Another typical day in Shanghai

So, how are you all doing?
I hear life in Grand Rapids is odd and warm (you suck- it's freezing here. Well, 40, but still...) We miss you guys and the blissful ease of life with friends and family we love! But, we're getting along here ok as well.

Sunday morning we were able to Google Hangout with my family. It was hilarious because Jenn was in a bar parking lot in her car in Florida (I'm sure people were thinking she was doing BAD things), Ben and Michelle were in Chicago, and Mom and Dad were at their place in Greenville. Man, I love technology! SO fun to hang out like that.

We met up with Ben and Liz (and their kiddos, Mia-3 and Isaac-2) at the pool around 1030. Usually the pool is around 96 degrees and the hot tub is 110 but today the hot tub was 96 degrees and the pools were freezing. We all know where I stayed... Sophie saw Mia swimming and felt a challenge, I guess, bc she suddenly strapped on her swim cap, threw on her goggles and started to swim under water. Seriously. It took her about 20 minutes of practicing putting her head under water and suddenly she decided she can swim about 8 feet underwater without help. Yeah for peer pressure!. :)

Afterwards we ran into Laura and Patrick (and their kiddos, Aubrey-7, Collin-5, and Quinten-2) and grabbed some lunch and chatted. This is why we picked to live here. The houses may have been nicer but you can't beat the social scene here!

We headed out for church at 345 and got their around 430. Technically church starts at 4, however, they sing for 45 minutes, standing, with like, a thousand other people, so we thought we could show up a little late and still be good. We forgot about getting Coop to nursery, Soph to church school and still finding a seat. Needless to say, Ben got all the way to Soph's room (it's in another building on the compound) and she freaked and refused to go in. We ended up in the upper edge of the balcony, Sophie sitting on my lap. The message was on Hosea- it was nice to sit and hear God's message. Dinner at Pappa John's after was a disaster (I had to change Coop's poopy diaper on my lap while squatting in a "bathroom" which was a hole in the floor) and the cab ride was long to get home but we made it.

Monday Cooper started his school and he loves it! He walked right in like he owned it and had a great time. There are 3 other kids in his class but none were there that day. One was jetlagged, one was still on holiday and they didn't know where the other one was. Femke is his primary teacher (she's from the Netherlands!) and his secondary teacher is Bing-Bing (yes, Chinese). The rest of Monday was a nightmare bc we had to go get Ben from his work (an hour drive) then head to PuDong for our residency visas (another hour drive) and then go home (another hour drive). Coop and I were OVER IT!! Thankfully Laura had gotten Sophie off the bus for me and fed her a snack. Yet another "yay" for living close to friends!

Tuesday we got to pick out our furniture for our new place. That was fun bc we got to have fun with rugs and accent pieces. I figure, we're only owning this stuff for 18 months, we might as well have fun with it. We got this awesome purpley chair for Soph's room and a fantastic black and white lounger for ours. Ooo, I can't wait to show pics! However, we did find out that we won't be getting into our place until Feb 15. Ugh. It'll be great when we finally do, though!

Oh, I wanted to post a pic to show you an idea of traffic here. Given, this is the worst I've seen it.

Of course it's hard to see bc we're under an overpass so let me help you out. There are 2 cars to our left trying to go through the intersection in front of us. There are 2 cars ahead of us- one trying to go straight and one trying to turn left (like us). There is a bus on our right that's in the middle of the intersection trying to go through and a bus and a car facing us interwoven into the other cars in the intersection. Everyone's honking and flashing their brights. Like that'll help. I used Google translate to ask our driver, Andy, how this type of situation gets fixed. No one could get anywhere bc the vehicles were all stuck in the middle of the intersection. He laughed and typed into his Google translate- "normal". Oh, he had turned the car off about 5 minutes prior, as well. I think he knew it was going to be a bit. Eventually, some cars backed up, went over curbs and we all found our way through. It was ridiculous! There are simply no rules for driving here. Earlier in the day I was on a road where it was supposed to be 2 lanes in each direction. However, traffic and bad driving made it 3 lanes one direction, 1 in the other. And, cars would still pass us in that 1 lane to get ahead- into oncoming traffic!! And no one cares!! No one thinks it's weird or odd or dangerous or rude. Many times I have just looked around bc looking out the front of the car stresses me out!

Just another day in Shanghai, baby... :)

Oh, some bad news. Ben found out today that the carpool he was hoping to get into denied his acceptance. It's hard to imagine that they would leave him hanging bc they didn't want to squeeze in a bit. This really bums us out bc it was going to be a huge answer to prayer about our driving situation and a way to save a huge amount of money. So, now we're back to square one which is frustrating. We just can't seem to catch a break in our favor with this driving thing...

Prayer requests:
-That the driving situation gets resolved and Ben finds an inexpensive way to work that doesn't take an hour and a half each way and Cooper finds a way to school that will get him there on time (and that makes it so I don't have to spend 3 hours a day in a car getting him/dropping him off).
-The shoes have been found and are being shipped to us (we had left them at my sister's). This is a huge praise as I still haven't found any more tights or shoes here!! Seriously!!!
-I would like to ask for prayers for my health. I am having daily migraines that are barely under control with a lot of meds. Headaches have always been a problem for me but having them every day all day is just draining. That, and my cold is still here. I'm starting to wonder if it's partly the air quality as well. So, no headaches and open sinuses for me, please. :)

Thanks and God bless!!