Onion Soup Mix...

Apparently, our lives here in Shanghai revolve around something called “onion soup mix.” More importantly, the Smith family must have created a shortage of the aforementioned product since we have shown up in China and have been purchasing it from the international grocery stores. Apparently, the mix in this little miracle bag is the key ingredient to several Smith family favorite meals: Chicken in a cranberry red sauce, chicken and wild rice casserole, beef roast and various other meals frequently crossing our table each evening. Normally, it hasn’t been a problem getting our hands on this key ingredient, but we apparently have been the only ones purchasing it as we have not been able to find it now for several weeks here in Shanghai.

Before moving on and talking about other little bits of food, I thought that I would just add a quick note to Jessica’s last post. I love college football. One problem that I have always had though is that I am from Missouri, which doesn’t really ring out as a football power house. The college that I went to, being an engineering school, hadn’t won a football game in the two years before I arrived and did not win a game the whole time that I was there. I have a Google page and an MSN page that I log into to get key news and sports information that I am interested in. I have always had the University of Missouri listed as one of the teams to follow. You could usually find me on Saturday or Sunday looking over my shoulder to make sure that no one was looking while I logged on to see how the Tigers had done that weekend.

This season was of course different though. You don’t ever really have to know anything about college football to know that Missouri came within one game of reaching the national championship. Who knows if it will happen again, or how well they will do next year. I may have to go back to always looking over my shoulder when I check scores and articles. But in the mean time, here is a sight that I really never thought that I would see in my lifetime…just too bad it didn’t last.




So anyway, back to food...

The grocery store that we normally go to is right across the street from our apartment. It has always amazed us at some of the advertisements that you see that are in English that you just chuckle at, or sometimes even better the products that they actually are selling over here (see the flavors for potato chips in the last post). However, the one that always trips us up though is the meat area of the grocery store here.

The delivery and selling of meat products is pretty interesting over here. It doesn’t matter if it is a big chain store like the Carrefour or Pines that we go to, or one of the local Chinese markets or even side street markets: The meat is basically just dropped off and put into large piles for people to pick through. In the smaller city that I work in, it is hilarious to see some of the Chinese people actually start to fight over the meat when it gets dropped off.

Anyway, at the Carrefour where we normally shop, it is more like you would find in the States. That being said though, there are still some pretty big differences. For instance, the fresh fish area is a little more open and not as sanitary. In the pictures below you can see the open fish meats, the tanks that you can get live turtles out of, another counter of fresh fish, the fish heads (for soup).

All around this area, there are also fish and crab tanks that the boys like to spend time looking at. It is interesting to explain to them how people will buy the fish and take them home to cook them and eat them. Just seeing the looks on their faces makes for a fun time.

Then, there are the meat counters. Most of the pictures that I took didn’t turn out too well, so I will go back and get some more at another time. Again, it is similar to the States: You just pick out the meat that you want, take it to the butcher type of person, and they wrap it up for you. One big difference though is that you pretty much just pick through it all by hand (your own) and then take it to be packaged. We on the other hand are not as adventurous as this. We pretty much only buy the pre-packaged meats. We pay a little more for them, but at the same time we don’t have to go through the theatrics of getting the meat like this…





In other food news, Jessica has mentioned before that Maddox has taken a real liking to Chinese food. At first, we thought that he just liked the idea of eating from chopsticks. However, it really doesn’t matter if it is chopsticks or not, the kid just likes Chinese food (suits me though, as I do too). The big favorite though is rice. Doesn’t matter if it is fried rice, rice noodles, of just plain steamed rice; Maddox likes them all.

A few days ago, we decided to go ahead and let Maddox try and eat the rice by himself. I am not sure how much rice he actually was able to eat, as you can see in the pictures below he was at least as much on the floor as he was eating. Afterwards he came into the kitchen asking for a ‘towel’, as he wanted to help clean up the mess that he made. As you can see though, things just got spread out more.





The big news to share though as it relates to food is a recent discovery that we have made in Shanghai. A couple of weekends ago, we were walking around an area on the other side of Shanghai from where we live called Hongqiao (Hong-Chow). We knew that there was a large international grocery store there called City Shoppe, so we were looking for it when all of a sudden we stumbled across a Cold Stone Creamery. It was like experiencing a little piece of heaven right here in Shanghai. Even better was that the following weekend, we found another one in the People’s Square area of the city. They have waffle cones, waffle bowls, our favorite ice creams, our favorite toppings, everything. Unfortunately though, it has become a recent addiction.




I know that there is so much more that is more interesting that you could see when it comes to food. For instance, on nights when I am staying in Wuxi and walking around the downtown area, you can see people along side the streets that have small grills hanging off of the back of their bikes that are cooking small animals that are tied to skewers. I could tell you about some of the ‘snack’ shops on the sides of the busy streets that have things like duck tongue and chicken feet for sale. I could even spell out the meals that I have had to endure during the countless supplier visits over here. I guess that I will try and get some pictures of those and get them loaded as well. In the mean time, this stuff will just have to do...

Just plain 'ol potato chips...

OK, so Jessica isn’t really keeping up on this. So, I guess that you guys will just have to put up with me for a little while. I actually typed this up a few weeks ago, I just haven’t had the time to post it yet. I actually have a bunch of stuff to put on here, so sorry for the overload…

Since Jessica returned from visiting her family early in the year, I have gotten a lot of requests to just provide some thoughts in general. Plus, I have gotten several requests to show people around the world the stuff that I have to do day in and day out. In typical fashion, I plan on just keeping this as sarcastic as possible. You certainly won’t be getting any deep thoughts or anything like that out of me here. Most likely I will just focus on the random and absolutely pointless. I will probably spend most of my time focusing on the things that just make us laugh over here instead of the real cultural stuff that Jessica puts up on the other blog. For all of you Facebook people, I will load a lot more pictures into there that I will on the blog as we can actually get access to Facebook anywhere in China…but alas not Blogger. There is no telling what type of mayhem would occur if the government here would open up Blogger. Weird country sometimes, but I will get into that I am sure in subsequent posts.

I hardly know where to begin. Today alone was filled with exposing our boys to gambling and cricket fighting, squirrels with obvious mental issues, fish heads being pushed around the floor of the local grocery store and various other adventures. I think that I will focus instead of snacks. Yep, that is right. After a couple of weeks of having company stay with us and a week off from work where we did something almost every day, Jessica and I chose to just have a night in at the apartment and not really do anything. We ordered dinner from a restaurant that has become one of our favorites over here. Later on though, I decided that I just wanted junk food. Pretzels, chips, cookies…whatever. A quick survey of the cabinets yielded nothing, so I headed across the street to the local equivalent of Wal-Mart. I head off to the aisle where the potato chips are located in search for my favorite chips over here…Lay’s Stax. Basically, they are just like Pringles…except for the flavors. Oh yes my friends, today I discovered that the land of salt and vinegar, BBQ, sour cream and onion are all long behind us. Tonight, my options were “tomato,” “crispy prawn”, “green cucumber,” “black pepper rib eyed steak,” and “finger licking braised pork.” I can hardly imagine a better selection of flavors. One problem though was that I could not find “authentic original flavor”. Yep, just plain old potato chips. Finally, after searching high and low, I found this island in the middle of nowhere that had two or three cans of them set up in some pointless display. Of course realizing that the display was pointless, I just reached up and took it apart to the point that I could get the chips that I wanted and walked away with my container of chips.

There was another customer there that also thought that the display was rather ridiculous as they walked away from their cart and came over to me waving a finger at me and talking in a very excited tone. I didn’t understand a word that they were saying, but obviously they were very happy with me because they followed me all of the way back to the international foods area where I was going to pick up a bag of pretzels. The person was also nice enough to grab some of the employees at the store that were close by and explain to them how the display didn’t make sense. They even went so far as to grab the chips out of my hand and act out all of the work that I had to go through just to get the chips in the first place. Though I certainly appreciate this persons excitement, it was wearing off quickly now because they had just taken the potato chips that I had to work so hard to get right out of my hands. Tiring of the celebrity status that I had now attained given that a crowd was starting to gather, I just politely said ‘excuse me’, grabbed my chips and headed on my way to the check-out counter. The things that you have to go through just to get junk food. It’s easier just eating all of the healthy stuff that we have back home.

Oh well, the chips were great. I enjoyed every one of them. In case you are wondering about the random nature of the display, they were nestled in neatly with Maxwell House coffee and Lipton green tea, which has stacks of Oreo and some Chinese brand cookies on top of them. The only flavor of chips that were in the display were original and green cucumber, and they were in the clothing area. This was of course the first place that I would have ever thought of to look at for snack food.

Pretty much, that is an absolutely pointless story, and you just wasted 7 minutes of your life reading it. I will have to see if I can dig up the pictures that we took of introducing the boys to cricket fighting and will get those up.

War Eagle! Mizzou-Rah!

Last weekend was great! We had friends over for Thanksgiving on Saturday and on Sunday (y'alls Saturday) we were able to follow online the wonderful wins of two of our favorite teams! It was a great weekned.

Besides the football, (War Eagle....Mizzou-Rah) we really enjoyed having our friends over for a traditional Thanksgiving. *Well as traditional as you can considering you are in China.* :-) But I think we did a pretty good job. I mean the spread on the table (or counter in our case) could have passed for for any spread back in the States. We had the turkey and gravy (cooked by yours truly), stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potatos (canned but still sweet potatos), rolls, corn (an awesome dish done by a single guy no less...he crushed my idea that a single guy can't cook), mashed potatos, ahhh yes, the wonderful cranberry sauce you just slide out of the can and slice (yes folks, they have that here in China!), pecan, apple, and pumpkin pie and so much more!!! It was wonderful. Almost felt like I was back in the States....almost. Like I said, we really enjoyed having everyone over and I hope they had a good time as well.

I guess that's it. I have been trying to load the same picture onto the blog for over 30 minutes and it hasn't happened yet. So I think I'm just going to call it quits on the whole picture thing for now. I'll try to figure out what's going on.....let's just blame it on China....and get some pictures up another time. Hope y'all have a great rest of the week!!!

WAR EAGLE!!!

MIZZOU-RAH!!!

Happy Thanksgiving From Around the World!!!

Wow. I know it has been awhile, a-long-while actually since the last post. I have no good excuse for not posting sooner, other than to just blame it on life. Life has been good just busy for us all. I will do my best to catch y'all up on what's been going on with all of us. But first, I would like to provide a disclaimer. Michael is funnier than me. I have known that for years. So while his previous two posts were probably more enjoyable than any post of mine, you are stuck with me anyway. Sorry. Now, moving on.

I took a cue from my friend Mandy and will update y'all by going person by person.

MICHAEL: Is working terribly hard. In all of the years I have known him I have never NOT seen him work hard on a job, no matter what kind. But, these past few weeks have been different. Things with the suppliers he is in charge of keep getting worse and worse. Let me explain. He has been sent here on behalf of his company to "manage/assist" the smaller Chinese companies that provide parts to his company. And his company in turn provides parts to another company. So I am sure you all understand that if the little Chinese company is having problems, then Michael's company is having problems, and then the company they supply to is having problems. Basically you end up with a boatload of ticked off people....at every level. The reason I say his job is to "manage/assist" is because while he is not an employee of the Chinese companies, he still tells them what to do to an extent. But it is all done in the spirit of assistance. And currently to two main suppliers of parts for Michael's company are having major problems. The end result, Michael is having major problems. Or rather, dealing with some major problems. And it seems (I will say at least to me anyway) that the higher ups in Michael's company just want the problem fixed, no matter what the cost or how unreasonable they are being. Everyone wants the problem fixed, it just doesn't happen overnight. Unfortunately, it's Michael's job to keep reminding them of that. And sometimes it ain't pretty. I cannot even begin to imagine how stressed out this past month is making him because amazingly....I don’t' see it. He is working some crazy long hours but when he comes home, he's home. He plays "rough" (that's what they call wrestling) with the boys, listens to me gripe about my day (which honestly is nothing compared to his), and somehow manages to be in good spirits with us. I DON'T KNOW HOW HE DOES IT!!!!! I wish I had better words to say but, I am SO VERY blessed that he was willing to spend the rest of his life with me. He is truly a wonderful father, friend, and husband.

ME: My trip back to the States to spend time with my family was good. The flights were almost unbearably long. I have a huge amount of new found respect for Michael who flew those flights several times a month for almost a year. Though spending time with my family made the suffering worthwhile for sure. It was a quick trip, just a week. But to be with my family after the passing of my grandfather was so comforting. In other news, I am currently, as in right now, cooking a turkey for about 20-25 friends for Thanksgiving. Some of you may be surprised to know that this is my first time to roast a bird. In the past I have helped my mom a little but never really contributed much. I guess I am growing up. WAIT, I should be honest. I have called my mom 3 times. Just to make sure I was doing stuff right!! I knew what I was doing....really! Anyway, we will see in about 30 minutes how good, please be good, of a job I did. HAPPY THANKSGIVING Y'ALL!!!!

GABE:Ahh, Gabe is Gabe. Which I suppose is a good thing. Actually I know it is. He is ornery as ever. Yet, he has many wonderful moments. I know all parents think that their children are smart, so I won't act like he is a genius or anything. But, he never ceases to amaze Michael and I with his memory. He has the memory of an elephant! He is always remembering things that happened in months past, even events that happened almost two years ago. (When he was just a little over 1 year old.) Though I do believe that he will one day put this ability to good use, for now it is sometimes frustrating and hilarious. His Chinese vocabulary is growing by the day. I know that children pick up languages better than adults but, I do think his memory serves him well here also. He is by no means bi-lingual, he just knows lots of Chinese words. For example, he can tell a taxi driver, in Chinese, "Please take me to the Shanghai Science and Technology Center subway station." And since he has the route memorized, if he thinks they are veering off course, he will tell them to "go straight, turn right, or turn left" all in Chinese. Also, as he learns new things, his definition of what a grown-up is changes. Sometimes that definition seems very profound (to us proud parents anyway) or times just funny. He told me the other day that he would know he was a grown-up when, "I have black scratchers on my face just like Michael." Can't say that one was profound, just funny to us.

MADDOX:"I do it!" That right there describes Madd-Dog perfectly. That phrase is his trademark these days. He has turned into Mr. Independent. He is no longer content to play in the shadow of his older brother. He wants to make his own. He is a climber, jumper, runner, faller, crasher, an all around tough guy! There are very few things he is afraid to try.....activities or food. He loves the local food, especially rice. And if you give him anything with chopsticks he will eat it for sure. He likes "using" chopsticks. Though much less of a talker than Gabe was/is ( Maddox does not take after the Loudermilk side of the family here for sure ) he still communicates well. He loves telling the locals hello, thank you, bye bye, and a few other words in Chinese. Funny thing though, if you ask him to count 1 to 10, 1-4 are in English and 5-10 are in Chinese. He'll get it eventually!

Well that pretty much covers the finer points. A few weekends ago we went with Michael to a town called Wuxi. Which is actually where his is primary office is located. (He works out of Shanghai some.) It is 2 1/2 hours away by car. We had a driver take us there but we rode the train back. It was the boys first real train ride and they loved it!!! The train ride only lasts about 45 minutes and that was not near long enough for them. They didn't want to get off!! While in Wuxi, they had a great time in the hotel pool, at the zoo, and at a local park. It was a fun weekend away. Here are a few pictures.

At the pool.

Does anything strike you as odd in this picture? Look closely. :-)
Lunch time! This guy had just finished the juice box and was moving on to his banana.

This was a fun slide. It was made out of a giant piece of stone.
The boys played on it for a long time. I went down it myself a couple of times!
This was crazy. At the park in Wuxi there were these animals that kids could ride/drive for 5 minutes for about 70 cents. The boys thought it was awesome!
What's crazy about it was the crowd watching and taking pictures of the little foreign kids. It's like that everywhere we go. Everyone wants pictures of themselves or their kids with the boys. We seem to always draw quite a crowd. Everywhere!
And just because I know that y'all were so anxious to see how it turned out.........There she is, or should I say, he is!?!

Made it!

Yep, this one is all about makin' it. I just put the boys down for the night, came back into the living room here where I set up command central throughout the end of the week to work from and also maximize my ability to monitor the kids, only to find the following on my screen...

So the good news is that Jessica made it back 'home'! As for me, I managed to make it through the week with no major catastrophes past Saturday. There was that little blip with Maddox escaping the perimeter that I had set up here to break into our bathroom and spread the soap around the floor. However, I managed to get that one taken care of and that was pretty much it. The floors are clean, the bathrooms are clean, the sheets are all washed, the clothes are all washed...all thanks to Chen. But hey, I'm the one payin' for it! I only managed to lose two fish out of the boys fish tanks...with no signs of any remains I might add. Plus, I managed to solve a pretty major issue at work that had one of our assembly lines completely stopped, so I pretty much think that the week was a success.

By the way (and though I readily admit that my domestication abilities are somewhat limited), I just wanted to offer up that even in the face of having to deal with an oven that is somewhat complicated and confusing; that if you put good directions on the box that you can get a pretty good meal. For instance, breakfast on Friday...

That is right folks. Notice the nice golden brown color on the tops of those babies. The nice clean and non-burned edges. And just to offer up some proof that the demanding little pain in the neck critics that I had to put up with on Saturday at McDonald's found these completely appealing...

Yep, I'm shameless. I even made them beg me for more. Couldn't help myself really. Don't have a picture of it, but I figured out the chicken nugget things too. That's right, Friday night was me, the boys, and 12 crispy, golden brown dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets, some Chinese BBQ sauce, applesauce and chocolate pudding. Food Network doesn't have anything on me...as long as it comes out of a bag or box that has decent instructions on them.

Anyway, this is all pretty much pointless rambling and nothing more than an attempt for me to kill some time and try and dull out the excitement and anticipation of just waiting for Jessica to get home from the airport; while at the same time try and redeem myself from one of my lower point days as a parent. I guess that I should take some time to thank all of those of you that made it possible. To Bill and Judy, thanks for watching the boys for me on Monday and Tuesday while I was slaving away at work. Chen of course is an invaluable member of our family over here...whether we pay her or not. I got to see first hand this week that she genuinely cares about the boys more than I understand. Jen G. for making fun of me as a parent and inspiring me to do better. Buster and Amy for checkin' in on me throughout the week and inviting us for an afternoon out at one of the bust burger joints in town. And I guess Jessica...though she sets the bar pretty high...

All in all, it was a lot of fun! But man am I lookin' forward to going back to man-to-man defense against the boys!

And folks...that was just Saturday...

I realize that pictures speak thousands of words and all of that, but in all of the excitement this past Saturday, capturing these fun moments on film (or file so to speak) were hardly on my mind at the time.

Saturday was the day that Jessica went back to Alabama to be with her family since her grandfather has passed away. Luckily, the boys woke up in time to say goodbye before James came to pick her up and take her to the airport. The boys and I had some breakfast...basically just picking from the stuff that Jessica made for us. Waffles were the meal of choice. After that, and a little bit of time just playin' around the apartment and all was fine. Pretty much was appearing to be a pretty easy day with the low point being Jessica leaving. Then came the shower...

After doing the normal trip to the bathroom for Gabe and changing Maddox's diaper, I figured then was as good a time as any to dump the boys in a shower. Just after I got them both into the shower, the phone rang so I ran into the bedroom to answer it. Jessica was just calling to let me know that she got checked in and was at the gate. She also needed me to get her some stuff that she forgot to write down before she left. The call couldn't have been any more than five minutes. When we got done, I walked back into the bathroom to check on the boys. As I walked through the door, all that I could hear other than the running water was constant giggling. One thing that the boys like to do is to wait until I wash my hair or rinse off soap and run their cars through the 'bubbles' that make it to the floor. Apparently, they didn't think that I would make it to the shower, so they got the body wash down and managed to get it open. Maddox was standing with one foot on top of the bottle trying to get some of the soap out while Gabe was flinging the soap that had already come out all over the shower floor and walls. Not all that big a deal though really. I mean, we had soap everywhere in the shower, and there were certainly a lot of bubbles, but it was all contained in the shower.

So I hop in the shower, get the boys clean and let them play in the bubbles for a little while longer. Gabe decided that it would be fun to play with the drain cover, which is not secured into place with anything other than gravity. Maddox subsequently assumed that it would be fun to drive one of his toy cars down into the drain pipes. Luckily, I was pretty much done with the shower so I got the boys out, dried them off, and then took them to our bedroom and sat them on the bed. I turned on the Chinese cartoon network as I knew that it would keep them entertained while I went back into the shower with a wire coat hanger to dig the car out of the drain pipe. Thanks to an annoying bend in the pipe, it took longer than expected, but alas I was able to get the car out of the drain...only to hear Maddox whimpering back in our bedroom.

I walk in the bedroom to see Maddox standing there with a shocked look on his face and standing in a puddle of...just imagine having two cups of milk for breakfast, having just gotten out of the shower and still being damp, and standing in a room right under the air conditioning vent with the air conditioner still on. Luckily though, he had at least climbed out of our bed before performing that act. All that I could think of to do to console the poor kid was to hand him the same car that he had dumped down the drain. Then I picked him up, took him back in the bathroom and cleaned him off. Luckily, the rest of the morning was pretty low key. We went over to the fitness complex that we live close to which has a pretty big play area for kids. There was a birthday party going on there for a girl and all of her friends. They were a little bit older than Gabe, but both he and Maddox certainly enjoyed the attention. Anyway, about an hour there, a short trek back to the apartment and 20 or so minutes to cook some chicken nuggets for the boys and we should be good to go.

There is a weird thing about our oven though. Instead of specifying an actual temperature on the knob, it just gives numbers: 1 through 8. Luckily though, Jessica left me a guide on how to correlate the numbers to a temperature. Next problem though, the only instructions on the side of the bag that showed how to cook the chicken were instructions on how to fry them in a wok. A lot of good that did. I figured that it would be easy to figure out though. I will just pick a medium temperature...say 5, and put the chicken in there and see what we get. After about 10 minutes, all that we had were pretty much just soggy pieces of chicken. I figure that I'll just flip them over and bump the temp up to number 6. Still no problem. 10 minutes later and we still have some soggy pieces of chicken sitting there...and no sign of that wonderful golden brown color that we are supposed to get on these little modern marvels. I figure that I will just bump up the temperature even more and give then a few more minutes. After about 30 minutes of sitting in the oven, we still didn't manage to obtain that golden color, and it was about the most rubbery creation I had ever eaten. Luckily, the boys didn't seem to have such picky pallets as I. So now off to take a nap...only almost an hour late.

So then comes the afternoon. Neither one of them really slept all that well. Normally, they wake up around 4:30 or so. By 3:30, I had given up fighting with them. Gabe just shot up out of bed and ran into the living room asking to watch a movie or some TV. After I got him settled, I went back in to get Maddox. Now recently, when coming home in the afternoon, I noticed that Maddox was always wearing a pair of underwear over his diaper. I had just assumed that he wanted to be like Gabe or something and Jessica was just helping the kid out. Yeah, it dawns on me that maybe the move to put the underwear over the diaper was more out of necessity than anything else. As I walked into the room, there was Maddox standing in his bed, bare bottomed, pointing to the floor where he had thrown his diaper that he had taken off. The diaper was as dry as a bone...but not the bed. Perfect...here we go again! As least this time, it didn't appear that Maddox needed to go back to the bath.

So anyway, I strip down the sheets and blankets and head off to the utility room, where we have this really nice eco-friendly washing machine and dryer set. Easy enough I figure as I load all the sheets and blanket into the washing machine and grab the bag of laundry detergent. Next, I open the little drawer thing that you are supposed to put the detergent in for the washing machine and low and behold there are four different compartments in the stinkin' thing. After a minute of looking at the thing, I noticed that there was a little trap door type of thing in the back and a water line that runs into one of the compartments. It almost looks like you just load this one compartment up with soap, that water runs through the one next to it and they mix on the compartment with the trap door to ultimately dump into the washing machine. So, I just load up the middle container and go on my happy way. Next problem...the whole stinkin' setting knob is in Chinese. Just thinking back to how easy things are back home, I remembered that on our washing machine that the simple wash cycle had the least number of characters. Assuming that the logic was the same in China (silly me) I just picked the cycle that had the least number of Chinese characters. When that narrowed it down to three selections, I just picked the least complicated selection from those three. Some lights and numbers started flashing on the thing, so I started to feel much better about myself. Luckily, the On-Off symbol of the interupted circle with a line is an international symbol so we are good to go.

Anyway, can't figure out what else there is to do and the weather was pretty nice so I just dressed the boys and got them ready to head out to the playground in the apartment complex. Stroke of luck happens again and one of the boys that Gabe and Maddox apparently know pretty well is having a birthday party and they are just wrapping up and heading to the playground themselves. That was a piece of cake (no pun intended). The kids practically baby sat themselves. Really, the only bad thing about it was that it was all moms sitting out there, so I looked a little out of place. This is where the person that invented the Sudoku puzzles deserves a big thank you. Yep, I just drag out my Sudoku book that I do on the train and car rides around China and start working a few puzzles.

After about an hour there, we come back inside fully expecting the laundry to be done so that I can throw it in the dryer (which is also a Whirlpool appliance just like the washing machine, but is all in English) before the boys have to go to bed. Not sure where I went wrong on this one, but I either picked the wrong setting, or picked the wrong bin for the soap, but the washing machine was still going strong, one hour later, and all that you could see in the washing machine was a tub full of bubbles with some of them 'escaping' around the door seam on the front of the washing machine.

At this point I was pretty much just ready to give in and give up. I looked at the boys, asked them what they wanted for dinner, and just got two blank stares. So, being the perfectly good dad that I am, I just say "how about a surprise for dinner?" This just seemed to be the trick as looks of shear excitement dawned both of their faces. It was simply enough...all that I did was throw their shoes back on, head down to the street in front of our apartment grab a taxi and proudly proclaim: Ja-Le-Foo, Fang Dian Loo (don't get too caught up in this), it just gets us to a Carrefour (like a Wal-Mart) that is about six our eight blocks away from our apartment. Handy little thing about this Carrefour though is that it has a McDonald's in it. Two kids meals, a Big Mac meal and $6 later, I was well back on track.

It was now well past the boys bed time. But hey, I was a hero. We walked in the door to the apartment, only to hear the washing machine still running (now over three hours in its cycle). Needless to say, Maddox wasn't sleeping on his normal sheets that night. I just pulled the comforter up, grabbed a couple of extra top sheets and he was good to go. And folks...that was just Saturday...

NOTES: You can pretty much accept this as my public affirmation for all that Jessica does for us. Secondly, Maddox didn't stop there with the soap. On Wednesday, my first day back alone with the boys (we had some help on Monday and Tuesday...thanks Bill and Judy!) I noticed that I hadn't heard from Maddox in several minutes. When I called his name, he came running out into the hallway from our bedroom with that just been caught look on his face. I went into the bathroom to find that he had gotten into the shower and grabbed the soap and was spreading it out on the bathroom floor...looking for more bubbles. It has taken me three days to get it clean and I still haven't gotten it all. The sheets, yeah they were in the washing machine for just over four hours. I have no idea what I did there. The the suds kept spewing out of the thing too. Made it down to the floor. Managed to get that one cleaned up right away though and nobody will ever know...except the billions of people that have access to this blog. And finally, after all that I went through on Saturday, and spoiling the boys by taking them to McDonald's, Gabe has the audacity to tell me that McDonald's McNuggets are better than the chicken that I made. What a little punk! Oh well, I still wouldn't trade this experience. I have had a lot of laughs this week!

Happy Birthday Maddox!

September 10th brought Maddox's second birthday. We didn't do a lot of partying but he was really excited to play with the things Grandma Susan sent him. So thanks Grandma. And we want to thank Great-Grandpa Charlie who sent the movie for Maddox's special day!



"Reading" the birthday card from Grandma Susan surrounded by his gifts from her.



Grandma Susan was sweet enough to think of Gabe. She sent him a present too.



The boys playing with their new stuff from Grandma Susan.



This group is standing in front of a salon that is on the ground floor of our apartment building. We are not sure what to call this. Most business do this "lineup" kind of thing daily. Don't know if it's a pep talk or more of a yell at you all until you get it right thing. Either way, we get a kick out of imagining what they are saying...."Work hard and love your communist country!"



Maddox had literally fallen asleep sitting up. We usually spend our Saturdays exploring and sightseeing. And often we don't get home until after the start of nap time. As you can see, that was no problem for Maddox. He seems to have a "I'll make do with whatever/where ever" attitude.

Interesting Things

This is a fun picture. I've seen people take naps in some interesting positions / places. But never like this. Just thought it was kind of funny.....and clever.


I have shown pictures of the Jin Mao Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center before. The Jin Mao, on the right, is 88 stories tall. And the building on the left (S.W.F.C.) will be 101 stories when completed. This picture kinda gives you an idea how tall the buildings are. It's almost hard to grasp their height, even standing right next to them. In this case, they are in the clouds. This photo was taken near the base of the buildings.


We enjoyed a nice family dinner out the other night at a local restaurant. As you can see, on the right was Gabe's dinner. Chicken nuggets from McDonalds. And on the upper left, Maddox's cheesburger. :-) Actually the remainder of the cheesburger went uneaten. Maddox really likes the local food. Especially the noodles!


We are not really sure what this statue is all about. We just think it is interesting...to say the least. I'll let y'all decide for yourselves what it represents. Your guess is as good as mine!

Catching Up On Our Lives

Hello all! I'll try to catch y'all up on some of our latest happenings. Hope things are going great for all you family and friends. Things are moving along well here. Michael is working hard, as always! But his hours have gotten much better. We have been having such great family time together recently. He took last Friday off and that was a real treat! He and I (the boys stayed home with Chen Ayi) went out for a few hours. Shanghai has 2 huge fabric markets. Basically you can go and buy fabric. Or they have a bunch of sample clothes at each stall. Suits, shirts, skirts, dresses, blouses, pants, etc. So you show them a garment you like, you then pick out the fabric you like from their selection of hundreds, they measure you and voila! In 5 days you have a custom made garment. Michael had a pair of dress slacks made for $20 and I had a pair of linen pants made for $13. Michaels pants turned out great. Mine on the other hand....not so good. When I washed them they shrunk like 2 inches. It ended up being ok though. Chen Ayi is quite a seamstress herself so she is turning them into a pair of crop pants for me. Problem solved!

While we were out on Friday we had the driver take us to the bird and flower market. We wanted to pick up a couple of house plants to liven up our apartment. That place was a blast! It was on an older street close to the Old City. There were stalls along the street but the real action was down off the little side streets. It was a maze of alleys with all kinds of stuff for sale. We saw plants, birds, dogs, and cats. Along with some more interesting stuff like tarantulas, crickets, fish, turtles, lizards, chipmunks, worms, rats, mice, and SO MANY more unknown animals and bugs. I wish I knew what they all were so I could tell y'all. Some of the turtles we saw were the size of coffee tables while others we less than 2 inches. And all of this stuff was for sale....for the right price of course. Here are a few pictures from that adventure.


One of the small side street/alleys. Notice on the left side of the alley the animal/insect containers. On the right side of the alley up top are bird cages.


Another view of a side street/alley.


This was some kind of squirrel thing. As you can see it was taking a nap on it's back in it's food bowl. Nothing amazing about this. It was just funny to see.


It seemed like everywhere we looked there were tables full of these. They are little boxes with a cricket inside. We asked our driver what they were for and he told us "cheap hot blanket." During the winter the locals buy boxes and boxes of these and stuff them in their shirt, pant, and coat pockets to keep warm. Don't think I'll be wearing any crickets this winter. I'll just wear more clothes.


This is me with the owner of the stall we bought some of out plants from. One of my FAVORITE things about being here is the bargening! I love it. Michael hates it. And I hate to brag on myself but....I am really good at it! Our Chinese friends tell us that the local sellers know that the foreigners will pay 3 times as much as locals. So when our Chinese friends ask us how much we paid for something they are always suprised to find out how good of a deal we got. Our driver says that I get a better price on things than he does sometimes. Anyway, I know that I am bragging, sorry. I just love the thrill of a good bargening process.

Well that's enough for now I guess. Again, we hope you all are doing well!

Just Some Photos

So I realize I am not doing a great job of posting stuff on the blog often. Life just goes by so fast. Most days before I even know it, the day is over and I am way to tired to do anything. But here are a few fun pictures.


They love to do this! I don't understand why...the floor is not the most comfortable place to lay. Oh to be a kid again.


Gabe riding the subway. This is one of his favorite things to do. He likes to do it like a "big boy." He holds on to the pole and stands up for the whole ride....no matter how long.


Maddox "riding" the subway. Don't worry Nonnie, we don't let go of him. (Not for too long anyway!) ;-)

Chen Ayi

As some of you know, we have an Ayi, pronounced I-E, (that's Chinese for Aunt) who the boys really like. An Ayi is a kind of nanny/helper/housekeeper. And Chen (that's her first name) Ayi is really great. I'm really getting spoiled here! But it is good for the boys to have someone else here who cares about them like our family/friends back in Michigan and Alabama do. She plays with them a lot and gives them lots of attention. She's in her late 50's and has a 30-year-old son of her own. She is kind of like a "grandmother" figure to them. Don't worry Nonnie or Grandma Susan, you have not been replaced. :-) In other words she spoils them. Initially we were most worried about Gabe liking/feeling comfortable with her. But, Gabe took to her right away. Maddox, on the other hand, has been going through one of those "I need to be attached to my Mom's leg" stages. But he has come around. He always lets go of my leg though when it comes to mealtimes. As you can see from the picture below, Chen Ayi is always more than willing to share her lunch with him. And he loves it!!! I have no earthly idea what he is eating each lunch, but I feel good knowing he's broadening his horizons. Those of you who know Gabe well won't be surprised when I say that Gabe won't even consider doing any of the lunch sharing.



As great as Chen Ayi is, there is one downside. We don't speak each other’s language. As I am sure you can imagine, that sometimes makes things a little complicated. We actually do amazingly well when she is here. It's unbelievable how much two people can communicate through hand gestures, grunts, and acting out things. For example, when I am going to take a shower and I need her to keep an eye on the boys, I just mimic....well.....taking a shower. Ok, that didn't sound as amazing as it seems to be to me on this end. My point is, while I was really worried about the communication barrier at first, it has been working out much better than I thought it might. One other thing that really helps is my Mac Book. It has this neat little widget that is a language translator. So I just type in what I want to say, it gets translated into Chinese, and then she reads it. I just have to be very careful of the wording I use. Often there is not a literal translation for a word so the computer just picks what it thinks fits best...which is not always best. So I use as few words as possible, no slang, no contractions, etc. When I am careful, this process works really well. All in all, we do ok. A friend back in MI asked if it was weird having someone around all day that you didn't really talk to. It is in some ways. There are so many, many, many things I would like to ask her about. I know she would be able to answer many of my questions about China. But, until my Chinese improves or her English, we are stuck. But, the upside to she and I not speaking the same language is that we are both working really hard to learn. Every time she hands me something, say a shirt to put away, she says that word in Chinese. I repeat it until I get it correct. I do the same for her. So we are both learning. She also does the same for Gabe and Maddox. It's really amazing how much better they are picking up on things than me sometimes. Every time she hands them a toy or a snack she repeats the word over and over. Gabe knows what is going on so he repeats it back. Maddox just mumbles until she gives in (which is usually within 5 seconds) and gives him the object. I think he has her figured out. Anyway, we are all learning. Which is great!



We feel very blessed to have her working for us. She has had a very tough life and I know from what she has told our Chinese-speaking friends who translated for us that she is very happy to be working for us. I already know she is going to be missed. And not just because she helps me (though I won't deny that having help is wonderful) but because she is a good person who truly cares about all of us.

View From Above

What's going on y'all? I hope things are good. We have had a good week here. As mentioned in previous posts, Gabe started swimming lessons this week. They have been interesting to say the least. The class is with all older kids and one teacher. So Gabe kind of feels out numbered. The teacher is a Chinese guy who's motto is "Throw them in and they'll figure it out." He may not actually throw them in but, that's his mind set about learning to swim. Don't get me wrong, he's really nice. I think it's partly a culture thing. They don't really baby the kids over here. If a kid is scared and crying about swimming....they just drag them on in. Kicking and screaming. And if a kid can swim above water and they are wanting them to learn to swim underwater, they just push them under and hold them down 'til they start swimming. Forced learning I guess you would say. While I always thought it was kind of a cruel thing to do, I'm thinking there must be something to it. Over the past week, the improvment the Chinese kids have made is amazing! Each of them are much more advanced than they were at the begenning of the week. The ones who "sorta swam" are truly swimming. Correctly and everything. The ones who couldn't swim at all are "sorta swimming." By that I just mean they don't have great technique but they are doing it. And the two who were totally terrified are perfectly happy and attempting to swim. Really, maybe there is something to this "suck it up and do it" mentality. Gabe isn't swimming yet, but he has gotten braver. He doesn't really enjoy the classes, too much commotion. But he has learned to kick his feet. I don't know if we will be going next week or not. I think we may just on our own....when there are less people in the pool.

Last weekend we took a family outing to Shanghai's famous Pearl Tower. The Oriental Pearl Tower stands by the bank of the Huangpu River. The tower is 468 meters high. It is the highest TV Tower in Asia and is the third highest one in the world. In the tower, there is a double-decker elevator which can hold fifty people at a time and two high-speed elevators which run at a speed of 7 meters per second. The sight-seeing floor in the upper sphere is 263 meters (about 862 feet) high and 45 meters in diameter. It's one of the best places to get a bird's-eye view of Shanghai. The view was totally amazing. It was not the clearest day when we were there but it was still great. Here are a couple of pictures.







The last picture shows the Jin Mao Tower and the building being built next to it. The Jin Mao tower is 88 stories tall and is currently the fifth tallest building in the world. The building being biult next to it is the Shanghai World Financial Center. When completed, it will be the tallest building in the world with 101 stories. Hopefully we will go up into the Jin Mao tower soon. I'm sure it will provide another great view of this amazing city.

Hope y'all have a great week!