Ok, a quick one

With some coddling, some pics uploaded. We headed an hour away from home during the 9-day Chinese New Year holiday to a hotel with 2 sets of family friends. Critical ratio was 2:1 (kids to adults). Total numbers were 6 adults and 12 kids. It worked out great and the kids all had a blast. Parents did okay too. ; ) See some of the fun below:

We headed to a park by the sea one day. Kids enjoyed the mini-amusement park and riding the rented bicycle/minivan around the park. I should have grabbed a picture but imagine a Fred Flinstone-mobile with 2 "pedalers" and 2 kid seats in the front. With 3 bikes in action, there some serious Nascar action going on.

11 of the 12 (missing baby Ava) and not sure why the font went to hotlink. You might be able to pick ours out of the lineup as #2, #6, #9 and #10.

Movie night in one of the Bowman rooms.

And some of the swimmers on the way to the pool. Anna and Elijah are becoming quite the little swimmers. Rachel made great strides, er, paddles as well as she swam in her floatie solo-style. Of course, she made sure Mommy or Daddy were always within arm's length.

See ya!!!

Bad blogger.....BAD!

Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. We are doing well but between the unpacking, work-related travel, and the lunar new year holiday, we've been behind on the blogging. Plus, knowing that there is a good chance photos won't load efficiently dampens one's adventurous spirits.

The weather here has spiked into the 50's a couple of times in the last few weeks but remains cold for the most part. Once we break 60, we'll be doing some more adventure seeking in the city. And with adventure comes pics of grandkids in unique spots in Shanghai. Buckle your seatbelts grandparents!!!!

The house is pretty well settled now so we need to release the new pictoral house tour. It's been fun because we've got the wall space to hang things we never had room for in Michigan. So, a painting we purchase in China the first go round, but never hung in Michigan is now up. Ironically, we should have just left it in China!

On a somber note, for those that have followed the Rogalske blog linked at the right, they are dealing with tough news on Kristi's cancer. Please continue to pray for their family of 5. Our heart breaks for their situation. What an inspiration to see both Brian and Kristi trust in God's plan even though it's difficult to comprehend.

Mayflower truck has exploded

Hey y'all,

The photo upload has been agonizingly slow and typically errors out after waiting patiently. But it seems to be working ok today with an extra dose of patience and one photo at a time. The big shipment showed up on Saturday. Great news considering we are sticking around the city during Chinese New Year. We have a few things going on but mostly will be chilling. So, not really a better time to bring in like 4,000 boxes of stuff and sort it out. Definitely has been a work in progress. Here are some pics from the delivery day. We'll get some 'finished product' pics up soon....and of course, I will still deliver on the lunch photos. Read on....

We numbered all the rooms in the house and then played commander and chief at the port of entry. Here's Aimee providing direction. There were 8 or 9 guys which made things go pretty quick. The kids really enjoyed seeing toys that hadn't seen since mid-November. Plus, with Mom and Dad distracted with the task at hand, it meant "do whatever you want" time.
The workers helped to unpack the majority of boxes. Which helped us purge most of the cardboard and packing paper but meant we had some major re-shuffling to do. Here's the kitchen. But it's received an extreme makeover from Miss Aimee since. Quite impressive I must say.
And then there was Rachel, enjoying a sweet reunion with old toys. We are doing pretty well. Aimee has been baking bread with the arrival of her 'toys'. Happy New Year!!!!

Misery Loves Company

Chinese people are great. They are very proud of their heritage and extremely hospitable. When you combine the two, you end up eating out at some really cool restaurants. When I visited Chongqing (about 2 hours west of Shanghai by plane), the local engineers explained that this was the home of Sichuan food (spicy). I knew I was in for a treat. And that was true for 80% of the meal. Read on.

Clockwise from top left: (1)Rabbit with very hot peppers (Xin Yi explained as I grabbed one of the green-colored peppers, "Don't eat that!!!" After we were finished, I did try one and paid the price for several minutes.) Delicious was the rabbit though. (2) Green vegetable of some sort. Neutral flavor but good for killing off the burn from the green-colored pepper. (3) Kong Pao Chicken - Kong Pao Chicken originated here. It was quite different than the Americanized version. Very good.

My camera phone does not have the greatest picture quality so this picture of some fish soup does not really represent the colors present. Those are bright red peppers floating on the surface. The waitress skimmed those off before we started dishing out the fish. It was also very good. There were a couple of other dishes that I did not photograph including a pile of angus beef chunks with onion. I'm looking forward to visiting to Chongqing again except for this next item.
And then there was the proverbial "terd in the punchbowl". I can count on one hand the number of times when I had to turn down food that was put in front of me while living in China. And that's pretty good for a foreigner. And I did actually take 2 "bites" of this before I grossed myself out. I guess this goose foot is also very famous in this part of the country. Eating goose foot is one thing. But when I noticed the goose foot had it's webbed feet fully intact, I gagged. And when I saw my new friends, maowing down on the webs themselves, I nearly re-introduced my kong pao chicken to the dinner party.

And thus the title of this post. I really can't get the foot out of mind. A flock of them were chasing in my dreams last night. Ugh. Sweet dreams blog readers. Come again soon!!!

(Maybe I should start a stomach scale for the blog:

G - Good to read

PG - Pretty Good to read

R - Read at your own risk)

Shanghai Dumplings

We always enjoyed getting Shanghai dumplings for weekend breakfasts. We've found a good spot down the street for buying them. Xiao Long Bao is the family favorite. Read more about the steamed xiao long bao here. The other favorite from this restaurant is the fried Guo Tie. Learn more about the fried goodness here.

Here are some pics of R and E while we waited on our fresh made order.

Enjoy your weekend.

Another flashback

Due to some travel and a minor cellphone issue, I'm slightly behind on my food article. I've got 3 days' pictures down including some decent looking fish. Need a couple more pics and will be ready to invite you to dinner.

In the meantime, a flashback to an earlier post from 2007....some of you old-timers may remember the toilet blog. What better way to get prepared for the lunch food?

Check the link here.

so thankful!

This week I (Aimee) have felt TERRIBLE--worse than I have felt in a long time. Starting Saturday, my head felt like it was going to explode, and my body ached, my back hurt... As I felt like crud, I saw so many things around me to be thankful for.

1)for my awesome husband who as soon as he came home, sent me to bed and took over everything for the rest of the night.

2)for my kids and their sweet get better pictures and hugs

3)for our friends next door who have had the kids over a ton just to give me time to rest

4)for doctors and medicine. I don't like going to the dr and tried to get over this on my own and yesterday gave up and went to get some help. I came home with 7 different medicines to help treat the different symptoms and they are helping! I can tell when the wear off, but am so thankful for the relief that they bring! I have a sinus infection so the antibiotic should help to get rid of that, and the flu which I am getting near the end of how long the dr said it should last. Thankfully, the rest of the family got the flu shot, so hopefully they will not get it! (It was on my long list of to dos before we left and it never happened :(

5)I have to be honest, I am so thankful for movies--they has helped us get through this week

Company Lunch Show and Tell coming soon

Yes, when I saw the fish head up for grabs in the lunch line, I knew that a blog post capturing a week of entrails, I mean, entrees was much needed.

In all serious, I really enjoy the lunches at work. So much so, that both the chinese and expats are shocked (expats) and delighted (chinese) at my ability to down the chinese morsels. I have strategic avoidances, like aforementioned fish head, but do eat the majority of offerings. And they always include a choice of meats so I get my protein (don't worry Mom).

So, come and visit early next week for a pictoral "play-by-play" of lunch at work. My big decision is whether to "take one for the team" and pick outside my strategy for your viewing pleasure. Time will tell.

House Pictures

It is honestly very humbling for me to put pictures of our house on the blog because of its size, especially in a place where people have so little. I keep having to remind myself that God really put this house in our lap and to be content and joyful that He is so gracious and generous even though we are so unworthy. So, that being said, welcome to the picture tour of our house.

This is the main room on the first floor.

Then as you work your way back, you come to the kitchen

(I'm still waiting for the dish fairy to come and put my clean dishes away :))
the laundry room (the working machine is on the left--the machine in the middle is the washer/dryer unit that came with the house that we still cannot get to dry clothes after many visits from the repair man.)

so, welcome to our dry room! I am so thankful that we have this extra room because my couple of days of hanging clothes out in 30-40 degree weather was NOT fun!

Now, to the second floor we go! Thank you cute little stair model!

Sammy has been found multiple times scaling this ledge. Now when he goes by it, he says, "no, no".

The master bedroom:

there is even an office in the master bedroom. So far, it just collects all of the junk.

Elijah's bedroom
the jack-and-jill bath

Rachel and Sammy's room (with Sammy's big boy bed for when he learns to stay in bed)

Now for the third floor
there is that cute stair model again! On the third floor is our school room. The kids are on the sofa that we snuggle on when we read

and now are showing where they do seat work

Anna's bedroom (and the to be guest room if anyone wants to come visit!)

Lots of pictures! thanks for taking the time to look! Most of the shelves are empty as we still are waiting for our shipment. I will post pics again when we have put away everything--especially of the "home" items.

Rachel and Sammy

Rachel and Sammy are beginning to have a lot of fun playing together. Anna and Elijah take off as soon as they are excused from school to play with friends next door so Rachel and Sammy are home to play just the 2 of them.

They love to play baby where they are my babies and I put them to bed. (Bed is the only place where they are allowed to suck their fingers. See the joy in their eyes?)
Here they are playing babies where they are the parents and are feeding their babies. :)