Watching the World Cup... Four Years Ago

Watching the Women's World Cup Finals this afternoon, I couldn't help but to think back to four years ago when the tournament was hosted in Shanghai...
We had been living in Shanghai for about three months before Morgan's sister Josie came out to live with us. Josie plays soccer, and as we traveled from the airport back to our place, there were several signs about the World Cup. I asked Josie, "this 'World Cup' is being played here next month, is it a big deal?" She said that it was the biggest deal, but that he hadn't known that the tournament was being played in Shanghai. I said "too bad I didn't know earlier, we could have bought tickets"... not telling her that we had purchased tickets to the several games already... :-)

After a couple of weeks, we broke the news to Josie that we had tickets!
A couple of pictures from the various days we went...

Josie outside of the stadium:

Josie in her Abby Wambach shirt!

A rockin' stadium where we watched the U.S. win the consolation game and where we cheered Germany to victory over Brazil for the championship.

Links to the original blog posts from four years ago can be found clicking here and also here.

Mercury poisoning...

I'm sure I've been sprayed with mercury from thermometers that have been exploding here in southwestern Oklahoma. I've been here for three weeks and the high temps have been over 100 degrees every single day... Today was 24 straight! And unfortunately, no relief in sight:

So what the heck am I doing here in 100+ temps? This is where I'll be for training until October, re-learning how to fly my plane... the KC-135 air refueling tanker.

Morgan and the girls will eventually make their way here before we move to England, but with weather like this, they'll take their time getting here!

No matter the weather on the ground, it's always cool in the air... Really cool!

With traffic jams like this...

... and office views like this:

It's all just a day's work!
NKAWTG... Nobody!

Ryann's a Diva

Family night out in Shanghai... took a taxi to get the girls' hair cut. During the taxi ride, the girls practiced singing the song "Love at Home" in Chinese to perform at church. The girls finished the song as the taxi was stopped at a red light. The video shows how they made some new friends! (Note the lack of seatbelts in the taxi - not by choice. When in China... )

We then made it over to the beauty shop. This was Tim's favorite place to get his haircut. He actually never cared how his hair was cut, after an hour of getting his hair washed and a head & neck massage, he didn't have a care in the world. The video shows the girls at the beginning of their hair wash (just a glimpse of pure pleasure - if you watch this video, watch until the first minute (1:08) to see Ryann really enjoying the treatment).

The young ladies all loved the attention...

Each hair wash takes about fifteen minutes... and there are two of these!

The owner ("laoban") spent quite a bit of time with the girls as well...

Who knew life could be so good??

Ryann loved every bit of this...

Little ham...

There's Tim in the background, oblivious to the world in his comatose state of relaxation!
Tally's looking pretty relaxed as well under the blow dryer...


Here's Tally's hair before meeting the humidity...
After the haircuts, it was off to the Jin Mao skyscraper to get our favorite fruit smoothies. Along the way there was a lady selling one of Tim's favorite street snacks... a fried egg wrap.
Yes, it's dark outside and yes, that's Diva Ryann still wearing her shades...
Here's Tally's hair after a half-hour in the humidity...
Tim went ahead to see if the juice shop was still there... it was. Not only that, but the lady at the register recognized him before the kids were even there. What a memory, it's been two years since we were last there!
As usual, pictures with tourists passing through to go up to the 88th floor observation deck of Jin Mao.
And that's a wrap...

What a fun evening it was for us!

To the best....

Daddy

Happy Father's Day! We wish you didn't have to leave us half way through, but we had the another amazing month in Shanghai. Thanks for the outings, Guilin, parks, shakes, pizza, and fun! You are the best dad and husband I could have ever wanted. We are grateful to have you and can't wait until we see you again!

Girls dancing for Chinese New Year

Here's a video from our church's Chinese New Year's party. Sister Tsai did an outstanding job of choreography for the girls... it showed. Even though it's now four months old, it's still a cute video that we'd like to share. Here's a clip from the performance.

Baozi and the Bund

We're back in China for for a fun summer visit. Last Saturday, we went out to get some lunch and take Ayi to the Bund. Despite the many years that Ayi has lived and worked in Shanghai, she had never experienced a stroll on Shanghai's most famous mile. So with that mission at hand, we were off...

The plan for lunch was to walk until we saw something that looked good... Didn't take long until we came across to a little baozi (dumpling) shop, "sheng jian baozi" a Shanghai specialty.

These pan-fried dumplings just rock...

The dumpling/bun is filled with meat and soup and pan-fried until the bottoms are just crisp and the sesame seeds and chives on top meld into the crunchy casing....

Bite into these very carefully. If McDonald's served these, they'd be paying out on lawsuits every day. The soup inside is scalding hot and can easily burn lips, chins and tongues of unsuspecting patrons. The trick is to bite a corner and then carefully sip the soup out. Then the rest of the baozi can be safely consumed!

Between three adults and three kids, we put away 40 of these... including 8 by Adayla. They're not that small...

After some obligatory photos with the restaurant staff, we continued to the ferry station

The ferry is still only ~30 cents to go from where we used to live to the Bund, about a 7-minute trip.

On the the Puxi-side of the river, you can enjoy the sights of new Shanghai in Pudong...
... and the colonial Shanghai of the Bund.
The girls started chasing some butterflies...
which attracted a little crowd...
... which kept on growing
How much would you pay to take your picture with some foreign kids?
On the way back, we watched an older man fishing in one of the canals. It was surprising to find out that there were actually fish in this water to catch...
Even more surprising was to find someone swimming in this water...
After we got home, our old Chinese tutor's dad("Yeye") came by to deliver fresh-picked "pipa" fruit (called loquat in the western world). I think these would be much more popular if they were called "pipa" in the U.S. Very sweet, very good.
We visited Jane's family in their small village three years ago... here's a picture from that trip of Yeye holding Ryann when she was two months old...

Another great day in Shanghai...