Friday, October 5, 2012

Blog Written -- CHECK!


Being here in China with an Ayi who takes over most of the tedious chores around here, I frequently get asked the question "What to you do with all that free time?"  Well, apparently the answer is not "Write in my blog!"  Sorry about the 4 week hiatus I had there and I'm not even going to promise that it won't happen again.  But trying to keep this up while attempting to run every morning (I am training for a 10K but I don't think my knees are supporting me in this endeavor), and taking Chinese classes and coming out of the fog that both running and speaking Chinese puts me in is a lot harder than it sounds. Not to mention my dropping of everything when a Chinese adventure presents itself. Take today for example.  I started writing this blog post at 10 am and it is now 7:30 pm and I'm not even sure I will finish it up because I am waiting for some of my friends to come pick me up to go out on the town tonight to shop at IKEA.  Not as exciting as it sounds, but the fact that I'm ensuring I won't be the only Asian there by bringing some white friends with me and also the added incentive that they have ice cream cones will make it a very pleasant girls' night out.  And don't get me started on how unpredictable this internet thing is here in China.  I get all ready to sit down and write a blog and the whole thing just seems to freeze and the one moment I had to write is swallowed up by my frustration. 

Here is what we've been up to (in no particular order):
 

We've done some painting!  We found a perfect shade of blue that is imported and lead-free!


We took the kids and our friends to Wangfujing -- anything you want (or don't want) to eat on a stick!


One of us liked the squid on a stick, the other looks like he's going to lose his cookies!
Crickets on a stick, anyone?  How 'bout some beetles?  We passed on these.

Cory getting into the spirit of things with a Peking duck wrap in one hand and fried squid in the other.

I found my favorite thing to eat here in China (NOT at Wangfujing). 
It's called Bao Bing and it's shaved ice with sweetened condensed milk topped with fresh mangoes.
Delicious!!
 
When Alex isn't catching poor defenseless creatures he is eating them! 
 That's a gecko in the plastic container and snake on a stick at Wangfujing. 
 
 
Claire has lost 3 teeth in the past 2 weeks.  We have discovered that it takes the Tooth Fairy 2 days to get to China.
And Claire is making bank!!
Buster has joined a gang of some rough neighborhood hoodlums!
And he plays so hard that his playdates usually end like this.
 

And Baby Cal is still our content little kid who just goes along for the ride.
 So now it is 1:15 am.  The shopping trip was successful, the pictures finally downloaded, and I am drying my last load of laundry as we speak.  Things get pretty crazy around here but at least I can mark off "write a blog" off my to do list.  Goodnight!