Noah's birthday

We celebrated Noah's birthday on Sat. at GM family day at Sheshan National Park. It is a park about 1 hour west of Shanghai. There were lots of things for the kids to do, a wading pool with slides, waterfalls and sprinklers, a large maze to get lost in (which Thomas did!), a bouncy hill (Chinese version of a bouncy castle) and a huge tree house. A good time was had by all even though it was super hot!

All is well in Shanghai. Peabody has turned the blog writing over to me as his schedule has filled up with various napping spots that all need attention. He is loving chasing the ducks back into the pond each morning and holds a grudge that I won't let him swim in the water. (It is gross!)

The kids are all loving school. Thomas has his first rugby game on Thurs. He had his cast removed yesterday and the finger seems to have healed just fine. He may sit on the bench for the first game just to be on the safe side.

I am including several pictures of the kids at family day.

Update on activities

Well, a lot has happened since the last post. Thomas broke his finger so we got figure out the health care system (surprisingly very good!), the kids all started school, (very happy so far) and we have further explored the shopping possibilities of Shanghai, (endless!).

The picture is of the kids leaving for the bus for the first day of school. Thomas is waving his cast making his argument against Heelys. Everyone seems very happy so far. Thomas particularly likes the MP3 friendly lounge. Sophie and Noah both have very small classes (only 16 kids in each) which makes mom very happy!

We have met lots of the other families living in our compound now. The start of school brought everyone out of their houses. Now if the temps would just drop below 90 I would be happy to come out of the house as well.

We went to a plant and flower market over the weekend and bought some large house plants/trees to fill up some of the space in the house. I am hoping they will absorb some of the echoes! We bargained for them (Jon did, he is sooo good at it) and we got two large tree things and nice ceramic pots for them for less than $25! I am loving the sport of shopping in Shanghai! Grocery shoppping is just as much as a drag as it is in the US with the added bonus of the live food section near the vegetables!

There have been some request for pictures of our house and compound. I will work on getting those taken today and get them posted soon! Keep the comments coming so I know that you can access the blog. I can't!

Settling in

Well at last we are all reunited. I can't say I loved quarantine but I sure am glad to be home. This place is filled with weird smells and strange vegetation. The grass here looks a little like the leafy sea weed I used to swim through at the beach house. Not grass like at all except it is green. One draw back is that there seems to be a thunder storm every afternoon. I have scouted out all the places to hide. My fave so far is to wedge my body under the couch in the living room. The only problem with this spot is that the flooring here is some slippery wood-like substance (laminate?) and I can't really get any traction with my paws to get myself out from under the couch when the thunder passes.

The kids went swimming today. They have to wear these crzy looking caps on their heads. That was quite a production. The first time into the pool the life guard came over and wagged his finger at them. No english spoken. Sarah wasn't sure what the issue was till he pointed to their heads and shook his finger again. Sarah looked around and noticed that everyone else in the pool had caps on. So out of the pool dripping wet, into the lobby to ask if they had any at the front desk. Luckily they did so swimming could commence. Notice the stylish look in the photos!

Shanghai At Last

We made it! The kids and I survived the marathon trip to Shanghai. They did fabulous. They all slept for quite a while, watched several movies, read a few books, played with the numerous things Amma had packed for them in their travel bags and still had an hour or two to bug each other and be bored! We are fighting jet lag today and hopefully will all adjust in a few days. We went bowling at our sports center today and will try badmitton tomorrow!

I will hopefully figure out how to put little captions under the pictures so you know what they are. These are the kids with our luggage in MI and bowling jet lag away!


(Peabody was too busy snoozing his last day of quarantine away to write anything today. He will join us at 11am tomorrow.)