Delicious

First off, Happy belated Birthday to OMA!!!!  Hope you had a wonderful birthday.  

Jeff is on his first business trip to Beijing - -a one night stay.  The day before yesterday the kids and I went with our driver and Ayi to a Chinese amusement/outdoor education park.  I will post those pictures later. Yesterday, we spent the whole day at home cleaning and unpacking, and picking up Yu Yu's poop!  The crate training premise that dogs don't like to mess their own crate is 100% untrue for Yu Yu -- he prefers to do his "numbers" in the luxury of our living room.  Anyway, yesterday Ayi, Zhang, brought the fixings for pan fried dumplings (Jiaozi).  They were better than any restaurant and I am committed to learning how to make them from start to finish (including buying the necessary ingredients) on my own -- so I can impress friends and family when they come.

We are on a hunt to try to find popcorn today so we can have our family "snuggle fest" tonight -- with a movie, popcorn and/or candy.  We've already identified the island of trolli gummy candy at our local foreign grocery store!

Hope everyone is well.  More this weekend.  

SKYPE READY: LET'S MAKE VIDEO PHONE CALLS

We have are now "enabled" with Skype and should be able to make free video phone calls to other Skype users.  If anyone out there knows how to to this already, let us know and we'll start with you.  You need to download skype for free from the internet and you will need a web cam if you don't have one built-into your computer.  We will continue to research this and let you know what you need to do to get "enabled" on your end -- if you know -- please post a comment and share your knowledge with all of us.  Thanks.

Laura

Miao Miao and Hot Pot

Last week, our Ayi, Zhang, brough her daughter, Miao Miao, with her to work one day (at my suggestion). We had a lot of fun swimming (her first time in a pool) and going out to lunch for traditional Shanghai cuisine -- Baozi and xiao long baozi, both dumblings. The food was delicious.

On Saturday, we went downtown to the electonics mart and bought a pocket size, electronic translator -- pretty cool thing. We ate lunch is what is like a food court and had to search and search for a table. We finally landed at a little restaurant where you cook your own food in a bown that is on the hot plate on your table -- a dangerous undertaking with three kids. We cooked Tofu, Beef, veggies, potatoes, and "extrouded shrimp" (Jeff's term -- essentially shrimp paste that is squeezed from a tube and comes out like a noodle). Everyone liked it except Laura (yuck!).

Today we are relaxing. No driver and too hot to do anything except go to the pool and stay inside in the air conditioning.

Ms. Zhang

This is our "auntie,"

I am truly going to be so spoiled when I get back.  Her name is Zhang, and the kids call her Ayi (auntie), and I call her -- you guessed it -- Little Zhang.  She helps with everything around the house, which is a very weird thing to get used to -- but I think I'll adjust.  She cooks Chinese meals for us, and yesterday brought us Chicken Feet -- even at the risk of offending her -- I had to put my foot down (pardon the pun) on that one.  She took the delicacy home to her family! 

As you can see in this photo, Sun and Qi had quite the water fight in our garage.  I had to go out with Jin, so I suggested that Zhang let the kids play in a tub of water and told her I didn't mind if they got wet.  We came back to a garage full of water and Qi and Sun sliding on their bellies across the entire garage.  The days are SOOOOO hot, that the only way to be outside is to be in or near water.  July and August are not the time to visit -- too darn hot for touring.

Hope everyone is well.  We are working on "Scype" the by the time the novely of this wears off, hopefully, we will be onto the novelty of TV video!

Meet Mr. Zhu

This is Zhu Zheng, our driver.  Jeff and I (because we are now so old) are supposed to call him Xiao Zhu (little Zhu).  He is Shanghai native, and really knows his way around.  Before doing this job, he was a taxi driver.  Mr. Zhu is great with the kids, and has taken a special fondness for Qi Qi.  He is going to take Jin fishing, which made Jin's face just light up.  He said there is a pond where they raise fish, and you only pay if you catch something.  If they do, we are going to bring it home to fry it up.  No catch and release for us! 

The kids start swimming lessons today -- we needed something to structure the day a bit.  They have a class just for themselves taught by "Jefferson." 

Yu Yu

We have a new puppy named Yu Yu (pronounced "you you").  He was overpriced, but he is wonderful!  5 month old Schnauzer.  We bought him from our driver, Zhu's, friend.  We had a relaxing weekend.  Yesterday we picked up the dog and drove around Shanghai and today we stayed in the neighborhood and went swimming.  

We miss everyone and can't wait for you to visit.  More soon!

Settling In

It's Saturday morning in Shanghai and today is our first weekend day here as a family.  Eileen left on Thursday and we were VERY sad to see her go, but hoping that she will be able to come back and visit in Spring.  We did as much as we could while she was here and I think she got a taste of Shanghai -- we visited Yu Gardens, QiBao (a beautiful little area with canals) and the Bund and Nanjing Dong Lu -- the main shopping district.  We bought two real jade pieces (a necklace for Eileen and a bracelet for Lisa) and some fake Jade (Jadite?) as well.  

We are very happy with the house.  It is beautiful and already feels like home.  It has really high ceilings which make it feel bigger and more spacious, and I think I will always like that now -- feels roomier.  We lucked out with our driver and our "ayi" (aunti) -- they are wonderful, take charge people and very very helpful.  Our driver's name is Zhu (pronounced "Jew") and he reminds me a lot of Shao Hui.  He is a single man of 30, but I already have a match made for him (our realtor -- Janet Mei!).  Our Ayi is Zhang.  She is married and has a 10 year old daughter -- very kind and smart.  She works nonstop which stresses me out, but is also great with the kids.  I think the kids will go to her for spoiling, because Chinese pamper their kids more than we do.  

Today, we are going downtown.  Jeff has a doctor's appointment.  The cats arrived in good health yesterday and we laugh that same was born in Atlanta, adopted in North Carolina, has lived in Washington, DC and Minneapolis, and now Shanghai.  He is on his 20th life at least.  Not bad for a pound kitty.  If I am lucky, today we will be getting a puppy.  Dogs as pets have become very popular here.  I was just casually talking with Mr. Zhu and asked him if he had any pets, and told him that I would eventually like to get a dog.  Well, he was on the phone immediately and one of his best friends is a dog lover and takes them in and then sells them.  He has a 5 month old Schnauzer that Eileen and I got to meet -- and now Jeff and I may go see him today.  Purebred dogs are not cheap and a little research shows you have to be very careful about "puppy mill" type situations -- so we shall see.

The kids have had their ups and downs.  They love the swimming pool and biking around the neighborhood, but tend to act quite horrific when we go out in public -- too overwhelming.  Jin has been a grump the last two days.  I bought them one inch turtles (Qi and Sun) and hermit crabs (Jin) in QiBao, and they are enjoying those.  I didn't really expect them to last through the night, but they've been alive for 4 days now.  Qi's turtle is Quincy, Sun's is Baby BaoBei (which means Baby Baby), and Jin's crabs are DaShan (Big Mountain) and QiBao -- the town where we bought them.  

The name DaShan is a reference to a Canadian guy who lives over here who people tell Jeff he looks like -- you can google him.  Jeff thinks he is better looking! :-)

Well, since this is my first real post, I'm going to call it quits until I'm sure it actually works.  I'm working on photos, but the blog and email works better on my apple computer and I don't have any pictures on my compatible Sony camera yet -- will post some soon -- when I figure out how to do it.  

We made it to Shanghai

We have created this blog to share the stories of our new life in Shanghai.  Stay tuned for more --as soon as we figure out how to use this blog!