More Fun in September!

Ok, I'm back to finish out our fun September.

Sophia started her after school activities mid month and seems to be liking both of them.
On Mondays she has arts and crafts. My hope was that I would get more artwork sent home that I could post everywhere. So far, they have been working on making a pond and therefore, no artwork for me. :/ Who knows, we have until December!
On Thursdays she has gymnastics and she really loves it. She loves coming home and showing us how she can now do backbends and somersaults and other bendy things. It's cute to see her get excited about it.

Ok, on to the things I actually have pictures for. These last couple of things had a few more pictures so I wanted to give them their own space. :)
Sophia's school put on a Back-To-School BBQ in mid September to welcome everyone back from the summer break and boy, do they put on a party. There was a band, food, and good times for the kids.

Again, I felt like it was ridiculous how fancy these tickets were. Do you remember the tickets from the Queen's Jubilee? Such a waste of money. Honestly, they could have charged us half the price and just had us print out an email to get in or something. Ridiculous... :)

So the party was held on the front area of the school. It's a large open playground so we all could put down blankets and set up our picnics. Here we've got Liz, Laura, and another friend, Adam, with his daughter, Clara.

There was food we could buy but many also brought stuff from home and we all snacked and chatted while the kids just ran around ferrel. :)

Coop did surprisingly well for most of it. It was only when it was well past his bedtime and the band was getting loud that he decided he had had enough. He really is doing so well. My boy...

Although there were several drinks available for purchase that night, Ben and I chose to drink our beloved bottle of cherry wine from home, from Black Star Farms Winery, where we'd stayed overnight to celebrate our 10th anniversary. It was gooood. :)

 The band. They were pretty good, too!

A side view of Sophia's teacher, Mr. Jones, who was there that night. Does he not look 12??? :)

As the evening progressed, Sophie got more and more wild but was having so much fun dancing around with her Dutch friends, Jenna and Floortje.

Cute girls, all in a row. :)

 Ben with Isaac and Patrick with Quentin, dancing around.

The band started playing Maroon 5's "Moves like Jagger" and it was all over. Liz loved it!

Cooper having some fun with mama.

On Spetember 25th, Laura, Patrick, Sally, Matt, Ben's coworker John and his wife, Robyn, Ben and I all headed out to the Maroon 5 concert. We were all very excited for a bit of home this concert was bringing. However, I believe Laura, Robyn and I were most excited to see us a little Adam Levine. :)

This is Ben and I outside of the Mercedes-Benz Arena. It was originally made for the World Expo back in 2010 and now they use it for concerts. Looks like a space ship. :)

Our seats in the arena. I do believe this shows the only time we sat the whole concert. :)

Ben and I in the arena with the stage in the background.

Right off the bat, he's at a payphone, trying to call home, but all of his change he spent on me. :) For those of you who are not Maroon 5 fans, these are lyrics to one of their most popular songs right now. Really, that was just geared towards parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Everyone else should already know this. ;)

Ben was the photographer for the night as he (and the other husbands) weren't acting the crazy fans that the women were. When he took this picture, Laura and I actaully squealed like we were 13.

The previous picture was followed by Ben taking this picture of us- yes, Laura is trying to look as crazy as possible. We were all convinced by the end of the night... :)

Next to Ben were some locals who thought Minnie ears that blinked and glowed would be a great addition to a Maroon 5 concert. Ok...

Ah yes, good times had by all. It was, like I said, a lot of fun to go do something that felt so much like home and reminded us that the world is actually a pretty small place.

So, that concludes September.
Oh, wait. I forgot. Cooper got Star of the Week at his school this month. He has been improving his use of PECs a lot in this last month so they actually threw him a little party with a cake and gave him this certificate.

For those who don't know what PECs is, it is when Cooper uses pictures to help him communicate with us because he doesn't speak yet. For example, if he wants some M&Ms, he goes and gets the picture of M&Ms and brings it to the teacher, handing it to her. She then gives him the candy. Eventually this can lead to him being able to fully communicate anything using this system.
The hope is still that he will one day learn to speak, that using this system will actually be more work than just saying the words. Time will tell. Ben and I are truely looking forward to the day that he is able to communicate with us in any form!

Prayer Requests:
-I have some people very close to my heart that are going through the beginning stages of filing for divorce after being married for more than 10 yrs. They have children and my heart is breaking for the whole family. Please pray for this family that I know. God knows, when you pray this, who you are speaking of, and that's all that matters.

-Please pray that Cooper's night terrors end. They have been increasing in number over the last few months and are hard on all of us. They seem to be related to poor sleep and changes in routine but there are times these things cannot be avoided. He acts the way he did on the plane coming here and it breaks our hearts. He's so scared and his mind seems so full of terror and agony. It's really hard to watch, especially since nothing we do seems to help. We just try and keep him from hurting himself until it passes. Poor buddy. :(

-Finally, please pray for our Sophia as we are noticing an increase in her inability to focus and be calm in school and at home. It is affecting her schoolwork and her homelife and we are beginning to worry that this could be leading to ADD, which runs in my family. I'm trying not to prematurely diagnose her, and yet I also want her to get help, and not delay it, if she needs it. It's such a balance and we could really use God's guidance on where to go with this.

Ok, 2 blogs in one night! Look at me! :)
The next one I'll try and get out soon. It's our trip to Hong Kong and we really did have so much fun there!
May God give you all his peace and may you feel his touch in your every day activities (he's there, you just have to be willing to see him :)

Busy September (Augh- I'm getting behind!!)

Slacker, slacker. I was so determined to keep up better with the blog when we got back from summer. Oh well. So, here I'm going to smush all of September into one blog.
Well, now looking at all the stuff to write about, I may do it in 2...we'll see.

Anywho, the kids are all happy and settled back into routines and Ben at work and me and my tai-tai life. :) After struggling A LOT before the summer with not working, or cleaning my house, or having my kids around, I wanted to make my life much busier this year. After all, there are only so many times one can go to coffee before you just start twitching from the caffeine intake. :)

I have found an amazing Bible Study for this year- a group of mostly western women in this one that I can relate to and pour my heart out to. In this group I can be me, whether that's inspired, grumpy, happy, broken or whatever else. With this group I can say that I'm struggling with God about some things and still feel accepted and loved. I didn't have that last year and it's what I had missed the most out of my amazing Coffee Break group at home. God provides, my friends, sometimes when you least expect it.

I've also volunteered to be class mum (yes "mUm", not "mOm"- hey, they're Brits...) for Sophia's class this year. This is turning out to be very interesting. So much drama already. :) It's fun, though, and I like to be as involved with her and the school as I can, while I can.

I've also started training for a triathlon that I will participate in next summer when back in Michigan. I'm lacking my spectacular training partner from my half marathon, but I do have a friend that's swimming with me and then the running and biking I muddle through with Lady Gaga, Adelle and Muse. :)

So, I'm keeping busy this fall and feeling much more settled. I think it helps knowing that we are going to be heading home next summer and have many visitors from the States between now and then. Well, actually, now that I type that, that's not the total truth. I really do feel settled here and am happy for the moment being here. Not that I want to stay longer (that's for Ben if he reads this... :).

Ok, on to a few things that we've been up to. So much to see, limited time and all...
There was a Saturday early in September that we decided to head out to downtown and explore a bit. Always a bit scary with not knowing how the various cab rides and subways and locals will go with the kids, but, I'm trying to be a bit more adventerous so, off we went.

We started off with a shuttle bus ride to a Starbucks downtown (priorities, people). This lovely fountain was right outside and Soph liked the statue. Coop just wanted to go for a swim, though, so we had to move on. :)

We hopped into a cab that took us to the Nanjing Pedestrian Street. This was a place that Ben had heard was interesting so we thought we'd start there.
Here's the massive billboard with the gorgeous model...

And this beauty is the walking street (enter "wha wha wha wha whaaaaa" here). There were these neat little trolley things that brought people from one end to the other, but beside that, it was a bit of a dud. We thought it was going to be full of Western stores but they were pretty much all Chinese. I think we were supposed to go there at night when it's all lit up and then we would have been "wow"ed. :)

At the end we went inside this mall-looking thing to plan the next stop. Soph found a venue to perform so while we talked, she danced.

Cooper was beyond mesmerized by the fact that the building was open all the way to the 10th floor.

We then found a Metro (subway) and headed to People's Park, which is a part of the famous People's Square. It's a big park in the middle of the city and we found it pretty interesting.
There were these HUGE lilypad-looking plants in the water. I bet a cat could have stood on one and it wouldn't have sunk. What I should have followed this picture with is a picture of the crowd that quickly was gathering to also get Soph's picture here. We're just so fascinating, you see (riiiight).

At this same pond was a man fishing for lunch. The scene just looked so "China".

This part of People's Park was really fascinating. There were rows and rows and ROWS of people with pieces of paper or billboards or signs. On each was a face and, as far as we could tell, information about them- age, height, etc. We weren't sure if these were missing people or people they were selling or what. They were all younger- maybe in their 20's or 30's.
Come to find out (we asked our language teachers) this is a common dating scene here. The parents go there, post info about their kid and also go looking for a suitable person for their child. They can then meet the other's parents and set up a meeting for their children. And there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of people posted. So odd.

We ended our little adventure with a trip to Pizza Hut. Here, Pizza Hut is a fancy sit down restaurant that has really nice proper food, and pizza, of course.  I can only imagine if a Chinese person walked into a Pizza Hut back home. They'd be so disappointed!! :)

On September 16 several friends and I decided to go out for tea and throw Liz a bit of a baby shower. They apparently don't do baby showers in England (really, they don't do much with pregnancy in general there), so we wanted to give her a few gifts to show her we're excited for this little one to come!
We went to The Peace Hotel downtown by the Bund (right in the heart of downtown on the river). It was quite the "tea" really. I totally should not have had lunch beforehand!

Here we are entering the hotel. Liz is on the right. 9 months pregnant and you can't even tell from behind!

A bit of the savories we enjoyed- samosas, spring rolls, quiches, egg tarts, sausage rolls and more.

Since it is "tea" we all got tea. This fancy man walked around to every table and refilled anyone's hot water. He'd do this little dance whipping that pot around and then would end with pouring it into each person's teapot, never spilling a drop. Hilarious!

Oh yes, and he'd end by standing in this ridiculous stance every time. If I had to do that my thighs would be burning... :)

Laura, Edmee and Leslie enjoying the goods...

Part of my gift to Liz, from Sally and I. These are split pants. Worn by every Chinese child from a very young age until they are potty-trained. The idea is no diapers+split pants= when you gotta go you can just squat and go. Yup. And they do. Everywhere and anywhere (like the grocery aisle). Please know these were a gag gift and we do not intend for her to actually use them. :)

Other baby bits- clothes and blankets and bath things and toys.

Then it was on to the sweets. Oh, the sweets. Chocolates and madelines and brownies and tarts, oh my. I was waddling out.

Our fantastic crew- Leslie, me, Edmee, Liz, Sally and Laura.

A few days later Ben took a day off work and we explored another part of the city together. This was actually fun, even though where we went wasn't that great. Because it was just the 2 of us, we were able to take more time with things and relax.
So we went to this place called the Cool Docks. It's downtown, on the south Bund. It's catered towards westerners but I feel like they kinda missed the mark. It was probably cool to see at night all lit up and full of people as well.

This was the center of the restaurant part of the Cool Docks. There was a large square of various kinds of eateries with this big pond in the middle.

Unfortunately, the coolest looking building in the square turned out to be this Chinese Restaurant. Good thing the coolest looking girl got a pic of it. :)

After walking around a bit we found this fake beach. Someone had brought in a bunch of sand, set up this little area on the dirty, nasty Huang Pu River, and decided to charge people to come sunbath here. So disturbing. So fake. So China. :)

We did come across a few old alleys throughout the Cool Docks area. These were obviously redone to look newer and hip, but they still had the feel of an older time.

There were these random statues set up around the area that we had a bit of fun with. :)

We ended the afternoon by buying some wine from a store owned by the boyfriend of Cooper's teacher. Good prices and good wine. Overall a great day.

Ok, I'm calling this one for now. I have more to write but will leave it for another day.
Thanks for keeping up with us. I'll post some more tomorrow.
God's peace, love and blessings to you all!!

Back into routine (and a few pics from summer I'd forgotten)

Well, hello again.
So, I've been a bit quiet for a while but life has been nicely busy (is that a real term?) getting back into the routines of living in Shanghai and the kids starting school again.

Before I get into the whole school bit and what the last few weeks have been like, I found some pics from the summer that I just loved and really wanted to include here.

One day we headed out to Lake Michigan for a few hours and Cooper was just in heaven! We get so much engagement out of him when he's playing in the water. Here he's playing chase with Ben, then Ben would let him catch him and he'd throw him in the air and repeat. SO much laughter from that boy while they were doing this!

A few more pics from the Color Run. Seriously was so much fun. Any and everyone can do one of these bc you're not even timed- just get a group of people together and have fun!
Another before shot- my sis, Jenn, me, bro-in-law, Pete, and my dad.

After shot, front side...

After shot, back side (thanks to my sis for getting dad and my buns... :)

Family shot- Ben didn't even want to get this close to me. :) I was very dirty....

They may have been playing a song I was enjoying a bit....

Every 15 minutes they would gather a crowd and throw more color. Very dirty, very dusty, but very colorful!

My niece, Megan, didn't run the race, but she may as well have....  :)

 

This was me trying to be artsy. We were walking back to the car after the race and I saw an empty color packet on the ground and I thought it'd make a cool picture. So, here you go... :)

After showering off my parents and our family headed up north to the VP cottage for a week of relaxation. On the way there we stopped by the annual Rottschafer gathering at Emerson Lake. This picture represents the first time my dad and all of his siblings were in the same place for years! My dad is in the middle and he's with his 2 older brothers and 3 younger sisters.

Most of the Rottschafer cousins and their spouses.

While we were up north, Cooper and Ben were swimming one day when Ben noticed Coop was shivering. They got out of the water and Ben buried him in the warm sand. It was so cute bc he stayed here for almost 10 minutes. He's never that still for that long... :)

We were very lucky to get to spend a few days with Ben's little brother, Danny, and his wife, Jodi. They live in Arizona right now and we only get to see them once or twice a year. They came up to the cottage and on this particular day we had gone to Glen Arbor for a little shopping. Danny, Ben, the kids and I found a park and I think Danny had just as much fun there as the kids did...

There was this one seesaw thing that Ben and Danny decided to have a go on. Danny loved it...

Ben was just worried they would break it... :)

The day before we left to go back to Shanghai, several of my very good friends and I went to a park and lake to hang out for the morning. A final hangout for the kids and moms for us until next summer. :( It was so hot and so fun! Here's Soph with her BFFs- Gerrit, Ava, Alanna and Keira. Until next summer... :)

On Aug 17 we were supposed to fly back to Shanghai. Yup, supposed to. We had 7 people come to see us off and help with our 12 checked bags, 7 carry ons, stroller, kids...you get it. We got everything checked in and said our goodbyes. We boarded the plane and within a few minutes were taxiiing out. And then we stopped. And then we were told we were delayed for at least an hour bc of weather in Chicago. So, out came the IPad and Dora. Seriously, what did we do before that thing???

After the hour we were told we were going back to the gate. Another 90 minute delay. At this point we were on the fence about missing our flight to Shanghai and could possibly get stuck in Chicago's airport over night. We made the decision to reschedule everything for the next day. It sounds like that was all so easy and stress-free. Ha! I was a wreck. I had mentally and physically prepared for our 20 hour journey and to have to halt it and go back home. Ugh.

So, we went out to lunch, Sophie and I went and saw Brave, and then we went out to dinner with Ben's parents. It actually was a really nice bonus day after all.
Oh, something else that happened that day that was really cool and a total gift from God straight to me. I think He knew how devestated I was by the whole day delay thing and chose to remind me that He cares. All summer I had been wanting to see these deer in Ben's parents backyard. Ben's brother, Joel, sees them all the time and was constantly sending me pics of them. But I hadn't seen them all summer. That day, as we walked back into their house, knowing we'd have to get up even earlier the next day and recheck all our bags and say our goodbyes again, I looked out the back window and their stood the doe and her 2 bambis. We watched them for about 10 minutes until they finally went on their way. It was so cool and such a gift!

Anyway, the next day we had no problems and had good flights. The kids slept well, ate some, watched some movies. Yay, right? Huh. With about 3 1/2 hours left in the flight we decided Coop needed to sleep some more. He had only slept about 3 hours total since our journey had begun and so we gave him some Clonidine which we'd done twice before with no problems. 15 minutes later, instead of having a sleeping little man, we had a drugged out 3 year old that was petrified and screaming. What followed was 3 of the worst hours of my life. My poor child was exhausted, scared and tripping on this awful...stuff and couldn't stop screaming, crying, shaking... it was my worst nightmare. Ben and I did everything we could to try and sooth his ravaged mind, but to no avail. I cried out to God to sooth my child and for the first time, heard silence. It was devestating. I've never been so angry with Him. He finally fell asleep just as we were landing and then woke up and was in a coma-like state for the hour ride home. Once we got to the apartment he started screaming again and we couldn't get him to calm down again. 2 hours later he finally just passed out so we put him to bed. He slept for the next 14 hours.

I don't think there are any lasting effects from those hours of terror for him, but there has been for me. I have really struggled with the fact that I felt God there, that he was watching me call to him for help, and that he chose to be silent. As I write this a month later, I am still hurt by what happened to Cooper but the sting has softened a bit. I don't know why God was silent but I'll know some day. I choose to trust in His promises of good for my life and that'll have to be good enough for now.

So, we got back on a Saturday night and Coop was supposed to start school on Monday. After his trauma I was debating sending him, but it ended up being a good thing. Getting back into the routine he was familiar with was just what he needed. He was happy to return to his school, as evidenced by this picture taken by his teacher in that first week back...

Sophia's first day of Year 1 (kindergarten for you US folk) was on Aug 27 and she went from really excited to go to really nervous to excited again. All normal things, I'm sure. :)
Here's her first day of school picture...

At the bus stop. My friend, Liz, is shown here very excited that both of her kids are in school fulltime this year! That is, until that little baby comes around the second week of October... ;)

In line to get on the bus. Getting nervous... I went with her on this first day bc I wasn't sure she'd know the routine of lining up by her class yet.

She wanted to hold my hand as we rode the 5 minutes to school. Will she always want me there when she's feeling unsure? :)

Once we got to school things brightened significantly at the arrival of her best bud here, Rachael. They were very happy to see each other!

Waving bye as she heads inside to start another year. I'm glad she likes school but I miss her when she's gone all day. Too fast they grow up...

Ok, of course so much more has happened since the first day of school. I will post again soon and what else we've been up to.
I pray you are all healthy and back into the routines of school and life as well. Enjoy these last few weeks of warmth- all too soon it will be winter again!