Our New House!! The first floor anyway!

For the past week and a half, I have been surrounded by boxes and boxes, but I can happily say that as of yesterday my house is box free (unless you count my ayi's random box of stuff on the third floor!!)! It took much longer than I anticipated to unpack and get settled. This was party due to the fact that I underestimated all of the "stuff" we have and also because this time of year is extremely busy! I am thankful that we will come back from the US in January to a house ready to be enjoyed!

The first floor is almost complete, the only thing I need to do is hang up pictures. We love the open floor plan, it is much better for our family! I also love the fact that the kids have a playroom on the first floor and my kitchen is wonderful! It is actually probably bigger than my kitchen was in the US! Danny loves his 60 inch flatscreen and his big, comfy sofa!! We have heated floors on all three levels which keeps the house nice and toasty - sometimes a little too hot! Our landlords are absolutely wonderful (so far anyway!). On our second night here, we had no hot water. Well, it turns out that our house is quite "green" so we run on solar to heat our water. This becomes a problem when the sun has been hiding for days at a time, so you end up with no hot water until the electricity kicks on at 5:00am. They taught us how to manually turn on the electricity to heat the water anytime we need it. You may think this is not a big deal, but here in China it is huge. Most owners are just thankful that their houses are rented and they don't go above and beyond to make sure the tenants are comfortable. These people genuinely seem to care if we are happy and comfortable - it is a welcome change to fighting over the silliest things at our old place!

You can see that all 5 of us can comfortably fit on the sofa!! Although the furniture is not completely my taste (even though I did help pick it out!), it is way better than the modern, uncomfortable look in our old house!The dining room table has plenty of room for dinner guests - hint, hint. We are all ready for visitors if there are any takers!!The fridge is direct from the US with an English manual and everything!! The English manual is reason enough for me to celebrate!! Actually all of the appliances except for the solar water heater have English manuals!
You can barely see my wonderful dishwasher!! Oh, I truly love modern appliances! The kids have been spoiled with a large screen tv in their playroom. Eens immediately figured out how to turn it to Nickolodeon!

Plenty of shelf space for all of the kids books and games!!

We asked for a futon like sofa so if our ayi stays over she will have a room on the first floor!

Overall, we love our new house! The only thing we miss are our wonderful neighbors!!

The Wait is Finally Over!!

Danny and I no longer have to listen to Coop ask if he can go to his best buddy's house!! On Sunday his friend's mommy invited Coop over to help them decorate the Christmas tree. It was a lovely afternoon and so fun to watch Coop bond with his friend. Even the nursery teachers are amazed at the strong bond the two of them have. For their age, it is very unusual, but I am cherishing every moment of it! They adore each other which means that Coop cannot wait to go to school every day. Every Sunday he asks if he has school, when I say no, he asks, "Can I go to Isaiah's house?". In the morning when we arrive Coop first looks to make sure that Isaiah's coat is in his locker, then he goes into the room and Isaiah runs over and gives him a race car. After this ritual, they check out each other's shirt color to determine what color of fireman they are that day! Their friendship is very simple and pure, pretty much what we all strive for even as adults!

Christmas Ball 2009

Last year at this time, Danny and I went on our first date night in China to the TICC Christmas Ball. We had a good time, but we did not really have too many strong connnections yet. What a difference a year can make. This past Saturday night we enjoyed a night of fun, food, and dancing with a large number of the expat community. It was fun to get dressed up with our heels on and go dancing. The only thing is, the music is always pretty bad at these events - they play things that were popular 10 years ago, but we are really beginning to embrace Bon Jovi's Now or Never song (not sure of the exact title!!). I could probably sing it in my sleep! It is also very interesting to watch which groups of expats like different types of music.

We sat at a wonderful table with our dear Brits, our new friends from America, and our dear Australian friends! We all had a good laugh at the expense of our individual quirks that derive from the countries we are from. Most of our non-American friends tease us that everything is "always bigger and better in America"! I used to think this, but over these past 18 months, I've realized that some things may be bigger, but not always better - I'm opening up my eyes a little! It's very interesting to view your country from the eyes of someone else!

It's still not normal!

I was beginning to think that I had lost that, "oh my gosh, I can't believe I am seeing this" feeling, but on Saturday night I got it back! Danny and I were on our way to the Christmas Ball (more to come on that in the next post) when we walked by the piano player at the Sheraton. I had to do a double take because she was up on stage, by herself mind you, with a mask on. Now I know the masks serve a couple of purposes...one is to protect yourself and others from germs and another one is to protect you from the cold wind on a freezing day. Obviously, neither of these reasons apply here because she was on stage by herself in the nice and cozy Sheraton lobby! I'm still baffled, but I guess to each his own!!

Starry, Starry Night

Last Thursday in the midst of our chaotic move, the kids had their winter show at school. It was nice to take a little break for the night and go to enjoy the Christmas spirit with the munchkins! They all did a wonderful job singing away with their Santa hats on! Coopie made it through the nursery segment, but pulled the big puppy eyes on his way up to the stage for the finale! Probably against my better judgement, he ended up on my lap with Danny giving me the "he is 3 years old and he should be up on stage with all of his friends" look...I guess I decided to pick my battles and not have a screaming child for everyone to stare at!

He is such a little monkey!!

Moving Right Along!

As of Monday, we are officially "country folk" in Tianjin! We had our belongings packed up and moved to our new home close to school. I have been unpacking box after box after box this week and I still have two rooms left to unpack! I honestly cannot believe all of the things we have accumulated in just 18 months of being here. Danny giggles because I had an estimate for the movers to pack us up and the guy thought we had almost 19 square meters, he was a bit off, we ended up with almost 36 square meters! He was 50% off - I must be very organized or as Danny says I am really good at "hiding" things!!

This is the current state of the toy room...obviously I have a long way to go! I am hoping to be pretty much unpacked before the kids and I come back to the states in a week!

And here is our new friend, the penguin! The owners gave it to the boys and they think it is the greatest...Danny and I are a bit scared!!
I'll post some more pictures as we get "organized" and "hide" all of our things!!

Singing Sensations!

Last Saturday night we had an extremely enjoyable time with good friends and good fun singing away! I got my first opportunity to go to a KTV here in China! These are very popular with the locals and I have been curious since I arrived and saw these huge buildings with KTV on them! Danny has been a couple of times for work functions and that just made me want to go more!

We went to a KTV that was located on the upper level of one of the department stores I like to frequent! The place was made up of a maze of rooms that could be rented out. We rented out a large room that held 30 people. It was a great room with a stage, seating and then a bar area at the back. The karoake equipment seemed very modern, but I don't really know much about it! There was not a huge selection of songs in English, but we found enough to keep us going for over 3 hours!! Some of the songs we hadn't heard in ages and honestly some of the songs I had never heard at all!! But it didn't matter, I found my next calling - karoake singing!!

It's amazing how these places function, I'm just not sure it would work in the US. The only employees we saw were a couple who brought in drinks and then the ones stationed in the hallways that helped me several times find my way back to the room after a quick trip to the potty! They knew exactly which room we were in because we were the only foreigners there!! A lot of the Chinese rent single rooms and go in and practice singing - obviously they take it much more seriously than a bunch of crazy laowai (foreigners!)!

Obviously, we still only have eyes for each other!! Hehe!!