Dino Beach

We went to Dino Beach today, a waterpark here in Shanghai, and had a blast! It was just a perfect day... sunny and warm in the late-morning through lunch and then some clouds moved in during the afternoon to break the heat a bit. We got in the water today at 11:15 and decided to leave this evening at 8:30 pm. The girls just loved it!

These three short videos pretty much tell the entire story... that the girls loved the various water slides.

This first video of Ryan going down the water slide is a must! She was so dang cute.

Tally going down a slide on an innertube...

...followed by Adayla & Ryann with Morgan on an innertube!

And now the pictures...

We were the only non-Chinese family that we saw there today, so needless to say the girls got quite a bit of attention. We write it off as free Chinese lessons!

This place is just great for kids... lots of slides and pools that work for them.Tim and the girls under the mushroom...

This was love at first sight. Ryann loved the slide in this submarine that we'll show...

First she came down the submarine's slide with Adayla, then with Tally, and soon she was all about doing it herself!

A late lunch at 1:30. What would you eat at the waterpark after a couple of hours of playing hard? Cheeseburger and fries? Pizza? How about white rice, cabbage and some cucumbers?! And a little bit of meat, too...

After lunch it was time to hit the lazy river. This lazy river is quite long... it takes about 15 minutes to make a lap!

Adayla and Tally going down another slide together...

Tally bringing a tube up...

... to go back down a slide

Then it was Morgan's turn with Adayla and Ryann... Ryann LOVED these slides!

Ryann loved them so much that as soon as the slide was over she ran ahead to go back to do the slide again...

The giant water tank that takes about 10 minutes to fill before dumping water on its worshippers...

Back at the submarine slide...

...so that Ryann could do her thing!

There she goes...

While we didn't actually count how many times she did this slide, it has to be at least 50 times... at least! She was so cute with this slide, these pictures don't do it justice. You have to see the video!

Here we go again,for another slide. Ryann pushed us hard, but we kept up! We ended up leaving at 8:30 pm and the girls were still going strong!

Adayla and Tally both made a bit of swimming progress today as well. They had competitions to see who could keep their head underwater the longest and Adayla did a great job swimming until she need another breath. They are all definitely little swimmer girls!

One last video... Ryann's still going!

Tally's cane

While Tim's parents were in town recently, we took them to the Zhujiajiao water town that we have blogged about previously. However this time was different because "Grammy and Gramps" came with us.

So we loaded up in a "local" bus and away we went. Note: Tim's dad had foot surgery shortly before coming to China and was using a cane to walk with during their visit. Grammy is currently holding Gramps' cane...
After the 50 -minute bus ride, it's a 10-minute walk from the bus stop to the charming little water town area. We put Mom & Dad on a taxi and met them shortly thereafter...
It is a small town, but it does have a KFC and that's where we ate for lunch. While eating there, two ladies noticed that Mom was wearing the same exact style of hat that they were. They waved to each other to acknowledge their mutual good taste in hats. We had to get a picture together to remember the moment.
Morgan and Mom did some major pearl shopping at Morgan's favorite shop here in town...
while Dad and Tally hung out enjoying the sights and sounds outside.
Tally wore Morgan's glasses pretty much all day... styling!
Dad just enjoyed roaming the streets and alleys, taking it all in...
After loading up on their pearls, we proceeded to the rest of the town for more shopping and sightseeing...
One of the shops was selling canes and Tally immediately decided she had to have one. I immediately said no as I had not made the connection as to why she even wanted one. Then a couple of shops later she grabbed another cane and told us that she wanted the cane to be "just like Gramps!" Duh! How could we say no? Here's Tally armed with her cane and sunglasses...
Tally faithfully carried her cane, not only throughout this day, but the remainder of Grammy & Gramps' visit. Whenever we left the house and Gramps grabbed his cane, Tally grabbed hers and away they went!
The gondola ride was great as we had him row us back to our original starting point...
An ice cream for Tally who was such a good girl and we were on our way home...

How does Tally do that?

Back during our Southeast Asia trip, we commented on our blog how if there was any way for Tally to get her foot stuck in something as she walked, she did. She lost her shoe in a sewer while we were crossing the street in Phuket, Thailand. Then in Siem Reap, Cambodia Tally got her foot/shoe stuck in one of the crevices of a temple at Angkor Wat:
Tally is just so consumed by the wonderful world around her that she does not watch for what's in front of her. In fact, Ayi has taught Tally the following:

"Kan malu, bu shuaijiao
Bu kan malu, jiu hui shuaijiao"
which Tally says frequently when we cross the street, with or without Ayi, Tally can be heard repeating those words from Ayi which means,
"Look at the street, won't fall down
Don't look at the street, then I'll fall down."

Friday evening when we while we were going to some friends' home, we were switching subway lines at Shanghai's busiest metro station, People's Square during rush hour. For an idea of what the metro in Shanghai is like during rush hour, check out this picture... I held Tally's hand as the doors opened to get off the metro and felt Tally fall down. I instantaneously pulled her up as I looked to see how she had fallen and saw that her foot and leg had fallen into the small gap between the subway and the platform, it's actually not a big gap at all...
When I pulled her up, everything came up except for her shoe...It was never a safety issue, it happened so quickly. Only our Tally could do something like this. We actually thought it was pretty funny, but Adayla and Tally both were traumatized with the loss of Tally's shoe.

We found a station attendant and reported the loss of Tally's shoe. With trains departing every 3 minutes there was no time to get the shoe, but they took our phone number and said they would call us if they found it later that evening. We probably wouldn't really have been worried about recovering her shoe except that we're down to bare minimums now that the movers have shipped our stuff and we didn't want to be down a pair of shoes this early into our trip.

That was Friday night. Sunday morning we were woken up at 7 am with a phone call from the metro folks saying they had a shoe for us! So today after church on the way back home, I stopped at the metro station to pick up Tally's shoe. I brought Tally's other shoe just for positive ID of our shoe...
The station attendant took me to their office, and then he just kicked the shoe over to me, didn't even touch it with his hands. Looking at the shoe, I can't blame him. Somehow, in the 42 hours that the shoe was missing, the metal latch had completely rusted/corroded! How did that happen?! Actually, I don't want to know.

After a good washing, Tally's sandal is resting comfortably in our home. While permanently scarred, it should make a complete recovery and make a Tally happy again!

We moved (sort of)

The movers came on the 14th and 15th to pack and move our stuff, so technically we have moved. But our move to a hotel less than a mile from where we lived for the past two years hardly qualifies as a move, does it? We'll be here until the 29th when we'll finally have to say "goodbye" to Shanghai.

Our movers really did a great job, but there was one funny moment that we had to take a picture of. I mean, seriously people, why draw arrows on the box if you're not going to look at them? They were so embarrassed when we pointed it out, but only after we took a picture!

Here's our new view from our hotel room by day (our old apartment building is the brown building in the distance on the left side)...

and the view from here by night...

The building that looks like a bottle opener is the newly-completed second tallest building in the world, with the Pearl Tower just to the right of it. The Shanghai Stock Exchange building can be seen in the picture down this street on the left.

The shorter white buildings with the red and orange roofs are basically temporary housing, built to accommodate residents here until the land is developed by somebody who wants to build another skyscraper. For better or worse, that's what it is. So much going on here, and we're going to miss it.

The past couple of weeks have been quite busy with lots of "lasts" and starting to say our "goodbyes." Here several pictures of some of our "lasts" and goodbyes...

On July 15th, Adayla had her last day of Kindergarten. It is such a pleasurable walk from our place to her school... just a five minute walk within our apartment compound. So I took some pictures of the walk to remember the views:

Getting the elevator down from the 31st floor...

same view from Adayla's first day of school two years ago...

Just outside of our apartment building...

In front of our building...

Walking past the "tai qi" class who are always there no matter the weather...

Continuing along the way...

Outside of Adayla's school...

Again, same view from two years ago on her first day of school...

Outside of Adayla's classroom on her last day...
and going to class on her first day!

We have been so fortunate to have had such good teachers for Adayla for the past two years. Peng Laoshi and Zhu Laoshi are such a dynamic teaching duo, and Adayla has definitely benefited from being in their class. Here's a picture of Adayla with Peng Laoshi (Teacher Peng)...

Wednesday was just a whirlwind day. Adayla had her last day of class, the movers finished moving our stuff, we had an inspection and checkout with our landlord, and we moved into the hotel. Tim's last day of class was on Monday, although he still has a couple of final papers to finish before he's truly done. But regardless, we can now enjoy our time in Shanghai without worries of anything major hanging over our heads... and we're looking forward to that.