looking on the Internet and emailing several of them. Her name is Jane. She is very nice and speaks English pretty well. Most importantly she has given us motivation to get back into our books, especiallyTim. I have asked her a lot of Chinese culture questions and how she perceives things. We will continue to make slow progress, but there have been several times over the past week where I am grateful that I can understand the little bit that I do.

As for the Ayi, we interviewed about 7. Most of them were in their 40's. They were all nice and I am sure they have plenty of experience and would have done a good job. Our main focus was that they had good Chinese and our girls would feel comfortable with her. I don't know much Mandarin, but even I can tell the difference in dialects a bit. We don't need them to watch the kids for us, but it is essential that they spend time with her by themselves so that they learn Chinese. The first one we had was recommended by a consulate family and we would have hired her, but she wanted more money then we were planning on giving her. It kind of took us by surprise and we decided to look around a bit. We looked without much success and so we were just going to hire her. I decided make one more phone call to a place to see if they had any Ayis looking for jobs. I got a few phone numbers and waited for Tim to get home so he could give them a call. He called one and she wasn't interested in being around such little kids. The next one seemed very pleasant and we set up an appointment to meet with her the next morning.

She showed up about a half hour early and surprised us that she was so young. We both really liked her. She doesn't speak any English, perfect. She had worked as an ayi for a few years. Her Chinese is excellent and she is really good at slowing down and repeating things. The young part was to her advantage as I think Adayla will take much more interest in her as she does her aunts back in the states. When Tally woke up, she asked where the bathroom was to wash her hands before she held her, she understands cleanliness, perfect. So we decided we would hire her on the condition for one month and see how it was worked out. Then we started discussing where she lived, she said I live kind of far. She had rode her bike over an hour to get to our house. We asked if this was going to be a problem, she said not at all. We will post pics of her soon with the girls.

Many of the Ayi's are from little villages in China and go specifically to the big cities to work and make more money. Our Ayi's hometown is about a 6 hour bus ride from Shanghai and it costs about $14 to get there (I would assume this is round trip). She is 21 years old and is the youngest of 3 kids. Her brother and sister both live in Shanghai where the wives work as Ayis. She is married to a guy that does some kind of labor work around Shanghai. They have a little girl who is about a month younger than Tally. His parents probably raise their girl and they go home about twice a year to see her. I cannot imagine having a baby and then seeing her only twice a year for a week or so each time. Hopefully we enable to get home more often as we will travel quite a bit and she will get quite a bit of time off.
For those interested in how much an Ayi is paid. From what we could tell in the people that we interviewed, an Enlish speaking Ayi is paid a premium. She makes nearly twice what the others do, we did not want an English speaking Ayi because this forces us to use our Chinese. They make anywhere from 8 to 20 RMB an hour, divide that by 7.6 to come up with an US$ estimate. The average hourly wage is anywhere from $1.00 to $3.00 an hour, very inexpensive for expats and many local Chinese. We pay Ayi (as the girls will call her) 2000 RMB a month for 8 hours five days a week or $265 plus we feed her. This was much better than her last job. Ayi's talk among themselves all the time to see how much they have to work and how much they get paid. I was surprised to find out how often they do this. Our first day we showed her the playroom. Another Ayi was in the room and immediately our Ayi asked her this. Of course, this was in Chinese and the other ayi worked 12 hours a day and was paid 1800 RMB a month. You also give them all the Chinese holidays off along with a week at Chinese New Year plus one month's salary as a bonus. Well we hope she works out, I am sure you will hear a lot more about her as she is now part of our family a good part of the week.

We made it to China!!!

New friends!
After reading this, our mouth's were watering! It was on a window in Yuyuan, trying to drum up a bit of business.....
Adayla at Yuyuan Gardens.
Tim and the girls at YuYuan Gardens.


June 23rd





So we took off and drove to Wyoming on June 5th to spend a week with my parents. Adayla was very excited to get the Little Grandma and Grandpa's house. Tally warmed up after a few days. I think she was afraid we were going to leave her like last time. Once she realized we were there to stay, she was happy and would let everyone hold her. We made bows, went to Walmart, ate, swam, played with Bridger, visited Buddy, and the girls soaked up the attention from everyone. Thursday afternoon we (us along with Grandpa, Grandma, and Julionna) headed toward Rapid City to spend the night and see Mt Rushmore. We visited Reptile Gardens which had as it says, lots of reptiles including snakes, spiders, crocodiles, alligators, and more. We watched a show with the alligators and crocodiles, crazy! This guy was in the middle of all them and even would kick them to get them to move. He wrestled one and didn't get eaten, but it was a fun little place I wouldn't have expected to like. Little Grandpa found a new toy, excuse me, art for his office. He found this carved out of wood life-size skeleton and bought it because it is different. He is right on that one. The next morning we headed towards Mt Rushmore. We drove the scenic route through the Black Hills. It is beautiful! We are always looking for a place to retire to, who knows! Mt Rushmore itself was incredible. It is in the middle of nowhere with an amazing facility. I guess I didn't expect much, so I was rather impressed. Rapid City would be a fun place to live, it has many other attractions and things to keep you busy once you experience Rushmore. I told my dad that I would never drive far specifically to see Mt Rushmore. He responded by saying he has driven a long ways just to see family and he didn't find it worth it either ; ) I think he was kidding mom's family!

Then back to Grammy and Gramps for a few days. Again lots of prepping and to do lists for China. But we had dinner with Duane, Carolyn, and boys at the park. The girls enjoyed the swings and the slides and being free from their car seats. Tally still was pretty unsure of everyone, but as long as her parents were holding her she was fine. She loved to climb the stairs and look through the railing. She would laugh and smile. Adayla, Grammy, and Gramps spent hours playing and reading. We are thrilled to be here in China, but will miss the interaction with our relatives. We didn't seem them that often, but it was at least 2 to 4 times a year.

Our last weekend in Utah we traveled to Teasdale for the Family Reunion. It was at Kate and Brady's place. It is about 2 ½ hours from Provo. The rocks are beautiful, lots of hiking, and the weather is hot during the day and cool/cold at night. Kate had reserved some cabins. Most of them were without bathrooms, but there were a few with them. They had a large cabin that they said could sleep twelve, so our family called for it since we would have the most kids (and spouses) there. We showed up and it had 1 tiny bedroom with a double bed that took up the whole room, one loft that was literally 3 feet tall with a double mattress on the floor, and one couch pull out bed. I don't even think you could have had 6 more on the remaining floor space. Luckily Little Grandpa and Grandma were able to get an extra cabin, so they slept peacefully. We are on the other hand, had a whole other experience. We had Tally, Adayla, Odie, Bridger, Josie, Julionna, Tim, and me. Tim and I took the bedroom with a pack n play for Tally. Jewls and Adayla were on the couch bed. Odie, Bridger, and Josie were in the loft. Tally went down pretty easy, but woke up when we went to bed and could not fall back asleep for a number of reasons: there were 40 dogs outside barking, everytime Tim or I moved the bed squeaked and we thought it was going to fall apart, or after being too stuffy it finally cooled off to and we all froze. We could not get to sleep until Tim finally shut a few windows and after hours we received a few hours of shut eye. Only to way up for to a place with a bathroom that didn't have hot water. Good times and family bonding. We all had to be up early anyways to fix breakfast. We had crepes with toppings of nutella, powdered sugar, strawberries, peanut butter, or syrup along with french toast and bacon. It was yummy! Some people hiked the next day while Tim stayed at the cabin with Tally for a 3 hour nap. We ate, swam, bought items from the General Store, made Christmas ornaments, and had a family auction.


We returned from Teasdale to spend Father's Day with Tim's family. We had our usual Sunday dinner with Grammy cooking at Chuck-o-rama. And then Adayla went home with Anjie and family while Tim and I dug into our packing. What an event!! Thankfully because Tim is active-duty we could have overweight bags. We had 6 bags from SLC to Dulles, where we picked up our stroller and another pack n play. On US Airways we could have two bags up to 99 pounds instead of the normal 50 pounds. We finally had it all packed and we could weigh our bags, we had one that weighed 85 lbs! Heavy!!

We had dinner with my Grandma and Grandpa. They always have delicious home cooked food ready for you! We will miss spending time with them.

Side note on Tally:
Have I said that Tally is the toilet woman?? If a door to the bathroom is open she crawls as fast as she can, which is fast, and happily splashes in the toilet. We are finally learning to shut the door. She is still not walking and doesn't seem interested, so we will keep carrying her around! She is quite an independent gal who knows what she wants. She has learned to yank on Adayla's hair when she wants something that Adayla has and then she just giggles. She knows that it hurts and must know that Adayla can't pull her hair back (she doesn't have any!)

Today I am just a bit sad for the Chinese. As they see our kids, they are so excited. They want to say hello, touch them, and smile at them. I can't imagine knowing you could only have one, but many times the grandparents raise them during the day and more. There is something about little kids that is like nothing else in the world, you can't replace the time you miss or go back. The funny things they say and the way they love everyone, we don't mind sharing our kids with them for the next two years.

June 26th 2007

China....so far, so good. We are enjoying our exploring and trying to adjust to the quirks of a new place. Some quick stories:
Tim had on a movie (we have watched more in the last week, than we have in the last 2 years, there is only a few English channels on at the hotel). It happened to be the Story of John McCain, Adayla saw it and asked, Dad are those Chinese people? She was talking about the Vietnamese.
Tally is still not walking, though she did take about 8 steps today. She normally immediately sits and crawls.
Tally is the crazy waver woman, she waves to everyone and smiles. Adayla, on the other hand, won't even wave and runs to hide when they start looking at her. I thought Tally would be the one to ignore while Adayla would soak it up. Whatever they decide, we will go with whatever they are comfortable and guard them when we are out and about.
I feel like I have Shayla's sense of direction here in Shanghai. Adayla and I had our first outing. We went to a children's market within a few blocks from our hotel. Somehow we managed to go about ½ mile out of our way on the way there and then still took a wrong turn on the way home. I have no clue which direction is which with these tall buildings everywhere.
Adayla no longer sees Payton/MsJill cars but still does see chelsiebryan car and our green car! Who knows one day someone will drive a Nissan Xterra. (the very next day, Adayla yells Payton/MsJill car!)
Everyday people ask if Tally is a boy or girl. We obviously respond with a girl, they still turn around and try to tell us she is a boy.
Adayla sings the Wiseman and the Foolish man and now Tally does the actions also...so cute!
Whenever we hear loud music, Tally usually starts dancing and giggling.
Tally has a boyfriend at breakfast, there is a particular waiter that Tally grins, waves, and giggles at every morning! If he is across the room, she gets so excited when he heads our way.
Tim's friend perfectly described the smell in lots of streets of China, where else can you get the smell of pee, exhaust, and trash all in the same spot, even better on a hot humid day!
I bought Adayla this pink pig balloon (pig form, but made of beach ball material). Last night I told her I would have to pop her balloon (let the air out) if she wasn't being a good listener. This morning I had to and tonight as we were on our way out for the evening, she tells me Mom if I am a good girl, can we blow my pig up? Conceptually I know she understands, but she doesn't care to listen to us most of the time.
The girls are adjusting to our new time schedule, finally! Adayla slept until 5:30 today!! This will be a battle we will be extremely happy to be done with because the girls have been crabby. Dinner last night was a disaster...and in the taxi ride home, as Tally was screaming.
Tim is dealing with the frustrations of trying to get things done here. Our main problem is the language barrier, but hopefully that will get better!

June 27th 2007
This morning we talked to Binx and saw him too...Skype is amazing! We have a video camera set up and are able to have people see us and if they get themselves a web cam, we can see them. C&B are all over it and we can now chat and see them! Only downside, Adayla now tells us that Chelsie and Bryan are coming on Sunday.
You would think that the girls are thrilled to be out of their car seats in the car, not so. Tally has screamed and fussed at least half of every cab ride so far. She wants to squirm and wiggle everywhere and can't in case the cabbie has to slam on the brakes.
At one little market tonight we bought fingernail polish, 3 for 10 yuan. Very cheap, about 3 for $1.25. And then we painted Adayla's toes tonight after we got home, she was quite happy!
The weather is hot and humid, and then humid some more.

There are some of my blurbs from our time here recently. We have had fun and are looking forward to more, but more so are looking forward to being in our house tomorrow. Adayla tells everyone we are going to China, we told her we are in China, she says no because her new house is in China and we aren't there yet. So tomorrow we finally arrive in China!

Vacationing!!

Sunday morning we drove to St. Louis where we spent the night with old friends from Wichita. It was fun to catch up and watch our girls play with their 3 kids. Their house is beautiful! It is just a few miles from the base, with a backyard straight from Virginia (lots of trees/wooded). They have a little family of foxes and all kinds of birds. It was just peaceful. Steffany decorates amazing and is quite the presenter when it comes to food. She will be a great squadron commander's wife. It would be great to live near them again and she could give me some lessons.

Then Monday morning we headed for Wichita to see Great Grandma and Grandpa S. We had to make it to the best burger place around for Monday night ½ price burgers (Spangles). It was YUMMY to say the least! The burger was extra delicious and we tried to make up for the french fries we had been missing. Then we played at a nearby park where Adayla loved to swing and Tally's favorite is definitely the slide.

Now back to Grandma's house, we came home where Adayla and Tally could ride the tricycle and the old red tractor. The tricycle was my dad's when he was little and the tractor was his brother's. Grandma keeps lots of stuff, but it is kind of special to see her ride the things my dad, and then I did so many years ago. I try to envision what my dad looked like while spend hours on the trike (including the times he rode it with a dress on).

Tuesday we finished trimming the trees and moved Grandma's old desk out and brought her new one in. Now we just hope she gets all her stuff moved into the new one. Adayla and Tally played with the various toys. She has one in particular a lion cookie jar that, as you open it, roars and says get your hand out of my cookie jar. Anyways Grandma got this when Adayla was just 6 months old or so and we have seen it ever since. Adayla was always a bit timid around it, but then she started to ask Grandma every time we talked to her on the phone, if she could talk to the Lion. So one of the first things Adayla looked for at their house was the lion. Tally would crawl up and play with him, not scared of him one bit. On the other hand, Adayla, was scared and would not get near him. She would say the lion is going to bite my finger or he is going to get me. One time, one of her balls landed at the base of him, and she would not get the ball for anything. It was just funny as she had spent so much time talking about the lion and even remembering his birthday and then be completely afraid!

Tuesday morning we had Cheerios for breakfast and Grandma asked Adayla if she would like some juice. Adayla doesn't turn down juice. Grandma brought her a little cup of tomato juice. She eagerly drank from the cup and immediately quit and told Grandma, “That juice is Nasty, Grandma you drink nasty juice!” I think she will be a little more hesitant when someone offers her juice.

The time spent with them was wonderful and we were again sad to leave them, but Thursday morning we were off onto the next leg of our journey. A 16 hour drive to Utah.

Tally is doing quite a few new things these days. Here are just a few: She loves to play peek-a-boo, but more so with a blanket. She puts the blanket over her head, crawls forward a bit, and then takes it off and laughs! She loves to sing songs, especially “If you are happy and you know it, clap your hands.” She is pretty shy, but loves to smile. If we are around new people, she smiles, and then immediately turns the other way and buries her head into Tim or I's shoulders. She will stand up for just a few seconds, but prefers to crawl around! While eating breakfast, she takes her soggy cereal and sticks it on top of her hair. Then she looks for us and just giggles. She is quite a little dancer, we like to sing, “Tally turn the wheel, turn the wheel Tally.” She moves her little body and gets her little hands a going. She still likes to give big hugs, but also enjoys a good head butt. Just watch out!

Well we have already been in Utah for a week, where does the time go??? We have less than 3 weeks until we fly out to China. We attended Shayla and Brigham's wedding. They make a cute couple. Adayla has been soaking up all the attention from all her aunts and uncles and cousins, meanwhile Tally couldn't hold on to Tim or I any tighter. She has been pretty overwhelmed at all this. But Sunday afternoon she came around and would get down to crawl around Grandma and Grandpa G's house. I forgot to mention her little temper, (a gene she must get from the K's ; ) We were on the way home from the temple about 3 in the afternoon and it had gotten quite warm. We stopped to wet our gizzards with a pop from McDonalds. She already knew what good stuff was inside and immediately wanted some. I shared with her and Adayla. Then I drank some while listening to her begging for more (crying with some hand motions of more please). I shared some more until I thought she had enough. She let me know she hadn't had enough! She cried and soon the drink was all finished, but she still wanted more. So I poured a bit of water into the cup, thinking I could trick her...not so! She screamed at the top of her lungs for the next 15 minutes until we got out of the car. When she makes up her mind, her mind is set! Hopefully she will turn this into a strength as she grows.

We spent the few days after Shay's wedding with some of the S's, Cindy, and Vanessa (Shay's BFF who had flown in from Wichita to be with us). Adayla partied like a crazy staying up until nearly midnight and sleeping until 10 AM. She even had a sleepover with all them while Tim and I stayed with his parents. We spent our last night with Chelsie and Bryan on Monday. We said goodbye to them that night and then I took them to the airport early Tuesday morning. We hope they will come visit us, either way we will be gone for 2 years, it will go by fast, but it is a long time. Chelsie had many a waterworks (as lovingly called by Bryan) going on. She hugged and hugged Adayla, I explained to Adayla that she was sad because we wouldn't see her for a long time. She very sweetly told Chelsie, “ I am going to miss you Chelsie.” Of course, even more tears followed.

Adayla funnies:
She calls the Rameumpton the Grammyumpton.
She call the Rodeo, a Brodeo (from Josie's “friend” Brodie)
She has been saying she has seen Swiper the Fox, from Dora. As she has played with Grammy and Gramps train tracks, she will grab a piece of the track and then yell, “Swiper NO swiping!”
Today, while at Denise's, Adayla needed to go pee-pee. Since she was outside, she decided to just go in the grass, as we had taught her on our roadtrip. She came inside looking for a pair of clean panties, since her aim wasn't so good. (We thought it would be a good idea to prepare her for China, just in case, a bathroom wasn't readily available.)

We had dinner with Tim's family Monday. We had some wonderful food (leftover enchiladas from Shay's wedding!) Adayla was happy to spend time with her other cousins. Wednesday we went shopping while Grammy and Gramps went to a play in Salt Lake. Tim found a few pairs of shoes to take to China and I was able to buy some towels for our bathrooms in China. There are 4 black bathrooms in our new apartment.

Today we spent the morning with Grandma and Grandpa G along with lunch at the M's. Adayla is at the age where she loves having friends to play with. She played dress up with Megan and followed the rest of the girls around all morning. Tally kinda of clung to my side as it was a new place again for her. Then we went to Denise's house to play with Julie and the rest of the kids. Again Adayla loved playing and following her and being one of the big kids. We just can't believe she is big enough, that is is part of the reason why we have this journal, I want to remember every minute of it. (Really not all of it, as she is Ms. Independent and listens only when she wants to, but I hopefully will learn in the future that that is part of the fun!) Tally again stuck by Tim and my side until she warmed up a bit, but she was still all smiles for them. The Abbott's each played an excerpt of a recent piano recital. They had all improved since I last heard them play. That is definitely one of our goals....getting each kid to play the piano, it is a skill they will never regret. We then joined up with them this evening where we enjoyed a beautiful May evening in Utah. The girls played on the swing set (or the park as Adayla calls it). Tally crawled around the backyard and even stood for about 10 seconds. She tried to take a step then fell. It is was relaxing watching the cousins all hang out.

Side note: My little sweet Tally like I said is very shy, she will only wave at you if she recognizes you. She proved this tonight. As we were leaving Denise's a few extra boys came it, I said tell the all goodbye, she immediately put her head in my shoulder. We took a few steps back and so did Denise, I then told Tally to tell Denise goodbye. She immediately waved and smiled. Little Adayla would say to anyone that was around. We would go into Walmart and she would wave at everyone, trying to get their attention until they waved back. As she grew, she would wave and say, “Hello!” in her sweet high pitched voice.

Today we visited Grandma K in Bountiful and the Salt Lake Zoo on our way back. Grandma was in a good mood and happy to see her family. Adayla sang some songs for her and Grandma gave her a balloon that was given to her for Mother's Day. Adayla was concerned about her balloon the rest of the night. We then went to the Hogle Zoo where we saw all sorts of animals. The girls loved it, of course. Tally took a good nap and missed most of it, but woke up in time for some ice cream. And just like that the day is done and it is time for bed.