A Shang"low" kind of day in Shanghai

And things had been going so well!
We've actually had a few days where things were falling into place here and I was feeling like I was able to tread the water more easily instead of barely keeping my head above water.
Sophie's first day of school was great, her second even better because she has swimming lessons on Thursdays and she got to wear her uniform. Here she is in a few variations of it-

Oh, we did have one issue on her second day. She started riding the school bus on Thursday. She was so excited to do this and be a "big girl". I guess I had forgotten to warn her that I didn't go with her on the bus because she climbed right on, realized we weren't behind her and came screaming off of it as fast as she could. Ben thought, for some reason, this was a good kodak moment.

Thankfully, my new friend, Laura from Chicago, was watching us while her kids were getting on a different bus (There are 3 buses that all go to the same school). Soph and her daughter have become friends and she suggested Soph get on with her daughter and even talked with the bus monitor so she could bring Sophie to the right classroom. It saved us because Sophie was having nothing of that other bus! A quick call to the school changed her bus permanently so she's been fine ever since.

Thursday was also the day we did house hunting to find our permanent place for the next 18 months. After 3 houses and 5 condos, we had it down to one house in Rancho Santa Fe and a condo here in the Racquet Club. The closeness of the social stuff for the families won out and we picked the condo. It's a penthouse 2 story with an amazing view, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms. The previous tenants had just moved out and the place is currently trashed so I won't post pics until it's renovated. The annoying thing is that it's going to take 3 weeks to get it how we want it. The nice thing is that we're getting a lot of say on how it's fixed up. It'll be great once it's done and we're in it.

Ok, so, school's good, Ben had his first day on Friday and it went well. I had the driver, Andy, for the morning so we made a trip to Ikea and got some bakeware and other essentials. He doesn't speak ANY english so I HEART Google translate!!! I couldn't be here without it! I had a moment of panic when I lost the driver and thought someone had pick-pocketed Ben's IPhone (it wasn't). My solution for the driver? Buy an Ikea hot dog and ice cream cone and just wait for him at the checkout to show up- and he did, after about 30 minutes... It was stressful but I survived.

Friday night we had been invited to Laura and Patrick's condo, along with some other new friends, Ben and Liz from the UK, for pizza, beer and to just hang out. It's funny. We ordered Pappa John's and, God bless them, it tastes just like the Pappa John's at home. SO nice to have that comfort! We had a great night- there were 7 children "running ferrel" (as Laura likes to say), we stayed up too late, drank too much, but only had to walk across the big lawn to our condo! It was a great night getting to know new people!

See, life sounds good, right? I had even made another dinner (spaghetti and carrots)...until today.
Soph needs more tights for school as well as a good pair of black shoes to wear with her uniform. The pair she had have vanished so she's been wearing a pair that's way too big.
We took the shuttle bus to the Metro station- took the Metro to a shopping district that actually reminded me a lot of downtown Chicago. There was an H&M, a Gap, and a Marks & Spencer (it's from the UK-kinda like Macy's). You would think we were all set, right? Yeah, wrong. We found only 2 pair of tights between all of those stores (but really, I was happy to have found 2). However, NO shoes. Not one pair of girls' black shoes. We had to leave bc we were meeting a coworker of Ben's who is here house hunting with his wife at the AP Plaza. This is a crazy place with a million shops. You can get knock off Coach purses, Uggs, jewelry, coats, shoes, etc. We ate at the KFC, which was a nightmare bc there were a million people there, it was super loud, Sophie and Cooper fell apart...
Anyway, then we went to go try and find some shoes when we noticed Sophie's coat was missing. Her only winter coat until the air shipment gets here in 3 weeks. So, now she has no coat. In January. Whether it was stolen or we dropped it somewhere, I don't know, but it's gone, so, whatever. So, now we need a coat and shoes. After an hour of looking for both, finding no freaking shoes, bardering prices on coats, people touching and pointing at the kids, Cooper falling apart bc it's way past nap time....see where I'm going with this? I was done. Like, DONE.
We paid too much for the coat (bc she knew she had us), got in a cab and started the hour trek home. Thankfully both kids fell asleep (did I ever mention how there are no seatbelts here???). So, an entire day for 2 pairs of tights. And I have no idea what to do next about the shoes. Ugh.
This day was what expats refer to as a Shang'low' day.
Needless to say, we're hoping tomorrow is better bc we're venturing out to church and it's not exactly next door- and we still need to find shoes.

Prayer requests: shoes. Seriously, I just need to find Sophie some good shoes.
I also need to relax a bit. Everything seems to send me over the edge and I don't want to be there anymore. I'd like to take things in stride and see the humor in situations and I'm struggling to do that.
Please pray that Monday goes well. Ben goes to work at 630, Soph gets on the bus at 810 and I need to leave the condo before 8 to get to Coop's school by 830. I'm not really sure how it's going to work out. I think I could ask one of my new friends to watch Soph but I also don't want to ask too much of people I've just met and wreck a new friendship. Pray it just falls into place bc I really need something to be easy, just once. Well, since this will be happening every weekday, I really need it more than once... :)