WE made it to China.
We finally got our VPN going through San Francisco (blogs and Facebook are blocked in China) so now I have a backlog of photos to post on the blog. Here is a sampling of photos from the last two months.
So the funny thing is our neighborhood looks like it is built in San Diego. However picture that what if San Diego had a huge dust storm (or 10) and no one ever cleaned the dust up. That's what it is like. China is pretty dirty. When we first moved in we had to ask our ayi to WASH the front door.
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| Here is our living room full of boxes |
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| Our new maid (we call her "Ayi" here, which means aunt) has a red scooter bike. We cannot get Joseph away from it! Ayi is very sweet and humors him but you can tell she is a bit nervous |
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| So this is our house before our stuff arrived. The blue couch is a rental couch, and that's pretty much all the furniture we had for a month or two. In this shot, dada is just getting home from work (you can see him walking in the front door with his work bag. |
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| The boys like that they have a front door! (vs Malaysia where we just had an elevator) |
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| This is the first time Lizzie is playing with the boys. She just started sitting up and seemed to feel very proud to be a part of the action |
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| Here are the boys "doing the dishes." This is a favorite activity. They wash and scrub and dump soap on the dishes, then transfer them to the drying rack. They get to do it until they break the rule of not getting water all over the floor -- they usually last about 10 minutes. |
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| Lizzie is starting to eat solid foods! While we were waiting for our stuff we had no baby highchair so we fed her in a borrowed bumbo on the floor |
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| I think I took this picture after the first day our shipment arrived. Mike was exhausted (well me too, but there was no one to take a picture of me on the couch) |
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| Our new favorite thing -- bikes! Everyone rides bikes here as our little community is very walker/biker friendly. We live an hour outside the city in an affluent area called Shunyi, where all the expats with families live. It is close to the American and British International schools. |
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| While waiting for our shipment, I have been picking up furniture here in China. It is cheap here and there are some spaces in our new house where we do not have sufficient furniture, for example our entry. I got these two here. |
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| We are still trying to figure out where to put them |
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| Our clubhouse has an indoor play area with balls. Every kids dream and every germophobe mom's nightmare. They love it. |
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| These are all of Joseph's church buddies in the nursery class. It is all boys and they are all so cute. |
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| Lizzie's first swing! She loved it. You can tell she felt so grown up. |
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| Happy swinging girl |
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| Look! New teeth! She cut four teeth all at the same time |
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| Lizzie's first foods were carrot and broccoli |
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| We were about to go out on a walk but before we left Mike's boss called him and was on the phone standing outside with Lizzie on his front pack. |
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| We check the AQI (air quality index) every day. On bad air days we all wear these super awesome air masks. |
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| Happy birthday to mom (November 3). Mike made me strawberry shortcake which is my favorite. He made the cake with almond and coconut flours and the frosting was cashew cream coconut milk frosting. It was amazing. |
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| Heather came to visit to help us get settled. We took her on a tour of Beijing "Biking Beijing." We rode bikes from Tienanmen Square to the Forbidden City, and through the famous Chinese hutongs (the city's small courtyard homes). It was cool but some of the street crossings made me feel like I was taking my life in my hands. |
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| Heather and I went to Yashow market which was the typical and most famous Chinese tourist market. This one has tons of cheap fake clothes, watches, coats, etc all sold by shop owners who haggle and negotiate and assault you to buy their stuff. Some people love it, some hate it. I discovered I am in the latter group. |
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| Heather and I did some paintings while she was here. This one was a collaborative one, although I give Heather most of the credit for this one. I have since had this brown side table painted white. |
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| Mike has been traveling around China. Usually when he does a university tour there are photographers taking a bunch of photos. Chinese love to take photos it turns out. This one was taken at a university in northern China. A well-trained calligrapher and academic presented this to Mike. Mike says for this particular pose there were about 4 cameras taking pictures and probably about 20 photos taken. He says it was hilarious. |
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| And lastly, Andrew and Joseph both say, "Come visit us!" |
More pictures to come.
