The Latest and Greatest...

So, let's face it...I'm a horrible blogger....the last time I blogged was *cough* Christmas.

Whoops.

I blame it on pregnancy and genetics (my mom puked for 9 months and it doesn't seem like I'll be that different). It's all your fault mom...just kidding. It's just your genes...but if I can fit into your jeans (we share clothes) at your age, I guess I'll take your genes too. :)

However, I wasn't a great blogger/journal keeper before, so it can't all be because of our little package on the way.

But, to save the one or two people that still read this from one REALLY really long post, this is only a semi-long post about what we've been up to since the last time there was any action on here:

-We had a wonderful Christmas in China and found out we were pregnant! It happened much faster than we ever expected and we were and still are just beside ourselves with excitement.

-Pregnancy was a dream until 6 1/2 weeks (haha)...then I started puking and couldn't stop. Most days I couldn't keep anything down and some days I couldn't even keep water down. It was pretty rough trying to deal with that and keep up a 40-60 hour workweek at Wizard China. For a while they let me manage with a mixture of Skype at home and going into the office part time, but that changed and you'll hear about that later.

-We enjoyed seeing what Chinese New Year was all about with the Year of the Bunny. (I'm a Bunny circa 1987 and our little baby will be one in 2011 too!)

-Our bunnies turned out to be two females, which meant they kept peeing on each other and started to bite each other after bunny puberty. They also lost their potty training we were so proud of. This didn't work so well with my over-sensitive nose...so we sadly got rid of them. We decided to take them to a local pet store for someone else to love, but a miraculous thing happened. Just as J was leaving to take them, he met our neighbor and her 14 year old son in the hall and they wanted them! We were happy to give them to our "Ron-Charlie" friend, who is actually a student of ours at school. Hopefully they keep them as pets for a while and they don't end up in some one's soup...but they had a good home for a little while longer- so we felt good about it.

-Jordan had a birthday on Valentines day and officially got older. We celebrated with a day at work after a cinnamon roll breakfast (probably the one thing I've made since being preggo...poor J), our little kid students singing "Happy Birthday" to him, and came home to the best pizza we'd had there via the delivery woman. J's one birthday wish was to become a Dave Ramsey lifetime member. And now he is...so look out world. :)

-We successfully ran two last minute "Winter Camps." These were two whole weeks of kiddy day care from 8:30 am to 7:30 pm (that ended up being sold cheaper than most babysitting or free)...but included intense English lessons, multiple meals and cooking classes, dance and singing lessons, games, cultural lessons about America and a Road show at the end of the week. It was fun for me to plan (but would have been more fun with more time in advanced notice and if I felt better) and thanks to my awesome teachers and J, we pulled it off. I did like teaching dance for the road show... and we did have some mighty cute kids at it. The theme for the week was "From Sea to Shining Sea" and we stopped in different regions of the United States, singing, dancing and teaching our way through. Overall, it was a rewarding experience. (This pic is actually from a different event, but still...you get the idea)

-As you could tell, things at work were getting pretty rough. We were sent from Brazil to manage and to make sure that everything was happening according to Wizard's franchise standards. Since day one, Wizard China didn't seem to understand what a franchise was or want to have anything to do with Wizard school standards. They also didn't want any American or Brazilian input, which makes it difficult for a Brazilian based company that teaches American English. To make a long story short in the end, the health of our baby, my health, little financial benefit and no opportunity for advancement made our decision to come home the most logical choice. We still have great feelings toward Wizard Brazil and the opportunities they've given us, but know that China might not be their best opportunity for growth right now. Overall, we've chalked up China as a really positive experience, as we often learn more from rough times than ideal ones. It has given us invaluable leadership and management experience, further international experience, taught us how to deal with difficult personalities, and helped us see a different side of the world....which we'd like to keep doing and go international again someday. We walked away with lifetime friends and memories that we will cherish. We wouldn't trade our year abroad for anything, and as a couple it brought us closer together than anything else in our first year of marriage could. Being on three different continents and dealing with the changes we did in one year is enough to make or break you. And it made us.

Here's a little sentimental trip through a few of our China highlights...

-J and I enjoyed a couple of days in Beijing before we left to see the sites and get ready for the long flight home.

-My mom picked us up from LAX and we were only on the ground for a few hours when J and my Dad couldn't take it any longer...they called up "My First Peekaboo" and made an appointment for that night... we found out WE'RE HAVING A GIRL!!!!!!!!

-A few days later we went to Aptos/Salinas/Monterey area where we got to be with J's family for a little reunion for a week. It was beautiful and we had a great time together.

-J is now in Utah interviewing and I am staying with my parents trying to learn some domestic skills from my mom until we know what we're doing and where we'll be. It's fun to be so well taken care of at my parents, but I'm really missing J! Hopefully we'll get some plans in concrete soon.

That's all of our news for now...we're back in the States and have been having a great time reuniting with family and friends, eating wonderful food (finally!!! good food and it's staying down!), and exploring the opportunities that lie ahead. We're not exactly sure what is next for us, but as long we put our faith in the Lord and get to be together (all 3 of us now :), it's sure to be an adventure.

xoxo, MJ & J

China Baby…

It’s been a bit difficult for my wifey to do much blogging lately. Between the difficulties of being pregnant and the responsibilities at work there hasn’t been enough comfortable time to make it a top priority. So, I decided I’d say a few words about what has been going on here in China lately.

The company seems to be going forward one step at a time. It is really challenging to break down the cultural barriers and achieve efficient, clear communication between ourselves and our Chinese co-workers. Overall, the Chinese are very helpful and have been great friends to us thus far. It has been really fun to announce our pregnancy at the office. One person said that Miranda still looked pretty so it had to be a girl. When we told Frank the sales manager that we were pregnant he took a deeper, slower look at Miranda. After studying her face for a while he confirmed pregnancy and announced that it was a boy. I figured that we had about a 50 % chance at a boy but Frank cut right through the speculation. The Chinese calendar says it's a girl, so we’ll see who takes the day.

Miranda has been cautioned that she isn’t allowed to use her cell phone or a lap top because of the radiation that is created. I guess that here in China they have a big lead apron like those used when getting an X ray. Also, one of the co-workers told her not to wear make-up because its bad for the babe. It has been an interesting road so far. When it becomes obvious that she’s pregnant I’m sure we ll get a lot more stories. Speaking of that, she is not showing at all! I'm thinking of buying another 15 preg. tests to make sure. I don’t know when women normally start to show but nothings popping out yet.

About the 15 pregnancy tests….that's how many I made her take before it finally hit me that we were pregnant. The first five or so times the second line was so faded that I thought that it was just showing through the white coating. There were also a few tests that didn’t work. I just couldn’t believe that some super faded line could change my life!! The last few tests I wanted her to take just because it was so fun to see two full color lines that confirmed. Ok, nothing happened in the night. I'm still having a kid. I wasn’t dreaming. Life is still good. We have a pharmacy nearby where I would buy these tests. Miranda didn’t know it but I had already stopped buy to get another batch. When she tried to buy one all the ladies told her to go home. Her “friend” had already almost bought out the store. Now that I m a preg. test expert I think it will only take 5 or 10 next time: )

Shortest Calling Ever…

No, I’m not talking about being called to be the Nursery leader, I’m talking about my first calling here in Tianjin. :)

Last month I was called to be the ward activities chairman, only to find that my calling was cancelled entirely at the worldwide leadership meeting for our church just two weeks later! Nobody in our branch knew, as we don’t get the recordings of the broadcasts for a couple of weeks…but my Dad called and told me. I was happy to receive the calling, but also fine to have it taken away, as part of our job at work is to have parties every other week…literally. The Lord knows better than I do! But boy did I have fun teasing the President of our Branch the next Sunday!

To fulfill my two week duties, I threw the Thanksgiving Party with the wonderful help of the rest of the branch. We had about 50 people in attendance, a traditional assortment of T-Day food, some great Korean food by our Korean members, a short play about Squanto put on by my teachers and I, seasonally fresh centerpieces and a little bit of holiday singing to end the night. It was fun to feel at home and celebrate our Western traditions at Thanksgiving!

Here’s a few pictures of our church building (we actually have church in a house the church rents).

We had to be creative and sit people in different levels throughout our “chapel” in the living room (as seen above) and other rooms/levels in the house.

There also aren’t any tablecloths in China and it’s not like you can just stop by your local craft store or Costco and decorate for these kinds of things here…so I relied on some cardstock in fall colors to act as placemats and made some centerpieces after a quick trip to my favorite cheap flower mart.

I think it turned out great, and even though I know I’ll never have that calling again…I wouldn’t mind an excuse like that to throw another party!

xoxo,

MJ

Our First Year Anniversary in 蓟县!

I would have to say that this year’s anniversary has been my favorite yet! ;)

Since we’ve had a tight financial month, we decided to go somewhere instead of do the whole gift thing…going and doing things are usually the best memories anyways.

We decided to go see The Great Wall (Huangyaguan) in Ji Xian 蓟县. Some friends told us about it, so with a couple of Chinese characters on a piece of paper in hand, we ventured off at 6:30 am (people who know me have to be impressed by that ;). We raced to board an extremely crowded train.

Now in China, ticket offices don’t stop selling tickets just because the seats are sold out. Oh no. There is no such thing as a maximum capacity in China. You just have to stand there and hope for a few inches of real estate in front of your face so you can breath your own air.

This is a picture of the train after a bunch of people got off…and it’s still packed!

Somehow, we managed to score a seat for the second half of the three hour ride. There we met a few college kids who helped us with directions and got us a good deal on a ride up to mountains where we would find our section of the wall. I think being a foreigner can have its benefits at times!

I can still remember our funny little ride up to the mountains. There were 8 of us in a van no wider than a volkswagen golf. We dropped everybody else off in these qauint little mountain villages. These villages really reminded me of Latin America for some reason. Small, mismatched houses with cute scruffy muts running around in the streets…and most people were hard at work preparing for winter by cutting and various fruits and corn and throwing them on their roofs to dry. Then, amidst the curves and pretty trees, we began to see parts of the wall peek out of the mountains. We were so excited, the driver got a kick out of us!

This is a view from the parking lot at the wall. It was so high and magnificent! The high peaks on the right of the picture above kept reminding me of the mountains backing the beach in Rio… Don’t you think they look similar?!

(Here is a greener picture compliments of Google. Sadly, I don’t have too many pictures of the trip, as I accidentally forgot to charge the camera the night before! Oops!)

The first thing we wanted to do was get on that wall! We did and hiked to the top of the more touristy section…but we wanted to see the un-restored sections of the wall…so we kept going…and going…and going. At times, things got pretty steep. I’m not going to lie, Jordan had to do some serious coaxing to help me with my fear of heights on parts. He kept saying “I think I see another tower right above us ahead!” Who can resist seeing an untouched piece of world history? Sure enough, they were there…and they kept getting more and more deteriorated. It was so neat, as one looked as though a canon had come right against it and blown half of the roof to smithereens… in fact, that’s probably just what happened! You could usually get inside the towers, but this one in particular had no doors or windows. So, Jordan decided to do a little rock climbing and conquer that thing. I decided to watch/assist from the ground. ;)

That’s my man!

After this tower, we went straight up for another couple of runs. We were off the wall and just on some trail for quite some time until we were on the very top of the mountain (it was quite the ascent!) We began to walk on this narrow ridge. There were parts of it that were only a foot and a half wide, then there would be a twenty foot drop off to a ridge with another huge drop for the rest of the mountain. Jordan, like his typical mountain goat self, practically ran across this section, found a nice seat on some huge rocks at the end and took a seat. He took out an apple and told me to come across so we could eat our apples together. What a tease! I was ridiculously scared and tried to hug the earth on all fours to get across. But then I turned around and saw it…below us was the whole mountain range, painted with the great wall as far as the eye could see. (I’m going to paint this for you, as I sadly don’t have a picture of this…but that’s ok, I was left to enjoy instead of worrying about a camera). To our right was the tiny village that now looked even tinier followed by a sparkly lake behind it. Down to our right was this little colorful temple. We hadn’t seen it the whole way up, and there was no viewable road to get there, but somebody happy and religious lived there and enjoyed a great sight! Directly below us and jutting back and forth all over the mountains was the rest of the Great Wall. Then we realized…WE WERE SITTING ON THE GREAT WALL! The part we were sitting on and the very narrow ridges we walked across were part of the deteriorating wall! How I wish I had a picture from the top…but I guess this means we’ll just have to go back!

While we were there we talked about the great things that happened a year before when we were married and sealed in the temple for time and all eternity. Then, as we were reminiscing about that special day, we thought how hilarious life is… we would have never guessed 1 year ago that we would be sitting on The Great Wall of China for our first anniversary!!! We’ve had a really fun year living on three different continents. I don’t know how and if we’ll ever top it…but I do know that our first year of marriage has kind of been like our hike up the Great Wall:

We were really excited to start our married lives together... learned an unimaginable amount about each other, cultures and life in general... we encountered steep times where we had to rely on each other to get through... had fun... enjoyed the view... and would do it all over again as long as we had each other.

I think that’s how LIFE should be.

You work hard. You play hard. You enjoy the views.

When Jordan and I get to see our ultimate views on the other side of heaven I want us to be able to look back and say “MAN, WHAT A RIDE!” That’s the goal.

Thanks for being my “partner in adventure” for the last year, Jordan.

It’s been quite the ride!

xoxo,

MJ

We’re Famous!!!

…well, only in Brazil I guess!

But, if you happen to be in Brazil and read any of their business magazines, you will see this…

xoxo

MJ & J

Over the Weekend…

This weekend we…

finally got our heat lamp in our Bathroom fixed.  I guess I sound pretty high-maintenance complaining about a bathroom in a foreign country without a heat lamp.  In Brazil, our bathroom was sort of like a camp ground bathroom.  It didn’t even have a sink or a mirror!  Needless to say, I’m SO glad we have one here…because it is FREEZ-ING!!!

Then, on Saturday, we went to this store called the Metro.  It’s basically like a Chinese Costco and has quite a bit of expat stuff.  We’re in love.

Most stores and markets here don’t have bags and you usually have to buy them for a low price.  BUT, this place didn’t have any plastic ones to buy!  So, we had a whole cart full, piled it piece by piece into a taxi, then unloaded it into a shopping cart that was luckily by the gate guard.  So, we pretty much just did it white trash style.  Gotta love it.

Then, we made pizza…the homemade variety, which was……OK.  The crust was awesome, but we’re definitely going to have to improve the sauce and get some semi-alright cheese. But, it was a first!

After, we went bowling…and J won BOTH games with his sweet skills.  I, on the other hand, didn’t break 100 either time.  BUT, I did get two whole strikes and didn’t jump lanes with the ball like I used to. Remember that, Jon and Nic?!

 

This weekend, we also went to a market to see what Tianjin’s flower market has in store for our Thanksgiving centerpieces. 

However, we were taken by a Chinese friend to an outdoor food market because she thought we wanted FLOUR, not FLOWER.  Pretty funny after 30 minutes of wondering where the flowers were!  Even though we were at the wrong place, it was wonderful! Colorful produce, barrels of grains and rice and of course, the meat department.

When we made it to the real flower market, I was amazed…my Mom’s going to love this place when she comes! We only had time for about 4 stores…but I could have stayed there all day. Next weekend…flower market date!

After, we enjoyed the best lasagna I’ve had in another country at a ward member’s house.  YUM! 

Today  is also Carson’s birthday!  Happy Birthday big man!  You are a great nephew!

So, how was your weekend?  We want to hear all about what’s going on at home. But your weekend isn’t over yet…you’ll still be in the middle of your weekend when we have to get up to start the work week tomorrow!  Dang.

xoxo,

MJ & J

Over the Weekend…

Over the weekend we threw our second big party for Wizard as part of our increased marketing efforts…but this one was for Halloween, so I’m pretty sure it was as much fun for the Westerners as anybody else!  There’s something about being in another country that makes you appreciate any little tradition from home you can get your hands on.

I Love this little guy’s face with his first jack-o-lantern experience! 

So these next few holiday parties will be extra special…a little more work… but a lot more fun!

And, guess what callings I received in our little branch on Sunday?

Enrichment Leader…

&

Activities Director.

I guess I’m a professional party person now…or at least I’ll have to pretend to be for the next couple of months. Wish me luck…sanity…and maybe shoot a couple of time saving, cute tips my way! Thanks in advance, Mom. ;)

PLUS

Last weekend we discovered that you CAN wash bunnies…

but they definitely won’t like it.

 

And that if you go to any of the big parks on a sunny Saturday afternoon you’ll find a bunch of Asians flying kites…

and they’re fun to watch…and extra interesting if this guy whips out his 300 foot kite (the kite itself was that long…not the string) and gets tangled with a bunch of other kites.

But it is a beautiful thing when he gets his dragons to “dance” next to each other.

We also found out that there is even more stuff to do near our house than we thought.  Now we just need the time to go and do it!

For instance, we went to this great place called Ancient Traditions Street.  Tourist Trap?  I think so… But I found out what I want made for myself…

and Jordan found what he wants to take home.  Christmas is right around the corner, honey… I know you were pretty excited. ;)

 

Then, we came home and I tried my hand at my first Navajo Taco meal.  It included 2 days of soaking beans and an hour and a half to prep the rest of the meal (I’m not THAT kitchen retarded…but you do have to get creative without some of your normal modern kitchen amenities and take extra care with produce!).  In the end, they were well worth it.  Jordan is still raving about them and I felt the most satisfied after dinner than any other meal out of the country. 

During the rest of the weekend we enjoyed seeing what’s new with family over Skype dates, going to church, catching up on “The Office” and having a hilarious dinner with some of the people from our ward.

I love weekends.

 

Let’s have a weekend again soon, alright?

 

Tell me about your weekend.

 

Miss you all,

MJ & J

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Technorati Tags: China

China…

Miranda has suggested I write a bit for quite some time. It has been another great Sabbath and I guess I just felt up to it today. China is quite the place. I have moved countries enough to know to expect what you don’t expect and when you get the unexpected it’s not such a surprise. I expected China to be much more China-ey. You know, lots of crazy ancient Chinese architecture, with stone buildings and upturned roof tips. Tianjin is very modern. Once in a while you can find an old temple(mostly for tourism) or other building with a Chinese flare, but mostly, the city is modern apartment/business buildings with modern lines, beveled edges, or glass balconies. There are some really cool buildings to look at. We live right in the heart of it all, on the 15 floor of a 25 story edifice. We share our location with 6 other buildings the same height. Below there is a pretty cool little gathering area with trees and water features. In the morning when Miranda and I head out on our 10 minute walk to work, there is often a group of parents and grand parents with their children all around the ages of 2,3 or 4 years old. It is good to start out the day walking by the kids each morning. I guess they like to get a bit of social interaction as most of them don’t have brothers or sisters, and will probably have a full time job when they turn 5. Because most people only have one child, there is a lot of time, energy and money spent as an investment for their future. Not too surprising I guess. Well, as it turns out, children around here are expected to work very hard in their school and other disciplines. The bonus is that on the other hand they get a lot of toys and attention.

The traffic around here is great. If you ever come to China, do it with a sense of adventure as well as a sense of humor. The intersections are often just clumps of traffic trying to push through each other. The name of the game seems to be never back down, if your not sure honk, and there is always enough room to fit between two cars. The problem with the never back down part, is when two cars need to get out of each other’s way to proceed the opposite direction, they will often just sit it out and make the other person move first. Cut and paste that mindset onto two parties and you can have some pretty funny Chinese showdowns. I have seen a few traffic jams waiting on two cars having an intersection duel with neither willing to move out of the way. Honestly, one was about 10 minutes. They have these little red motorcycle trikes that have been covered in the back to create a little passenger cockpit. After coming out of wall-mart with arms full of groceries we decided to take one the short distance home. We weren't disappointed. Miranda laughed the whole way home. It was like we were in high speed chase, only we were barely able to go 20 miles an hour, because in China the road is there for everybody. None of this your side my side stuff. We flew in front of busses, down one way streets(the wrong way) and everywhere else we could get in the way before making it home. Our driver kept looking back wondering why we were laughing so much. Probably thought we were making fun of him or something.

Like anything worth doing in life, there are sacrifices that have to be made to pay for the experience, money or whatever the gain may be. Most of the time being here in China, or when we were in Brazil, presented a fun experience each day. Something to laugh about, roll your eyes and think only in China. The experience here is different enough to learn new and exciting things each day. Sometimes though, you just wish you could smell home. For me it is the desert sage, after a summer rain, for Miranda probably the ocean breeze. Feel the air.  Be around the people that bring you the most happiness. All the things you don’t think about, yet subconsciously classify as “normality”. I have come to realize, since living so much out of country lately, that I am quite a mountain boy. This next part gets kind of weird for me… but who cares I guess. Right now its just me,the bunnies, and my wife. Tucked away in an apartment nook thousands of miles away. I miss the spirit of the earth. I have always been close to it without really knowing what I was enjoying. I ll try to explain. In Hurricane I was only a few feet away from gardens, trees or grass. I could walk bare foot in a plowed field. I could go outside and pick something to eat. Anybody who knows me knows I did all summer. I could see so far away and there was usually something to see. The rain clouds building up on pinevalley, the sun setting on timbertop. There were always birds, or chickens or some kind of animal around the house as well. On weekends I was often in the mountains, carving trails, or building ponds, fishing, hunting, camping, fourwheeling or whatever. I was(am) always a messy kid, in the mud and dirt, throwing something or building something.In contrast, in Brazil and here in China I walk to work on hard pavement all the way. My view is limited to the big buildings nearby. I am inside working, calling or typing without even knowing if it is cloudy or sunny. Sometimes I come out of the work “zone” to find it rained really hard! I didn’t even know! The disconnect seems to be really big right now between myself and everything natural, or living. Cement, metal, plastic and all the other technological barriers have got me on another planet! The weird part is when I get to thinking about this I just want to go hug a tree. Or at least climb it! Or go to a mountain stream and drink until I can’t move. Or lay in a huge pile of fall leaves. Maybe lay down in the grass and get grass stains. I make myself laugh when I think about this. Anyway, with fall in full bloom I think about this stuff a lot. I love fall. If I ever blog again I ll talk more about China. So, I have been looking everywhere for house plants. We haven’t really found any yet. I bought a couple of bunnies and they have been fun. I have had this crazy green thumb thing attack me, and without the possibility of planting anything in a yard, I finally through some beans in a paper cup and started…well I’m not sure. But it is growing and I smile when I see it. Here’s a picture.

Technorati Tags: China

Happy Halloween!!!

xoxo

MJ & J

We are Parents…

of Bunnies!!!

  

Meet Ying and Yang…

Ying is the cute little girl (we think) and Yang is the fun bigger male.  I guess we’ll really find out what Ying is if we start to find other little bunnies…but for now, just her sweet personality screams girl, while Yang is speedy Gonzalez and all over the place!

They are the first (and most certainly not the last ;) to

join our little Hastings family.

Y & Y are hopefully baby dwarf bunnies (our apartment is great…but a little on the small side for BIG bunnies). Cleaning up after them is helping us practice for real parenting positions…and we LOVE them!

 

In other news:

• We’re slowly getting our apartment put together.  We’ve finally figured out where to get the good stuff on the cheap, have a couple of rugs for the living room, found my dream bed set and pillows at silk street in Beijing (that place is worthy of a whole other post!) and are gearing up to paint our wall either a bold red or a bold teal.  We’ve also started decorating for the holidays, which really helps to feel more at home!

Trick or Treat!!!

We’ll see how many kids we get this year! Happy what?!

(I had to dig through the gourd section at the store, but finally found one that somewhat resembled a pumpkin!)

• Cooking.  Good old fashioned American (or anything close to it) cooking is hard to find here.  BUT…we’re also figuring that out…slowly. ;)  We got an oven, so that helps since almost everybody here only fries things on hot plates (blech). After bartering for some imported powdered sugar from the relief society pres. in our branch, I made a batch of home made cinnamon rolls that turned out pretty dang good!

• Work = chaos that is getting better.  We’ve had a crazy busy first month…but I guess that’s what you can expect with a change in management, especially if you’re the new management!  It’s already gotten better though and I feel like the company’s made some real progress.  I have a great team of teachers and love how the Chinese receive our school and our marketing. Here’s a picture of a party we threw for marketing…

• The Chinese love fireworks…we see them every night from our apartment…but we had our own little pyrotechnic show in our apartment this month.  Jordan was lying down with the laptop on his stomach (and more manly parts), got up and less than 2 seconds later…BOOM!!! His battery exploded and started a fire in our room.  I was in the living room and heard this huge bang, looked around the corner and saw flames under the door.  We put it out but it kept exploding like a firework fountain.  Everything but our floor left with a nasty battery acid hole was fine…but I’m pretty sure HP is getting a few phone calls. ;)

These are the charred remains of J’s battery!

• I’ve passed my first language test and it was the same one I took in Brazil…TMI, I know, but you know you are on your way to independence in a country when you can go to the pharmacy and get your birth control!  Sort of sad here though, they didn’t really know what it was and kept trying to hand me the abortion pill. Mmmm…No thank-you.
• My sweet dog, Corkey passed away.  He was the best dog ever (yes, J…even better than Shasta!) and lived to the ripe old age of 18ish.  My mom said he got really sick and started having what seemed like strokes the day that J and I left for China.  I feel like my favorite dog stuck it out one last time for me.  Thanks Corkey.  I still remember picking you out at the pound, growing up with you, you barking at old boyfriends you never liked and our many trips around the block as you pulled Nic and I on the scooter  or our roller blades (you were one buff ten pound pup).  So many good memories and many more to come, as I’m sure my two grandmas upstairs are taking good care of you.  Love you Cork.

Wu Flung Poo…

Yes folks, this phrase was something that my brother, Nic, and I used to say to each other growing up.  Unfortunately, everything here so far has sounded like a weird combination of this phrase and the word “zhege, zhege, zhege.”

So, thanks for prepping me for China all those years, but I guess I should really start working on my Mandarin now.

;)

Aside from having absolutely no idea about what people are saying, we quite like it here.  Don’t get me wrong, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in Brazil…and don’t tell any of our Brasileiro friends this...but I think I’ve convinced myself I like this place a little better. Here’s why:       

• Here we have our own apartment (Roomies, we had our fun times…but there   are definite reasons why married couples don’t usually live with others. haha)
• We have 2 rooms in said apartment…this means we can have guests! Please ignore the above complaint about roomies, because guests= Not Awkward. :)
• Each room in our little apartment has bay windows with breathtaking views of the city.  I don’t think I’d trade our apartment for one twice as big if it meant I had to give up my sparkly views!

This is how a sunrise looks from our bedroom window.

• We are surrounded by 14 (no joke) malls and a plethora of gorgeous parks.  There is also a huge river, lots of tree-lined walk-ways and an Italian district all within a 5 minute walk of us.    
• Campinas, Brazil was the second most expensive place to live in on an expatriate site I found.  Tianjin, China was the very last.  I think I’ll enjoy that financial freedom a little more.
• It seems to be a lot safer here.  Laws are extremely strict here against criminals all the time, but especially when somebody messes with a foreigner.
• Chinese Nationals seem to love Americans.  In some parts, you may be the first foreigner many have seen, so they treat you like rock stars.  This can get old if you’re in a hurry, but so far we’ve enjoyed it and it’s been a great marketing tool for the company.
• Because of the things mentioned above, I feel like we have a lot more freedom…which is pretty ironic, considering that we live in a country ruled by communism. 

 

Here’s a quick picture recap of a Sunday evening stroll down the river:

A couple of views from the river in our He Ping District.

Jordan in front of the Italian District.  When we get tired of the weird spices, we’ll have to go there.

Jordan had me pose here so we could secretly capture the guy in the back practicing Kung-Fu.  He was awesome!

A native making decorative lollipops by hand.  He free-handed this in about 2 minutes.  If it weren’t Sunday, we would have gone home licking a dragon one ourselves…

A crazy “Rudolph” catfish we found at the port.

Jordan in front of one of the cool palaces close to our house.

Following a tradition for their Autumn Holiday, we got to write our wishes on a hot air balloon and release them over the river.  It was so pretty to watch our wishes float up and away over the city.  It kind of reminded me of a Mary Poppins scene, except more romantic after the initial scare that a truck would run it over when ours first decided to float down instead of up!  It got over that obstacle and is now somewhere waiting to get our wishes processed! ;) Next time we’ll wait for enough hot air!

I’m sure we’ll find things we don’t like so much (such as unfavorable food and foul smells), but why not bask in the glory of China’s honeymoon phase?!

So, for the time being, I’ll try to keep you updated on all of the good…and interesting things that we find here.  But really, you ought to come and hear the “Wu Flung Poo, zhege, zhege” for yourself!