2 days...

2 days from now I will be in the middle of my 18 hour journey back to Michigan. A 15 hour flight from Shanghai to Chicago, then a very short, less than 2 hour layover where I'm very afraid I'll miss my connection to Grand Rapids. That little puddle-jumper is only about 35 minutes but, oh, how important it is that I make this flight!!
I am traveling with the kids by myself as Ben is joining us in July. I am so incredibly excited to be home and see friends and family and yet I am having a very very hard time releasing my anxiety about getting there to God to let Him have it. I know it's pointless to fret and worry and yet I can't seem to let it go. How annoying, right? I don't want to have it. It gives me headaches and stomach aches and wears at my soul. How will Cooper do? Will he sleep? Will he lose it and go crazy and annoy everyone? Will I sleep at all? Will anyone get sick (fevers have been ravaging our house lately)? Will I make it through immigration in time? How will I possibly get our 4 checkes bags plus our carry ons plus the stroller plus 2 jetlagged exhausted kids through everything that needs to happen to get us to our connection and not miss the plane? etc, etc, etc...
Ugh, I'm so sick of thinking of all these things. I wish I could just be there. However, I do know that all the struggle of getting there will make being there even better. :)

In the mean time, here are a few things we've been up to while we finished up our school year here.

Here's Mia, Aubrey, Soph and Colin on Soph's last day of school waiting for the bus. Aww... :)

On the left is my friend, Penny, from England. She just had a little girl, Gracie, about 3 months ago. Such a sweet baby! My good friend, Liz, is on the right. The bump is growing! Everyone thinks boy but I'm firmly planted in the girl camp. We'll find out in October!

The line up waiting for the bus. Coop chillaxin in his stroller- he finished school the day before.

Happy to have this be her last day! All she's been talking about is seeing her friends at home!

Getting onto the bus with her usual "watch me leave!"

Soph's school bus. This is one of three that pick up kiddos for the British School and they're pretty full!

On this day the children were given their learning journals. These are binders that the teachers use to show how each child is meeting goals and progressing in school. It's full of their artwork and pictures of things they did throughout the year. A huge task for the teachers, no doubt, but I will treasure it forever! By getting their journals it says they are ready to graduate from Reception and move on to Year 1 (what is kindergarten in the US).

Sophia getting her learning journal. Happy girl. Proud mama and daddy. :) Growing up too fast!

That night it was decided that a bunch of us girls would go out for a drink to hang out and chat before we all head to our various parts of the world for the summer. These women have become my closest friends here and have seen me through my scary early days, my great days and my low days. God has deeply blessed me by knowing each of them.
Next to me is Leslie from Wisconsin, then Liz from England, Laura on top from Chicago, Sally on bottom from Australia, Penny in the blue from England and Heather also from England. Heather is moving home and also maybe Penny. Makes me truly sad that I may never see these people again!
God's blessings on them on their next journey.

On Friday afternoon we were invited by the mom of one of Soph's classmates for an end of year party. Wow. It was meant to be a pool party but, in true Shanghai fashion, it decided to pour rain. It was held in the clubhouse of their development and these people can put on a party!!
They had drinks, food, a professional photographer, games, you name it.
This was our saving grace with Cooper. He had not slept well at all for nap so we were very worried about having a tired, overstimulated, autistic boy in a new place with a bunch of people he didn't know. However, there was a ball pit. And a slide. God knew what we would need and provided. He was happy to play in here the whole time and was just as content as could be. :)

Oh, it's raining? Who cares?? :) When you get ten 5 yr olds together and there's a pool, there WILL be swimming! So all the parents stood by the edge of the pool in the rain while the kids happily swam away. After about 45 minutes we all dragged our shivering kids out of the water.

The hosts had these amazing put-together houses that you can color. These were really popular with the kids! That's Rachel, Soph's best friend here, and Moritz on the right.

Check out some of the food! Red bean paste spring rolls, chicken skewers, fruit, pizzas, fried rice, potatoe salad, cupcakes, cookies, moon pies, and more. Tasty stuff! Soph's favorite were the red bean paste spring rolls! Who would have ever thought? :)

Happy boy with his daddy.

10 of the 18 from the class- Joseph (host), Jing Ting, James, Sophia, Rachel, Imogen, Betty, Min Jun, Moritz and Charmaine. A great group of kids! Chinese, British, US, New Zealand, Swedish, Singaporian and more. But play and friendship is international!

This is a traditional Chinese treat (Zongzi) that is typically eatten during the Dragonboat festival. See, this is actually a long weekend celebrating the Dragonboat festival. The other kids have three and a half more days of school but we're skipping town early. :) The festival celebrates a poet who committed suicide in a river bc of political reasons and traditionally people throw zongzi into rivers to feed him. Ok.....
So, it's red beans and sticky rice (a bit sweet) wrapped in bamboo leaves, tied with string and then steamed. You serve it with honey. The hosts were very impressed that one of the Chinese families had brought this and said it was like an honor that they had. I was impressed at the effort put into the treat but not impressed with how it tasted. :)

Anyway, tomorrow is packing and organization day. Ugh, just got nervous again. So. Annoying.

The next post I do will be from home, though!

Please keep us all in your prayers in the next few days.
Specific requests:
-that Sophia, Cooper and I are healthy. Soph came down with a cold today and I'm worried the fever
  is next. :(
-that we have a safe drive to the airport with Ben and that he has a safe drive home without us.
-that we run into no issues checking in.
-that the flight goes smoothly-that the kids and I can get some much needed sleep and that the hours
  go by quickly!
-that our connection goes smoothly- that the line at immigration is short and I can get a cart easily for
  our bags and find all the places I need to go with little effort. That a kind soul sent by God helps me
  if needed.
-that we make our connecting flight to Grand Rapids!

Thanks again for reading and keeping up with us. It's weird to think our journey here is already 1/3 done! Crazy. God is good! :)

Father's Day and Misc.

So I've been absent for a while but only because life has been pretty mundane and normal. No big trips or sight-seeing. Just nice every day stuff like going for bike rides, swimming at the pool and geting prepared to come home for the summer.

I think the last post I did was about the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. A few days after that I met this really nice woman, Ingrid. She's from the US (although I keep forgetting to ask where), she has 3 kids and one of them has special needs. He's 10 months old but bc of a chromosomal defect, he's behind developmentally and has vision problems. We met for coffee and had a great chat. It's really nice knowing someone here that knows what it's like to be an expat with a special needs child. She also helped me get my vacuum repaired, which was a monumental task and she went over and above to help. I know, I know, it shouldn't be a huge deal to get a vac fixed, but, this is China. Nothing, nothing is easy. :)

That Wednesday Ben took the day off work to spend it with me- nice, right? We went to the Flower Market and picked out my Mother's Day gift- a gorgeous tree that has really pretty orange blossoms on it. We went to lunch and played tennis. So nice to have time with each other.

I had previously bought these tea lights that I'd been wanting to hang on something. The branches of my little tree are perfect. I love it!

That weekend we were holed up because our little man was really sick. Temps of 102.4-103.7 for 4 days. Of course nothing came of it and he's slowly gotten better over this past week. He was having headaches so he was banging his head a lot. It was his only way of telling me it hurt but, oh, I hated it! Glad he's better now. :)

Here are some pics of other things we've been up to-

I was making dinner the other day and I heard my keys jingle. See, my keys are on the top shelf of the bookcase so I thought it was a bit odd to be hearing them jingle. So, I peeked around the corner and this was what I saw. Coop had climbed up to the 3rd shelf and decided to take a rest. I'm guessing his head bumped the top shelf, hence the jingle. Oh my boy...

This was a hoot. My ayi was interviewed by the local Chinese paper because of the award she won. She had received the highest score on a senior home economics test that only certain ayis were selected for. So, the paper also wanted to interview the family she worked for. They came in, took a bunch of fake set-up pictures and then published them! Too funny and so China. :)

This was the nastiest, grossest China bug I have seen here. And I've seen a lot. It's hard to describe how big it was but it was huge. The feelers were at least 2 inches long. It was on the playground where we brought the kids to play one day. Thankfully it was already dead- hence the position it's in. But seriously, ew.

On Thursday June 14 Cooper had his last official day of school so they held a little coffee morning and celebrated the therapists that are leaving.
Carolina is on the right. She was Coop's speech pathologist. She's originally from Poland but has been living in Chicago for many years and is now moving to Wisconsin.

Karlijn is from the Netherlans and was one of the two heads of Coop's program. She lead his class on Thursdays and Fridays. She's staying with ELG but will now be doing evals for the international schools and working with ELG's other 2 clinics as well. The kids had painted her the Shanghai skyline as a goodbye present.

On the painting was a picture of the boys from this year. Shaveer, MyMy, DiDi, Luca and Cooper.

We had some yummy cake, sang a few songs and played with some bubbles!

Coop playing with one of his favorite toys at school.

All the therapists with the boys.

Friday June 25 was Ben and I's 10th anniversary. When we originally thought of our 10th the plan was to go back to Hawaii and relive our honeymoon. Who ever thought we'd be in China instead??

So maybe we'll go there for our 15th... :)

Ben made a lot of effort to make the night really special, though. He had rented a car to take us into town and drive us around so we wouldn't have to deal with cabs or the Metro. He went to the flower market and had them remake my wedding bouquet, well, to the best of their ability. Turns out China doen't have iris'. He then had them deliver it to the restaurant, Shook, so it was waiting at our table when we got there. So incredibly thoughtful!

This was our view of the Pudong side of the river from where we ate (sorry it's blurry- thru a window). There were lit-up cruise river boats that went up and down the river- really pretty! The Pearl Tower is on the left, the Bottle Opener is the blue-lined building on the right.

Ben ate some interesting goose liver and scallops and I had a lovely rib-eye. We were about to head out when the chef brought us this! They had made us a cake for our anniversary. :) Really tastey with dragon fruit and pineapple in it.

This was our view from the rooftop bar above the restaurant. A bit chilly but fun!

On Saturday we headed to the Hongqiao Pearl Market- the closest fake market to where we live. We wanted to get some gifts for our family at home and ended up finding a few things for ourselves as well. :) While Sophia was examining the millions of Strawberry Shortcake toys in a store, Cooper had found this blow up horse thing and just fallen in love with it. For only $10 for a new one, how could I say no? He absolutely loves it! He giggles when he sees it, chews on it's ears and just sits on it constantly. Here he's watching Dora from a distance while sitting on it. :) 

We had a very successful trip getting some movies, a dress for me, some bags and shoes, some bug things for my nephews, a tea set, some chopsticks, a toy for Soph, birthday presents for friends...then we headed to our favorite restaurant on HongMei Lu, Baastians, had a great lunch and were home by naptime. Pretty good, I think! :)

Sunday was Father's Day and the kids and I had a few things planned for Ben. I made his favorite french breakfast puffs while Sophie decorated this awesome banner for him and made him a card-

Daddy is jumping on a trampoline and Sophie is waiting her turn... :)

She went a little crazy with her "a"s. :) More jumping on the trampoline on the inside. I think she's trying to give us a hint... :)

Ben's Father's Day present- a new huge remote-controlled helicopter. He broke the little one he had bought himself a few months ago and has been wanting another for a while.

Cooper's present to daddy- a new mousepad with his picture. :)

The rest of the day involved a family bikeride where Sophie was showing us her amazing mad skills. She's totally independant now- starting, riding, uphill and down, stopping, and avoiding huge SUVs that fly out of side streets without even glancing at who may be coming down the street. Seriously. Chinese people here are the scariest, most dangerous drivers I have ever been around. We were slowly going down the main road in a neighboring development when this SUV comes flying out of a side street. The only reason it didn't hit Sophie was because she swerved out of the way all the way to the other side of the street and even stopped. Ben and I were livid and totally freaked out.

That afternoon we went to our friends, Liz and Ben's place to celebrate their daughter's 4th birthday. Mia's birthday isn't acutally until July 3 but since everyone's heading home before then we had her party now. It was planned to be a pool party but it was absolutely pouring so we played in the indoor pool for a while then headed to their place for pizzas and cake and presents. Another really fun day!

So, now I have 5 days until I fly home to GR with the kids by myself. I'm really really really excited to come home, don't get me wrong. I'm just a bit stressed at the minute. I need to organize what I'm going to bring home, how I can keep extra space for all the things I want to bring back here, what I'll need for the plane, etc, etc. I was originally completely freaked out at the idea of the flight itself- 15 hours then a 2 hr layover in Chicago then another hour flight. I've decided I'm going to survive that- I don't really have a choice. Now I'm freaked out about the layover. I need to get thru immigration, get my 4 bags, recheck them, take a transport to another terminal, go thru security again...all in less than 2 hours with a stroller, all the carry-ons and 2 jetlagged kids. *grooooooooaaann* Oh, and do this all at O'Hare airport which is classically known for being unkind and unhelpful.

So, this leads me to my big prayer request for the week. If you could pray for the preparation, the flight, the layover. Pray everything goes so smoothly, that I'm amazed at how easy it went, how good the kids were and how God was guiding us thru each step. I will need each and every one of those prayers!!

I'll try to post one more time before we leave on Sunday. See some of you soon!!

The Queen's Diamond Jubilee

Today we submerged ourselves a little further into the British culture (odd, considering we're in China) by attending a celebration at Sophia's school.
The British International School of Shanghai (BISS) held a party honoring Queen Elizabeth's 60 yrs in reign. It was called the Diamond Jubilee. The school's PTA had been building up this event for months and it really was a fun afternoon.
There were games for the kids, food, bands, a raffle, a silent auction and we even got to sing the national anthem (I did not know it and needed the words they were handing out). :)
We didn't win anything from the raffle or bid on anything for the auction, but we had a fun afternoon!

Here are the ridiculously fancy admission tickets-

Everyone was asked to wear red, white and blue. So, yes, we all matched and that was on purpose. :)

The very first thing Soph wanted to do was get her face painted. She LOVES anything on her head colored! :)

Then it was off to the blow-up climbing thing. As usual, they both loved it!

We could have left Coop in here the whole time and he would have been perfectly happy. :)

It was quite the elaborate thing

Then it was off to the guessing games. Guess how many candies are in the jar (Ben was off by 7 and still lost), how much the banana bread weighs, where the crown jewels are hidden, what the prince bear's name is, etc.

Sophie in the egg-on-a-spoon race. We need to work a bit on it but she had fun with it!

This is Lucas and he is my secret boyfriend. He always has a flirtacious smile for me whenever I see him at church, around the racquet club or anywhere else, really. :) He's from Scotland, however, and will be going back there someday so it would never work out. :)

Sophie won the cake walk and earned herself some cookies! Proud girl. :)

Matt and Sally Stirling helping Ben and I try our first Pimms drink. What is Pimms, you say? See below....

Ok, so this is Pimms. I am told it's a liquor-based drink, kinda like gin, with lemonade in it. Then they add fruit like apples and oranges and cucumber (uh-huh) and mint leaves. Yeah. Well, I've tried it and would much rather have a nice cold beer. :)

Sophie doing the whack-a-mole. The lady drops the mole down the hole and Sophie has to gauge when to whack it. She got 1 1/2 out of 3. :)

The kids got to make crowns of their own to wear around. Sophie's was covered in glitter, obviously. :)

Cooper wasn't interested in any of the games, but did enjoy the holes in the ground...

and running around vocalizing. :)

Ah yes, the British flag.

This is Oliver Sterling, also known as Ollie, and he is such a handsome little man! He's showing off his creation here...

This is Rachel, Sophie's best bud at school. She's from New Zealand and the girls are peas in a pod. They have alot of fun together!

So, my next new British thing was the Ploughman's lunch. I was very confused by it. We were given the option of ham OR cheese. Yes, OR. Ok... So, I got the cheese. This is what came- a plate with a huge hunk of bread, a huge hunk of cheese, some veggies and butter. Ok. You could also get some pickled onions but I opted out of those. :) It was odd to call this a meal- it's so close to a proper sandwich and yet missing that key thing of meat. But if you got the ham you wouldn't have gotten the cheese. So confused!! :) Anyway, it was tasty, even if it was a bit odd. :)

Enjoying our linner (it was, afterall, 430pm so it's not really lunch or dinner at that point)

Waving our British flags along with all other Brits across the world to honor the Queen

In the end, Rachel had correctly guessed the location of the queen's jewels (a bag of sweets)! Great job!

Sophie, Ollie, and Hattie watching the cheeleaders

Sophie playing around with some school friends- Annabelle (who guessed the bear's name- Phillip), Timmy (on the right) and Moritz.

Watch out! Sophie has found herself a stage!

Yeah, she's got it. ;)

Oh wait, here's another one! ;)

Our trusty transportation. :) Yes, we fit both kids, me and the stroller in here. Hey, it gets the job done, ok? ;)

Overall a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon. The only thing missing were our British friends, the Lawlers, who are currently sun-bathing themselves in Kuta Kenabaloo in Malaysia. (I'm sure I killed the spelling of that city :)
Good thing we were there to represent a bit of America as well. :)