Saturday, August 30, 2008

Our Neighbors and an Update on the Dongwu (animals)




Well Sisters....here is your update. Yu Yu is doing great. I love him so much -- he is getting more frisky as time goes by. He is, however, still not potty trained (or even almost potty trained), which is getting very very frustrating. We have tried many approaches, but he continues to have the nickname Yu Yu von Poo Poo!

The turtles and crabs are no longer in this world. They survived much longer than we expected, but perished unfortunately. I will NEVER get turtles again. The crabs made better pets, as they actually moved around and did something.

All of the neighbors have returned to the neighborhood, including those immediating surrounding us. Across the street we have Ola and Christina from Sweden, and their two daughters Ellen (3rd grade, biological) and Selma (4 years, preschool, and adopted from China -- the exact same size as Sun). Christina works as the Marketing Director for IKEA China and Ola, who was previously with IKEA also, is a stay at home dad. They are very nice, but still getting to know them. Ellen is over a lot to visit with the kittens, so we know her best (see photos of Ellen and Selma). The other nearby neighbors are from Singapore. They also have two kids, named Harriet (9) and Harold (5). They speak perfect English, so the kids can all communicate and play. There are really not too many americans in the complex, a lot of Northern Europeans from Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, also people from England and Australia.

The first week of school went exceptionally well. All of the kids have nice teachers and there were no major problems. Sun, who I was most afraid would have difficulty adjusting, is loving school and very proud of herself. Her favorite part is riding the bus!

Jeff is coming home from Hong Kong tonight, and then this week, I am going off on "business," to a training with Half the Sky Foundation to meet with people from that organization and see if there is the potential for me to work for them. The following week I am going to visit their headquarters in Beijing and their programs in Tianjin (Qi's hometome). Kids are crying, gotta go!

1 comment:

Daisy said...

What do you mean sisters? What about Daisy? y last blog has been lost as I talked about the kids and school. glad every thing went well.