Dance Party

Christmas, a Birthday, and no air shipment, oh my!

This past week was challenging to say the least!  Our air shipment should have left the US on December 14th; therefore, putting it in China right before Christmas.  It didn't leave then due to all of the holiday package shipping.  Had we known that this could have been a problem, we wouldn't have packed most of the Christmas presents in there.  We wouldn't have been able to bring everything in our suitcases, but I definitely would have packed differently.  Finding out last weekend that there was no chance of it arriving in time, we made a plan to give the kids a Christmas.  Thank goodness for ToysRUs!  We didn't spend our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as we would have back in the US but we enjoyed ourselves!   On December 26th, we celebrated Landry's 5th birthday.  He was so great about his day even if wasn't how we normally do things.  Thankfully, I found Cars wrapping paper in Shanghai and plenty of toys at ToysRUs.  He had another pile of presents to open on his birthday and loved it! 

 Santa brought Landry Star Wars Minions figures

 Santa also brought Kinder Surprise Eggs.  For those of you that don't watch much YouTube.  Kinder Eggs are chocolate eggs that have a toy inside.  Can't get them in the US because they are considered a choking hazard but since we live in China now, Santa knew just what to bring them!

Mariella got a whole box of Shopkins baskets.  She loves the mystery ones that are in little plastic bags.  She had 60 mystery Shopkins to open.  She discovered that the Shopkins she opened here were painted differently and had special colors...hmmm!

 Landry tearing into his birthday presents!

China doesn't have much in the way of decorated birthday cakes like we would find at home.  We did find this awesome Christmas cake and it became his birthday treat too!  He's also sporting a cool new haircut.  We were happy to find someone to cut his hair that spoke English and did a great job.  He insisted that Landry have a cool style for his birthday.  Landry told him his hair looked like an Angry Bird's beak!

We can happily report that our air shipment landed in China yesterday!  It won't get to us for at least a week but now we know that it is within reach. 

Our language trainers come tonight for our first Mandarin lesson.  Will let you know how that goes...

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!



We've arrived and survived our first week...

Our first week has gone by quicker that I thought it would. We have finally overcome jet lag and are settling into a routine.  A family that moved back to the US last week left us a Christmas tree, which we put up the day after we arrived.  I'm so thankful for that tree and the suitcase full of Christmas decorations and crafts that I brought with us.  Decorating for Christmas here is the same as decorating for Christmas at home and it has really helped with our transition!  We don't have tv yet but we have figured our internet out a bit.  It works sometimes and other times it doesn't 🤔 
We have been to a few grocery stores and have found some of our American staples...Doritos, Goldfish, and Frosted Flakes.  I paid $42 for a package of American cheese slices and I almost had a heart attack😳  I know we will have a day when we just need that cheese so I will just be happy to have it!  Kids haven't tried many new things yet except for what looked like a cantaloupe on the outside but was green on the inside.  It wasn't honeydew but I don't know what it was since the tag was in Chinese.  Kids liked it so I will keep buying!  They also tried a "real" carrot. I had to laugh because they had no idea what carrots look like if they aren't the baby ones in a bag.  Luckily, "real" carrots got 2 thumbs up and we will keep working on the trying new things front!  

I will try to post a few pictures later when we get our laptop working with our internet but for now I will leave you with some lessons learned in China...

1.  Even though they don't celebrate Christmas here, they play Christmas music in every store

2.  The meat department at Sam's Club here is not for the faint of heart

3. Starbucks is wonderful establishment, one in which I didn't appreciate fully until I moved here and needed to take my children to the restroom (one of the only places that have a Western toilet)🚽

4.  I never appreciated how nice it is to understand and be understood

5.  My children have a lot to say and when there's no one around for them to talk to, they get a little crazy

6.  It's really nice to know where to go to find things you need and even if the first store doesn't have exactly what you want, you can usually find a decent substitute. I dare you to try to explain to a Chinese person what Elmer's glue is and where to go to find it😬