Easter Crafts

Timmy and I spent some quality time last week over spring break doing crafts. He's such a creative kid and he loves doing projects. We painted paper Easter eggs and made butterflies while learning about symmetry. I even successfully executed a Pinterest idea by using old caps from water bottles with sticky foam shapes to make stamps. He loved it. and I love art projects with someone who is so excited!

Temporary Christmas

So in light of our impending move across the globe, traditional Christmas decorations are not happening while in China. Instead, we made a temporary, disposable Christmas tree. We managed to only color on the wall with crayons twice, not bad. I think Timmy had fun coloring, but mostly he just like taping stuff.

Halloween

Timmy and his friend John as skeletons.

So Halloween in China is a little odd. Some places celebrate, others don't. We went to two parties but no trick or treating. Timmy's costume was just a skeleton t-shirt. At one party, the restaurant that hosted it hired a "magician." I'm not sure I'd really call him that. He was more of a dirty, creepy guy that in the US would not be allowed within 10 miles of a children's party. One of his magic tricks involved lighting (and taking a few puffs of) a cigarette. I still don't even really know the point of the trick, it wasn't even cool. The faces of the foreign moms in the crowd were priceless. I guess standards for children's entertainment vary by continent! Oh well, it was a fun party anyway.

Tim and Shaun dancing.

Cast Off and Back to China

Timmy and I are leaving to go back "home" to Shanghai tomorrow morning! Its exciting though because Scott's parents are coming with us to go on vacation. First we're headed to Beijing Monday morning for a whirlwind three day tour of the sites. Then its back to Shanghai and our friend Lauren comes to visit as well. We'll be giving everyone the tourist experience of our city for a few days. And the grand finalle next Saturday we escape to the Philippines during the week long National holiday estravaganza that will be taking place throughout China. Stay tuned for pictures and updates.

In the meantime Timmy got his cast off today!!! He's not really walking on it much yet, and it looks pretty atrophied, but the doctor said he's healing fine. Hopefully he'll get his confidence back quick and start walking more. We're just thankful for the surprise trip home, even if it was for a bummer of a reason.

Easter Fun

Easter is not widely celebrated in China, but we had a great day. Timmy played with his new "doh, doh, doh, doh" (play-doh, he loves the stuff), we all ate a lot of chocolate, took a walk to McDonalds for lunch, dyed some eggs and had a feast with friends for dinner.

Timmy seemed to have fun dying eggs, but did not have patience for waiting for them to turn colors. When adding the color pellets to the water, Tim decided that the green cup needed a red pellet too, so we had some sweet brownish, redish, greenish eggs. Actually all our eggs had some brown undertones - I couldn't find white eggs to use.

We ordered a smoked ham from Bubba's, Scott's favorite restaurant in Shanghai. My friend Jessica, her husband Xie Feng and their son Shaun, as well as Scott's coworker Yun Lou joined us for dinner.

Qing Ming Festival

This weekend was another Chinese holiday called Qing Ming Festival. Here is an explanation of what it means. For us it means a day off of work for Scott and that's about it.

Taken from a random email I got:

"Qing Ming Festival is directly translated as Clear and Bright Festival. It is one of the important traditional Festivals in China; it is a statutory public holiday in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan which falls on April 4th. As April 4th is Saturday this year, companies will take off the previous Friday or following Monday to make a 3-day weekend. Sometimes also called Tomb Sweeping Festival in English as it is for tending to the graves of departed ancestors. Family members will take food, tea, wine, paper accessories, fake money, and chopsticks to tombs as offerings to the souls of their ancestors. They will sweep the tomb, and pray. Some people also carry willow branches with them to help ward off the evil ghosts wandering around.Qingming Festival is also to mark the 1st day of the 5th solar term, and therefore a time to get out of the house and enjoy the new beginning of spring."

Eels, Mops & Basketball

So yesterday I am sitting on the Metro (train) on my way home and three adults and a baby squish their way into the 2 seats open next to me. With them they have 2 suitcases and multiple other containers of stuff. I can only assume they are on their way somewhere for this weekend's Qing Ming holiday (pronounced something like "ching ming" and it means Tomb Sweeping Day). Other than being crammed up next to them I didn't think too much of it until I looked more closely at one of the plastic bags they had perched on top of their suitcase. It was moving. Not just moving, but slithering. Yuck. Inside were eels and they were alive! Eels on the train, what next. Oh China.





Earlier that day I was standing on a corner where I was to meet someone for lunch and I noticed a janitor-like person mopping. The funny thing is, he was mopping the sidewalk. Oh China.













And lastly, Timmy has a new obsession with basketball. He will sit in the window of our bedroom and watch the kids play forever. If he's lucky we will take him outside to watch and he stands by the fence and squeals at the guys playing. They all think its funny. He's trying really hard to say the word basketball, but it comes out as, "Ba Ball."

Valentine's Date

Tonight was the first time since we've been here that Scott and I could explore Shanghai without Timmy in tow. So for Valentine's Day we went to the area of town called Xujiahui. There are at least three regular (but ginormous) malls in this area, as well as at least three technology mall type things (including a huge Best Buy). For those of you who are regular followers of our lives, you may remember that in September I ate a HUGE cream puff and thought it was the greatest thing ever. Well on this night, I found the cream puff store again! We bought a half dozen to take home. Best Valentine's Day treat ever. See pictures...

Hot Pot Dinner

So on Monday our friend Jessica who lives down the street invited us over for dinner. Her in-laws are Chinese and live with her and her husband and son, so they prepared a Hot Pot dinner. Hot Pot is sort of like fondue. Monday night was the last official night of the Spring Festival holiday time (FINALLY!!!), so it was kind of fun to experience a home cooked Chinese meal. Jessica's mother in law even made homemade dumplings. On our way home there were fireworks everywhere you looked. Of course Timmy said, "Boom! Boom!" all the way home.

Year of the Ox

So last night was a New Year's Eve like we've never experienced. At about 6pm as it was mostly dark out, the fire works began. Well, they actually had been going on and off since last week, but the for real fireworks started when it got dark on Sunday. Now, when I think of the average guy in the US setting off fireworks, I tend to think of my dad setting off Black Cats and some spinny things and sparklers in the back yard. China is the birthplace of fireworks and they are not illegal here so that means it was intense. These were the kind of fireworks that the city of Chicago sets off. The main difference is that these were being set off directly outside our window by ALL of our neighbors. It seems that pretty much every family in the entire city was setting off their own show. At 11:50pm or so, it got loud enough that we all woke up and sat in our bed with the drapes open watching. Timmy was more scared and more excited than I have ever seen him. He was pointing and yelling and smiling and shaking all at once. It was amazing. Video will be posted soon on Facebook, but it doesn't do it justice.