Home Sweet Home

So I really didn't think I would call China home so soon, but I am so happy to be home! What a wonderful blessing Hawaii was to our family. We had such a phenomenal trip. The beach has always been my end all fantasy trip. I grew up looking forward to our yearly trips to Panama City, Fl and then of course living in Florida was just an everyday wonder to me. So Hawaii was wonderful.

Now, thankfully, we are home and finally settling into our life here. For 6 weeks it felt as though our life were on hold. Searching for an apartment, being in limbo about our visas, having the kids home for the summer, all of these things have made me feel like I was stuck in a holding pattern.... just circling the airport for hours waiting for the go ahead to land. You know how that feels, when you've been onboard that airplane for 4 hours with screaming kids and all you want to do is just land and get home but you can't because a rainstorm has you circling and circling... you can see the airport but you just can't get there... Well, finally we're here!

We finally secured a townhouse and we are moving in tomorrow!!!! I don't think I could put too many exclamation points in that sentence. I went today to do the final walk through with the landlord and realtor. Our realtor arranged for movers to come pack our things and move us to the new place and it's costing less than $50, if you can believe that! Our new place is a 3 story townhome with a nice little backyard for Cooper to run around in. The girls are already talking about getting a puppy. It has 3 bedrooms, which are on the 2nd story, and the third story is one big loft. It is cedar lined, walls, ceiling and floors. It will serve as Lee's workshop, my craft room, and it has a separate little room that is the perfect size for a play room. I know the Lord has blessed us with this apartment. We looked at so many apartments and even put in offers on apartments and had those offers fall through. I never felt at home in any of them, but felt that we didn't have any other options. I know the Lord knew where we needed to be. Two different friends suggested that we look in the Green Hills Complex. When I inquired at the leasing office I was told that there were no units available. Another friend told me to not give up. She put me in touch with a realtor friend of hers who was able to help us find the unit. These units usually rent for 30,000 to 40,000 quai and our budget was only for 20,000 quai. This realtor was able to negotiate the price into our budget! I am so thankful for our Heavenly Father's ever watchful eye. He knows our needs and is loving enough to help us with even the smallest details.

The children started school today. They absolutely love their new school! The teachers are very kind and friendly. The bus drops the kids off just around the corner from our new house. Ally and Eve can hardly wait for tomorrow to go back to school. The school is 45 minutes from the house, so the bus comes early. We will have to get used to getting up early. Ah, summer sleeping in is over!

That's it for today. I'll try to come up with some pictures later.

Hawaii, Day 5

The first time I went to Hawaii, I was about 6 weeks pregnant with Cooper. Lee and I had planned the trip about a year in advance, so of course we took the trip with the hopes that I wouldn't get too sick. Hope is such a great thing, but not too reliable. I puked the whole trip long! Needless to say, my memories of Hawaii weren't all that great.

This time around I am determined to do things right. So far, so good! We got here Saturday Aug. 9th. On Sunday the 10th we went to church, which was really cool. We met at the Honolulu Stake Tabernacle. It was the single most interesting church building I have been to (that and where we meet now in Shanghai). I can't really adequately describe it. Basically imagine several buildings connected by lovely open breezeways which are bordered by all kinds of lush tropical plants. The chapel was the largest chapel I have ever been in. It was quite an experience. We left church and headed to the North Shore to look at a beach house that we ended up renting for half of our trip. It was fun to help the kids see the lush green natural side of Oahu.

Monday started out kind of rough. Lee went to FedEx to send off the documents for our visas. He called me just as the kids and I were about to walk into Denny's for breakfast to tell us that we had to come back immediately and get pictures taken for the visas. We thought we had all the paperwork ready, but apparently we missed that detail. So everyone was pretty grumpy about postponing breakfast. And to top it off, FedEx had technical difficulties so a 5 minute photo shoot ended up taking over an hour! Then after lunch the kids and I headed to the beach for a few hours. We watched crabs climb on rocks and basked in the sunshine. We headed out to the navy base a little later to buy tickets for the submarine and the Polynesian Center. Then, we got very lost and stayed lost for over an hour. To be clear, we knew where we were, we just didn't know how to get to where we wanted to go. Much to our dismay the map was in the hotel room and NOT in the car! So the day started off rough and ended kind of crappy too. Everyone was pretty worn out when we finally got back to the room.

Luckily,Tuesday turned out to be much better! We took the kids on a submarine ride. Of course, I got sick but luckily didn't puke (yeah!). To board the submarine you take a boat out to where the sub is waiting. I actually felt sick on the topside boat, not the submarine itself. Anyway, we got to watch the sub surface, which was really cool. We dove down to 111 ft. at the deepest part of the dive. It was really cool. The company that puts on the submarine tours has created several artificial reefs so we got to see sharks and sea turtles, and of course tons and tons of tropical fish. We spent the rest of the day lounging on the beach. Lee helped the kids build sandcastles and let me go back to the hotel for a little quiet time to try and get my motion sickness under control.

Today, Wednesday, was by far everyone's favorite day. We have been letting the kids stay up until almost midnight and we are all sleeping in until about 9:30 each morning. We aren't really attempting to switch to Hawaii time since the kids have to start school the day after we get home. So by the time we get going a good portion of the morning is gone already. So this morning we packed up our hotel so that we could move from the touristy Waikiki to the calm North Shore. We then drove to Diamond Head Crater to hike with the kids. Eve has been so assertive about going hiking. I have been surprised that she had such a strong desire to hike. So away we went. Both Lee and I were amazed at how much fun it was hiking up Diamond Head. The views were just spectacular! We had little mini science lessons the whole way up about things like erosion on the mountain, and the method of using switchbacks to climb mountains. It was really fun for everyone. The terrain was pretty steep at times. Cooper had the best ride of all. I carried him on my back up the mountain and Lee carried him on his back down the mountain. It was a phenomenal experience. When I asked the girls what has been their favorite part of the trip, the vote was unanimously hiking.

We are now here at our beachhouse. We rented the bottom floor of a two story house for the remainder of our trip, which is about 6 more days. We are in a neighborhood full of permanent residents, which is really nice and quiet. We are just 3 houses from the beach. The girls made friends with neighborhood kids within 10 minutes of arriving. I think we will like staying here the best.

I am including pictures of our hike as well as of our evening trip to the beach tonight.

Hawaii and the Flight Over

Ok, so I feel like I have won the lottery. I never win anything. Ever. So here we are on an all expense paid trip to Hawaii. It's surreal. My life, like most of us, is filled with constant thoughts of "How much will it cost?" Everytime we head out to dinner we are scrimping and saving and watching the pennies all dinner long. What a glorious feeling to not worry! Again, I feel like I won the lottery!

You might be wondering how this has come to pass... Well, because of some changes to residency visa requirements from the Chinese government, we had to return to our home country to apply for our visas. Hawaii is the closest and least expensive airline ticket to buy, so here we are. The company is covering our hotel, airline tickets, and even meals while we are here. Because of the limited availability of tickets at such short notice, we had to stay for ten days.... I know, we just had to stay for ten days.

So, we are having an amazing time. It's amazing how relaxed everyone is feeling. We are planning a day on the beach today, and during the week we plan on hiking Diamond Head, take a submarine ride, snorkelling, and visiting the Temple visitor's center and the Polynesian Center.

So, I'll end here, and include a picture or two from our plane ride over. BTW, the trip was long but not too bad. Luckily the flight from Korea to Hawaii was overnight and with a little help from Mr. Benadryl, everyone slept for most of the 9 hour flight.

Our New Helper

Yesterday was a very busy day. We had a contract for an apartment and it fell through at the last minute. So we basically had to start at square on on the apartment hunting front. We made an appointment to look at some units after Lee got home from work. We rushed to that appointment, then we had to run to get dinner, and then at the last minute a friend from church told me she had a maid/nanny that she wanted me to interview, and she wanted me to come that night at 8:00 pm! So, we rushed from dinner to my friend Suzanne's house.

Let me describe the maid/nanny situation. Here in Shanghai it is very inexpensive and a widely accepted practice to hire a helper who cleans house, does laundry, cooks dinner and helps with the children. For $300/month you can hire someone full time, M-F to come to your house and do all these things. The slang term is 'ayi' (pronounced ah yee). I had decided that we would hire an ayi, but not until we got into an apartment. Well, this friend wanted us to come interview her highly recommended ayi friend, so we did. We decided to go ahead and hire her right away, basically to 'reserve' her until we were ready to use her full time.

So, today was our first day with our ayi, whose name is Ing. She is great with the kids and wonderful around the house. Lee and I had to go apartment hunting so we left the kids with her. When we came home, the kids had eaten lunch, played at the park, and were quietly watching a movie when we got in. The house was clean, the refrigerator was organized, and the dishes were done. Our apartment was the cleanest it's been since we got here a month ago. Needless to say, I am excited.

We put in two offers on apartments today with two realtors. One of the apartments is a townhouse with a back yard and two patios. I like this one the best because it is set up more like a neighborhood. It is 3 bedrooms, with a huge playroom/shop/craft room upstairs in the attic. The attic is all wood paneled and is air conditioned and has skylights. It is neighborhood that I would be comfortable letting the kids ride bikes in. So everyone, cross your fingers!

The second apartment is an actual apartment on the 3rd floor. It is much newer and 4 bedrooms, but doesn't have some of the advantages of the other one. While it is closer to shopping and newer and we could actually pick our furniture, it is still an apartment and I wouldn't be comfortable just sending the kids out to play. We would still be comfortable in this unit, it just isn't my first choice.

So, that's the news on the homefront in Shanghai. I am including a picture of Ing and Ally and Eve in our little tiny apartment kitchen.

We've Arrived!!

Ok, so we've been here a month already and we haven't just arrived. But, I am finally learning how to blog, so in that sense, I've arrived. We arrived here in Shanghai on July 7, 2008 bleary eyed and dizzy from lack of sleep. After a full 24 hours of traveling we got to our serviced apartment and crashed hard. We are in a temporary apartment right now which is a cross between an apartment and a hotel. We have maid service that comes twice a week to change our sheets, mop floors and clean bathrooms. There is a service desk as well as a swimming pool and gym that we can use. I kind of feel like we are camping because we don't have our shipment of household goods yet. All we have is whatever we brought over in our suitcases! I have bought a few things just to tide us over until our shipment comes in August. The kids felt like we were having Christmas in July because we took them to Toys R Us and let them each spend $40. You would think toys would be cheap here, but they aren't.

Everyone wants to know what China is like, so here goes... We live on the east side of the river in an area called Pudong. Pu means river, dong means east. The other side of the river is Puxi (pronounced pu shee). Pudong is newer and much nicer. Most of the expatriates (foreigners) live here in Pudong. The streets are nice and wide and almost every street has a separate bike lane for bikes, scooters and mopeds. The area is very nice with lots of nice landscaping and greenery. There are also lots and lots of high rise apartment buildings. We live on the 17th floor right now.

We have been able to find most of the kinds of food that we like, but it is rather expensive. We are trying our best to try local brands and food so that we can experiment and find foods that we like and that aren't so expensive. I am pleased with the produce, yogurt, bread and inexpensive snacks. I just need to learn how to cook Chinese food!

Lee is very happy with his job. He works at a shipyard Wei Gao Cao (I am sure I didn't spell that right!) It's pronounced why gow chow. He has a van that picks him up each morning at the apartment and drops him off each evening. Because he has door to door transportation, we don't have a driver here. Most expatriates have drivers to take them everywhere. We walk a lot and take a lot of taxi and subway rides. We actually enjoy getting into the culture as much as possible.

Well, that's enough for now. I will try and post some pictures that we have taken from our apartment balcony so everyone can see what our everyday view is like.