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!!