Quality Issues

We continue to enjoy our surroundings and learn new things everyday. My most recent lessons have been in the quality that goes into the work here in China. It is no wonder that there is lead in our toys, because although there is no question whether or not the Chinese are hard workers, when they fix something it is not always done right the first time, or the second time, or the third time - do you get the picture?! Let me explain...

My first exposure to poor quality came the second night we were here. My children were filthy because I had been too tired the previous night to give them a bath, so I gave in to my cleanliness gene and put them in the tub. They were happily playing away after many warnings of, "whatever you do, do not drink the water." I'm zoning out while sitting on the toilet lid next to the tub, just like I did in the states! All of sudden, there is a big bang and my tush is through the toilet lid and almost touching the toilet water. Yes, the toilet lid broke with me on it!!! I'm not that heavy, so I have to blame this on poor quality. Now one would think that after a person falls through a toilet lid, when it is replaced, a better quality lid would be put on so it won't happen again. Not here, they just replaced it with the exact same lid. I guess I won't be sitting on the toilet anymore!!

Our second lesson in quality of workmanship came after we had been here about a week. I was laying in bed - it was a peaceful morning, the kids were still sleeping and all of a sudden I here water coming from somewhere! I listen upstairs to see if one of the kids had flushed the toilet, nope, it was still quiet. I get out of bed and then I see water dropping onto the floor in our bedroom. It is dripping slowly out of the ceiling. I call Grace (one of the managers here) and explain the problem. She sends someone over immediately. It turns out that a pipe has a hole in it so they put tape around it. You read right - tape over a hole in a pipe! Now I'm sure in their mind they had fixed the problem at least for the moment. I told Grace that that was not going to work and thankfully she did have them replace the pipe after I explained to her that after a few days, the tape was not going to hold the water back. My mind was screaming, "have you ever heard of MOLD?"!!!

This last bit on quality has to do with Dan at work. The people here do know they have issues in quality, but I don't think they really know how to fix it. At work, Danny's employees are trying to work out the kinks so they had a quiz "show" about quality. Apparently this quiz "show" went on for several weeks until they were down to just 2 or 3 teams for the finals. They asked Danny if he could sit in on the finals and hand out the trophy. He did sit in and to hear him tell the story just made me giggle. They took this quiz very seriously and he said that when he presented the trophy the people were as happy as could be and the audience was cheering like crazy! I couldn't believe that a factory with 1500 employees could take time out of the day to play the quality quiz "show" game. I guess they are trying to move in the right direction!!

In all honesty, I do believe that China is growing so quickly and they have to get things done so fast that they just don't have time to worry too much if it is going to last. There are so many service people here that fixing something is not an issue. I was teasing Grace the other day. We were talking about the Olympics Opening Ceremony and I told her how impressive it was. But I said that I couldn't believe that a country could put on such a spectacular show and still not be able to process credit cards!!! Yes, it is a little behind the times here and things break quite often, but the people make up for all this! Their kindness and hospitality continues to amaze us and make us thankful that we are here!

Wacky Weekend!

I'm sitting here pondering whether family fun and being out is worth skipping a 2 year old's nap time. He is currently sitting in time out screaming because he is tired, but it is now too late to put him down for a nap! Sound familiar?!

We've been enjoying a lot of family time this weekend and of course during meal time we are drawn to the Western franchises! We eat Chinese food all week because that is what our ayi cooks for us. As you can see below, Coop is a big fan! However, on the weekend we like to indulge in our favorites like pizza and burgers! Last night at TGIF Danny and I were commenting on how different we were as a family from the previous weekend. We definitely were more awake, but there was more. We are stronger and connected in ways that a family can only be when they are together on the other side of the world. We count on each other for everything. The kids look to Danny and I to meet all of their needs. We have tried to make this move as easy as possible. We want the kids to know they are safe and loved no matter where we may be. I am almost positive (as I listen to them sing and dance upstairs) that they do not question our intent! Thank goodness for our three wonderful kids who prove to us each and every day that love knows no boundaries!!


We finally succeeded in finding a bike for Ellie yesterday. This was quite the experience and we were so fortunate to have our friend Sharon with us (she is with us in the picture below!). Ellie really wants training wheels, but Danny and I think she needs to learn to ride without them. She is almost 7 for goodness sakes!! Well, she will now have to learn to ride without the help because she is too big for all of the bikes with training wheels here and they don't sell them seperately! Danny worked with her for a little bit yesterday, but it was wicked hot out! I'm going to try this week to help build up her confidence, but if anyone has any suggestions, we welcome them!!


This morning we went to church. Coop had a little difficulty going to the nursery this week. I think he went so easily last week because he had no clue I was leaving. This week I left him crying because I assumed he would calm down once I was gone (isn't that what most kids do!). Not Coop, he is my fiesty little guy. One of the teachers had to come to us during the service. Danny went to calm him down and then he had a ball! We had a great speaker today from Australia. He was quite entertaining and had a wonderful message to share. His message was simple, love is patient. He talked about how sad it was in so many countries that people live alone because they cannot be bothered to be patient with those around them. Here in China, love has to be patient. Families live in very small spaces and they must depend on each other. Here, family is everything. We can all learn something about love from the Chinese family unit!

After church, we were able to meet some more new families. We have felt so welcome! We went to lunch with Jennifer and Kevin again. This time to a yummy French sandwich shop. The kids all had their own table so it was nice to get to chat in between pulling apart Eens and Ty. I think they really like each other, almost too much. They both like to touch and end up in a wrestling match! Typical 4 year old boy stuff I think! Ty just got a cast off of his arm though, so we have to be careful that Eens isn't too rough!


After we finished lunch, I realized that dear Coop needed a new diaper. This was the moment I was dreading - we had to use a public bathroom. We all know that public restrooms are best avoided, but here in China, I would rather pee outside than go into one of these! But, we were in a shopping center so we had no choice. I held my nose and lead Coop and Ellie into the bathroom. Okay, there is no changing table. I think to myself that I am going to have to change Coop standing up. This would normally not be a problem, but there is poop in his diaper. He is my third child, so I go for it! I was just thankful that the ice he had ate the night before didn't cause diarhea (the water here is not really good for drinking and I forgot to order the kids drinks without ice!). Coop was all set and now I had to show Ellie how to use a squatter. She walked in and saw the hole in the ground and turned around and walked right back out. There was no way she was going to use the potty. Of course, I was giggling and took a picture so you all know I am not exagerating about the squatter. Next time El will probably listen to me when I say go to the bathroom before we leave the house!!!

I hope everyone is enjoying the Olympics! We love watching, we just wish we could understand what they are saying!!! Have a great Sunday!

More Nonsense!

We continue to try and figure out ways to make one day more exciting than the day before! We had to take a break from outings after the zoo experience though, so yesterday I left the ayi home with all three children and I ventured off to WalMart. WalMart is located in the downtown area which is odd, but just like at home, it was packed! I had fun cruising the aisles by myself! I found almost everything I needed, which is hard to believe here. I proceeded to the check out and commended myself for doing such a great job! Not so fast though. I just assumed since this was WalMart, they had to accept credit cards. I pulled out my cute little Mickey Mouse Visa and smiled at the cashier who looked at me and shook his head. Neither of us could understand each other so I pulled out every credit card in my wallet - American Express, Von Maur, Gymboree, none of them would work!! I waited for about 20 minutes while they got a manager who spoke English. She was as sweet as could be and informed me that they only accept Mastercard, the one card I don't have! Figures! I pulled the important things out, like play doh, gel pens, paper for the kids, and had to leave the rest behind! Oh well, it was a learning experience, and now I know the importance of carrying enough yuan!

Today the kids and I met Jennifer and her kids at a swimming pool. The majority of the pools are indoor due to the bad air quality. This pool had a little area for the kids with a waterfall and then a large lap pool. The kids had a ball splashing around and playing with the other kids. The funny thing was we all had to wear swim caps. At first Ethan refused to put it on, but then I think he liked it! Here's a picture of him and Coop back home playing with their new treasures!

They are too cute and very silly!

I mentioned before that we spend as much time as we can outside in the afternoon. Here are some pictures of what I allow my children to play on. I know what you're thinking, but my standards have changed!!! A little rust isn't going to hurt anyone!!!

Also, my family has been asking about what our house (I call it a duplex) looks like! This is a picture from the outside, we are the house on the right! I'll post inside pictures later this weekend!

And of course, this is Eensie's very special bike! He loves to ride and we fortunately live in a gated compound so he can ride all over without worrying about cars!

And last, but definitely not least, my Ellie pretending to be a ballerina!

I'm not too sure that the Olympics are in her future!!

If you watch any Olympic soccer matches, many of them will be played not too far from our house! Enjoy the opening ceremony - I'm sure it will be spectacular!

I'm off to put the littlest St. Martin down for a nap!

Our First Week

It is hard to believe that we have made it through our first week. I'm not sure it was the easiest week, but we muddled through and made the best of it! Of course, the hardest part about being here, besides missing family and friends, is the language barrier. I have been so thankful that everyone I have encountered is very understanding and helpful. Hand signals and my little Mandarin book have gotten me through. I now feel pretty comfortable shopping and going out to eat. I am excited to start my Chinese lessons - I would love to be able to communicate on a deeper level than I can now. I'm sure there are so many stories and information that I am missing due to my inability to understand!

The kids and I have been trying to come up with some sort of routine that works for us while Danny is at work. This week we have been doing some sort of activity in the morning, resting in the afternoon, playing outside, doing some schoolwork or games, then eating dinner. That pretty much sums up our days! Nighttime is spent playing some more and then tubs. It is pretty dirty here, so a tub is necessary every night!

Yesterday Ellie got to go over to her new friend Rachel's house to play. She had so much fun and I loved seeing her interact with someone her own age. I was over at Jennifer's (Rachel's mom) house also, so it was nice for me to get to visit and hang out for a little bit! It's so easy to relate to other mom's no matter where in the world you are. We all have the same stories, the same struggles, so there is that instant bond! I'm so happy I'm a mom!

After making sure El was comfortable staying at Rachel's, the boys and I went to Nan Jing Lu, it is a street that kind of reminds me of a Michigan Avenue (except you're in China!). Our driver came with us and helped push the stroller and carry packages. I love all of the help, but I am just not used to it. I will probably never get used to people bending over backwards so that I don't have to lift a finger. I think that is a good thing because once we are back in the states, I'm on my own again! I'll enjoy it while I can. After some toy shopping and playing, the boys insisted on Pizza Hut. Here, Pizza Hut is a nice sit down meal, not a quick bit to eat. It was fun spending the time with the boys. I was so proud of myself for ordering and paying the bill without any help! I ordered using some Chinese and even asked for the bill in Chinese!

Today I decided to take the kids to the zoo since we have been driving past it everyday and they really wanted to go. Let's just start off by saying I'm pretty sure the zoo would not meet the standards of a zoo in America. Danny had warned me about it because he had went before we got here. He also said that I may want to charter a plane home after going. Therefore, I went to the zoo with very few expectations and as usual left with plenty of stories and giggles. First, the zoo is huge and it is located right in the middle of the city. Just like at Lincoln Park Zoo, you look up and you are surrounded by skyscrapers! The walkways were as clean as they come here. So far so good. Then we get to the exhibits - oh my. I felt terrible for the poor animals. They do not do a good job at all of attempting to keep them in their natural environment. Most of the animals are in cages or behind glass with little room to move. There were a couple of exceptions, the deer were walking freely and the kids could pet them (don't worry mom, I drowned the kids in sanitizer afterwards!), the alligators were in dirty water, but they seemed very happy (how do you know if an alligator is happy?), and there were monkeys on the lose. I must clarify the monkeys, because I almost peed myself from laughing so hard! We go into this gated exhibit and Cooper and ayi stayed outside because of the stroller and Coop was eating a popsicle. I can't read the signs, so I just assumed we were going to see some monkeys in their natural habitat. We start walking down the path and I think to myself, "Oh, this is really cute, there is a play area for the monkeys and we can just sit and watch them up close." At first we didn't see them coming, but then I looked up and saw all of these little monkeys running out towards the path. Surely they cannot get out of their exhibit. Ah, but we are in China, so yes, the little monkeys are running down the path right at us! For those of you who know Eens well, you know he is scared of his shadow. I think him and I both realized what was happening at the same time because he started bawling and running the other way. El and I were running after him laughing hysterically and all of the workers were laughing so hard too. I'm not sure they had every seen a little American boy who was so afraid of the monkeys! Once we were safe, I thought to myself that we will probably skip that exhibit next time! After that adventure, we were very hot and hungry, so we headed home! Here are some pictures of our morning!

Here are a few more...the last one is the monkey exhibit!!

Where the green gate is open, is where those crazy monkeys just started running out!!!

In my first week here in Tianjin, I have convinced myself that laughter truly is the best medicine!

We Did Not Feel the Earthquake

I've had several people call and ask if we are okay from the earthquake that happened yesterday. We are fine and honestly didn't feel a thing! I had no idea that it had happened until I was chatting with my friend Heidi and she asked if we had felt the earthquake. I had to go onto Yahoo to read about it! Hopefully the damage was minimal. It was located very close to the "big one" that occurred in May. Apparently the Olympic torch had just passed through the area hours earlier. Speaking of the Olympics, please pray that all goes well and that the Olympics truly reflects the hard work done by the athletes and this coutry in their preparations.

I'll write more later today - we're off to the zoo!

Exploring Little by Little

We have been venturing out beyond our compound these past couple of days, and it is not as scary as I thought it would be!

Yesterday El and Coop got up bright and early, maybe 4:30am, ready to start the day! El was excited that the tooth fairy had found her here in China and who knows why Coop was up! Danny and Eens slept until almost 8:00 - boy was I jealous! I decided to start the day off right with a big pot of coffee (I'm back to straight caffeine girls - no more half caf - it just doesn't do the job right now!!)! Then I made some yummy scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon! So far, so good! Next we had to attempt to get ready for church by 9:30! You would think that since some of us had been up since 4:30 that would be an easy task, but of course we were still rushed by the end!


We found the church which is actually located in a travel university that is under construction for the summer. We had to go to the third floor auditorium where I'm not quite sure that the AC was working, but we made it and found seats. We were actually one of the first families there. Right now the church has to be extremely careful only letting foreign passport holders through the door. That is the only way the government will allow them to congregate and during the Olympics the government will be more strict. It is sad that so many people do not have the religious freedom that we do in the States.


I have to say that once the service started it was so nice to sing and worship like back home! The actual setting was not nearly as clean and comfortable as BCC, but it didn't matter to me! I have a feeling that will be something I look forward to all week! The service itself was very much like home. We sang contemporary Christian music - which I enjoyed, then the kids were dismissed for Sunday School. The congregation is small enough that they actually ask individuals to come forward with prayer requests. That was a nice touch! After the service was over I picked up Eens and Coop (who loved playing with children their age) and Dan and El waited for me! When I came down, we started chatting with a lovely family and ended up going to lunch with them. It was all so refreshing! For those few hours I forgot that I was in China! Jennifer and Kevin have lived in China with their 2 children, Rachel (6) and Ty(4) for awhile and they had so many tips to offer. We all had a great time and cannot wait to get together again soon!


All in all, I was exhausted by the end of the day, but it was a good day! Plus my eyes only welled up one time all day!

Today Danny went back to work. I knew I had to get out of the house this morning, so after getting to skype with my sister Steph and talk to Jenny and Jeannie on the phone, I prepared to leave the house with all three children and the ayi in tow! I had my little Mandarin book with me and Danny had already explained to the driver where I wanted to go, so we were off! We ended up at E Mart (a shopping center) that has a child's play area. The kids had a ball running and playing in the sand. It was so nice to have ayi with me because she could keep track of Coop while I watched El and Eens! Here are some pictures of them...

It was going great until we had to leave and then my sweet, dear Eens became a bear! So what did I do to reward the behavior, I bought him a bike so he would be quiet! Honestly, I was going to buy him one anyway, but it had to be done immediately. My tactic did work, but I'm pretty sure Danny is not going to be real happy about it!

I must wake my sleeping boys if I hope to get any sleep tonight!

Getting Settled and Dealing with Jet Lag!

Well, we've been in our new house for 3 days and in some ways it feels like we've been here a lot longer! I'm not sure if that is good, or bad, but that's how I feel! We are all suffering from jet lag at this point, so patience is hard to come by! I have been getting up with Cooper at least 3 times a night. A few times I have even caught him trying to crawl in bed with Eensie! It would have been endearing if it were not 2:00am. Last night Danny thought someone was at the door at 1:00am, turns out it was just Cooper knocking away on his door upstairs! Due to lack of sleep at night, Coop attempts to take nice long naps during the afternoon! Oh how I wish I could have one of those!

We have been very busy trying to get everything unpacked! As of yesterday, all of the suitcases were put away and all the boxes from the air shipment were empty! Now we just have to wait for the big arrival of our sea shipment which should be in the middle of August!

We are learning that for everything that is easy in China (ayi cooking, cleaning, doing laundry), there are about five things that are harder here! Just to give you a couple of examples, I got a digital alarm clock 2 days ago and we cannot set it correctly. All of the instructions are in Chinese and even the Chinese cannot figure it out! Then, I decided I needed to get a cell phone to be able to call our driver to pick me up, talk to ayi, or Danny during the day. I have no idea how 600 million (I just read this statistic) people in this country use cell phones. First you have to buy the phone, should be easy, right! Not quite, you have to go to the booth, decide the phone you want, take the phone booklet across the store to the cashier, pay, she stamps a bunch of paper, and then you go back to the booth, they check all of the stamps and then you get the phone. Next you must purchase your service. To do this, you must go to another building altogether. We had to find a specific China Mobile branch that would allow me to make and place calls outside of Tianjin! And the worst part is, I have to go in the branch and physically pay every month - have they not heard of on-line banking???

There is a funny part to the whole cell phone adventure! Dan and I have figured out that it takes about twice as long to do anything here, so we thought that it would be a good idea to leave El and Eens at home with our ayi while we got the phone! All was going fine until we get a call from our ayi. We can't understand her, so she puts Eens on the phone. He is sobbing away to the point that I can't even understand him. I finally get him to calm down and ask what was wrong. It turns out that ayi had given him a princess sippy cup and not a Thomas sippy cup to drink out of!! We got a much needed laugh out of that on our way home and for dinner, ayi was giggling and made sure Eens got a "boy" cup!!

Today we decided to take the kids to the water park in the city. It is a nice park with water features and a little amusement park. I'm not sure how safe all of the rides are, but El and Danny went on a log ride and had fun! We rented this little car that the kids could drive around the whole park! It was fun, but extremely hot!

We also had to get our US fix - a little McDonald's for lunch and TGIF for dinner is always good for the soul!

This last picture is of El toothless! She lost her second front tooth at about 5:00am this morning! She is very excited to see if the toothfairy will bring her US money or Yuans (Chinese currency). I'm pretty sure she'll get the Yuans - it saves the toothfairy a little money!

We continue to miss everyone a ton, but hearing from so many of you brings many smiles to our faces! We're off to church tomorrow, I'll let you know how that goes!