Uncle of the Year

We were lucky to have an exciting visitor come to stay with us last week. My brother flew to China to see us! Guess who just got Best Uncle of the Year award?! You did, David! We went to Shanghai to pick him up. It was a terribly dreary day that first day, but we had good weather the rest of his trip and we showed him around the best we could. Peter had fun having another person to play with, and said a Peter version of David's name by the end of the trip. We loved having David come, and we loved the American food he brought as well as the suitcase of clothes he took back with him. I'll try to write some more in depth posts about his trip later, but in case that never happens, here is the brief outline of adventures.

Street food outside the tailor in Shanghai. The fruit lady made a smoothie by mashing the fruit of your choice with a stick of sugar cane and then adding juice. Legit.

Our hotel in Shanghai. It was fantastic. 

Train ride to Nanjing

The boys getting acquainted, and establishing who is boss.

Sweet Chinese gate. Peter waved at the perfect moment.

Nanjing Wall

The boys in front of a war memorial

Peter rides an elephant. He can now tell you what sound an elephant makes, and he loves them.

David entertaining the beast while we wait for food.

Pagoda- it took us 2 tries to get there, but it was worth it.

This is China.

Metro ride, Peter found a hiding hole.

Loom workers at the silk museum. 

Taking selfies with the baby

Old stomping ground for Peter at the Zhonghua Gate

Texting on the wall...

On the Nanjing wall, checking out the city

Hazy day makes for cool weather, which was nice this day.

Peter loves the flags.

The men protecting the wall.

Everyone in front of the wall entrance.

Peter is a suitcase cowboy.

Jonathan and David teach Peter the art of playground.

Nanjing Street in Shanghai, great for people watching. We played a game of who could spot foreigners first. There are so many foreigners in Shanghai, it kind of throws me...and makes me a little worried for culture shock coming back to the states. 

Perfect weather this day in Shanghai, this was David's last day in China, so I'm glad it ended with beautiful weather. Also, David got to make some new friends at the Bund as people wanted his picture. The love grows.

Thanks David for coming to visit. We loved having you come. We are excited to see you in a couple months in Utah! Thanks again for taking so much of our stuff back for us. You are a champ.

Coming Home

We have finally bought all of our plane tickets and we are set to return to America! Instead of coming straight home, we decided to travel some and see places that we may not get a chance to see again. We have no idea what the future will bring for our family or if we will be back in Asia any time soon. Also, it's cheaper to travel around once you are already here, so we are taking advantage of that.

We have 3 more weeks of work, and then Jonathan's younger sisters are joining us here in China. We will be traveling to Beijing, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan before we take our last flight home. I'm excited and anxious at the same time. We will be traveling for a month with a one and a half year old. Who thought that was a good idea?! Also, all of our friends from flagship have already started heading home and sometimes I think, "I could be in America next week instead of in 2 months. Bah! Why are we doing this?"  But then I start looking at pictures of Victoria's Peak, the Great Wall of China, the temples of Kyoto and the buildings in Tokyo and then I get excited to see neat things. It's going to be crazy, but awesome also. And when we get home we can rest.

We're going to look like this for about a month, but with a sister or two and more luggage. Let's do this.

American Food!

The other day, Jonathan and I went on a quest to find a post office and a small "stationary" store. We call them stationary stores, but they are more than that. They have pens, notebooks and paper, but also random toys, certificates, ornaments, stickers, office supplies, and fun Chinesey things. The post office was tragically closed, but we found the stationary store and got the things I needed. Peter and Jonathan played catch with a ball while they waited for me to finish looking around. They also made were reminded how famous Peter was when a dad made his child pose with Peter for a picture...and I took a picture of him taking a picture. So, I guess his kid is famous too now. 

When we were done, we decided to explore this area a bit and see if there we could find anything good for dinner, or at least a snack to tide us over until we got back home. We were a few metro stops from home, and we'd never been in this area. Peter also needed a break from being in the stroller, so we thought it was a good of time as any to wander. We walked down the road a bit and found....

Tribeca New York Bar and Grill! Don't worry, we'd never heard of it either, but it had New York in the name, so it had to be American food, right? We asked them to look at the menu before getting a table mostly to see what the price range was and how the food options were. After a moments look, we were sold. 

Don't mind the bluriness, this is the only proof I have that I was there. 

The restaurant felt a lot like Red Robin or TGIF. There were murals on the ceilings, knick-knacks in glass cases, movie posters, pictures of movie stars and so on.  

Peter got to tour the restaurant while we were waiting for our food. And by tour I mean that one of the employees began following us as I walked around with him and at one point she picked him up and showed him off to all her friends while I followed at a close distance just in case she decided to steal him. She helped him go up and down the stairs as many times as he wanted and her friends got lots of pictures of him. 

Our food came! Hurrah! I got the lasagna- pictured above- and Jonathan got a burger and fries. 

We learned that Peter loves French fries, and loves ketchup even more. He would suck the ketchup off and try to get us to give him more ketchup on the same fry...gross. Jonathan's food was good, not the best burger ever, but not bad. If I had been in America, I would have been rather disappointed with my food, but being deprived of pasta dishes here, it was delicious. They used lots of cheese and meaty sauce and 2 thin lasagna noodles in the middle. I think we need to teach them how to layer lasagna. But, either way, the flavors were good, and I was happy. 

Also, rather exciting (if you believe it, which I don't know if I do) we sat in a famous booth, where both Michael Jackson and Dustin Hoffman have sat in. Fancy.

It was a great little find of a restaurant. It was a great evening. We got things we needed and got a food fix to last us a bit longer. We ended our night with some ice-cream and pointed out all the dogs to Peter to keep him happy. 

Laundry and Pajamas

There are two things I will address today about China. The first is the difference in doing laundry in the US verses in China. In the States, we have lovely things called clothes dryers. For those of you who have forgotten what amazing machines these are, repent of your ways and thank your dryer today. Having a dryer means you can do multiple loads of laundry a day- unless you have huge laundry lines where you can dry more than one load at a time- I do not. Having a dryer means that your clothes come out feeling soft and warm, and most likely smelling lovely. Having a dryer means that your clothes do not stretch out over time and stop fitting you properly. You know how sometimes you wear a pair of jeans many times and they get looser and looser and you know that you just have to wash and dry them and they will fit you again. Now imagine that you wash them and dry them and they are still loose. Bothersome. 

Our sun room/laundry room/closet/Peter's play area with one line up and one down.

Now, I will say that we have a fantastic drying system here at our new place for which I am incredibly grateful. There are 2 lines that can be lowered and raised as needed. I hang our clothes and put them out of the reach of little hands, which is brilliant, because the child of mine loves to grab and pull. Our last place just had a small clothes rack that couldn't even hold a full load from the washer and I had to hang clothes wherever I found space- backs of chairs, the baby's crib, etc. It is nice to have the needed space here. But doing laundry is frustrating when it is a rainy day and it takes double the time to dry- meaning about 2 days. It's hard when Peter's blanket gets dirty and he has to nap without it because it is drying...let's be honest though, there have been many times I've given him a damp blankie to nap with because then he goes to sleep without screaming. I miss being able to attack the laundry and get multiple loads washed, dried and put away in one day. 

Now, because houses here don't have dryers, you see lots of clothes and blankets being hung out to dry on lines outside. There is no shame either in hanging your underwear out to dry, which is an interesting difference between China and America. And, since we live in a complex with thousands of other people, we see a lot of clothes in the small grass areas. People string their own lines, use any horizontal poles they can find- including playground equipment and shrubbery, and use drying racks attached to their windows outside. 

String a line...also, please note the mushroom. I don't understand it, but I like it.

The railing by the pond makes a great laundry line.

You know it's a good weather day when you go outside and see this.

A bush makes a fine laundry line.

I'm a little jealous our home doesn't have an outside balcony line. I feel like it would help things dry faster.

Or, just drag your clothes hanger onto the sidewalk and put it in the sunshine. You gotta make do when you don't have your own yard. Living here has made me realize how great some machines are, but it has also reminded me that you can get by just fine without one. You might just have to plan a little better and not try to wash your sheets at 4 in the afternoon....because they will still be damp when you go to bed.

The other thing that is interesting about Nanjing are the pajama people. You might be outside, walking to the grocery store or the bus stop in the middle of the day and see this:

Grown adults in puffy quilted pajamas, during winter, and thinner cotton ones when it's warmer. It's not close to the morning or to night. These people are not going to bed, they are going on a walk....in their pajamas. I know that you see people in sweats in the States, but it still makes me laugh to see it here. I see it a lot. 

Jonathan bought a pair of puffy pants during the winter and the sales lady showed him 2 kinds. He asked what the difference was, as they looked pretty much the same but one was lots more money than the other, and she told him that one pair you could go out in, but the other pair was just for staying indoors. So, apparently there are rules, I just don't know what they are.

Going to the playground, I think I'll stay in my pajamas. They are so puffy and warm. 

I love the pajama people and I love clothes dryers.

Haircuts for Peter

We've noticed as of late that more people have been asking if Peter is a boy or a girl. It's been a standard question here, but sometimes people say he looks like a boy and sometimes they ask. His hair wasn't too long, but the questions indicated that maybe he needed a trim. I've cut his hair a couple of times now, but mostly just a few pieces here or there. This time, it was a real haircut. 

Superhero Peter's hair before. Like I said, not long, just good baby hair.

Before the cutting started, I got it all wet so I could manage it better. I had Peter in his highchair and Jonathan's job was to distract/entertain Peter so I could get to work. 

Turns out, he just needed the squirt bottle and he was fully entertained. He didn't even fuss once during the entire hair cutting process. 

Content and attention not on the sharp scissors hovering over his head.

Blue-eyed boy.

A few last trims around the ears and viola. Done.

My younger sister saw him today and said he looked more like a boy and less like a baby. I have to agree with her on this one. But I'd rather he look like a boy then have people think he's a baby girl.

He doesn't seem to mind about having less hair on his head. Happy baby, happy boy.