Meet our Ayi............Xiao Liu!

This is our Ayi, Xiao Liu.  She is my right hand woman. She used to be an Ayi for some friends of ours that just moved back to the States.  I truly don't know what I would do without her.  She, along with our driver, really look out for our family.  They are definelty now part of our family too!  Xiao Liu is so kind and efficient.  She helps me translate and works with me and the girls on our Mandarin.  Not to mention that she keeps one tidy household and is a heck of a cook.  I wonder if she would move back home with us in 3 years??????  Kelly is in heaven having freshly ironed clothes everyday and great meals at night.  Hope he doesn't get too used to it.  Once we go home it's back to hamburger helper and wearing wrinkled shirts to work!!!  LOL

The girls love Xiao Liu

Tucker arrives in China!

On Sunday, August 26th, Kelly flew from Chicago to Beijing with Tucker.  He was crated in his brand new dog carrier with a little food, water, a pad and his favorite stuffed toy puppy.  They landed in Beijing around 2:00 pm (our time).  Kelly went through a program called "pet safe" and was told that they could check on Tucker during flight and that when they landed Kelly could see Tucker before he was taken to quarantine (where he was to be held for 7 days).  Kelly was informed mid flight that there was no possible way to check on Tucker during the flight but he did see them taking Tucker off the plane from the cargo compartment once they had landed.  Kelly then proceeded to baggage claim by the temporary quarantine to find Tucker.  They told Kelly that Tucker wasn't there.  He had to go to lost and found to find out what they did with him.  He finally, with the help of our awesome driver, Mr. Lou, found out that they had taken him to Air China's cargo hold.  This was a bit of a ways away.  They went to the cargo office and from there go to 3 different places to get paper work and stamps, blah blah blah.  After paying a ridiculous amount of money they let Kelly go back and check on the poor boy (he had been in a crate for over 20 hours by this time!).  He was being held in a cargo hold with one other dog in a crate.  Kelly let him out in this dingy cargo hold and petted him and let him do his business in their building (thats what they get for being ridiculous).  He stayed with him for an hour but they would not release him without more paper work and stamps and blah, blah, blah......Tucker chewed him out royally for making him go back in that crate.  It was hard for Kelly to put him in and walk away but there was nothing he could do (and he had been awake for over 30+ hours at this point).  Kelly finally arrived home around 8:00pm and the girls could see the anguish on his face.  They were very upset.  The only upside was the goodies that Grandma Wilson and Ella's friend Kendall sent back with him, and the Garrett's Carmel corn he bought in Chicago.  Thank God for good ole US snacks!  (P.S. thank you momma for the chocolate...another couple of weeks may go by where I don't feel like I want to punch someone in the face because of you!) 
 The next morning Kelly and myself set out to break Tucker out of that hell hole.  Nobody checks on the dogs in there so we went back to Air China cargo and had to go through the same process as the night before (3 different buildings, 3 different papers and stamps etc. etc.  a bunch more money) just to get in and see him, feed him, let him out for a moment.  We then had to pay some young man an ungodly amount of money to walk us through the process of getting our dog out of cargo.  We started the day at 9:00am and after yelling at people (on Kelly's part) and literally sobbing (on my part) we were able to get our hands on Tucker at 4:30pm.  There was a crowd of about 20 Chinese men watching our reunion with our sweet boy.  He chewed us out for a little bit and I ran him around on his leash and let him do his business on anything he wanted to!!  Take that!!  We then piled him in our car along with the man from quarantine and went to a few more places for papers and stamps and more money.......we finally arrived at quarantine where the man got out of our car and took Tucker out of our crate and walked away with him.........no good byes, no wet sloppy kisses, nothing!!  I can only pray that quarantine is a lot better than what he was in.  They said it is temperature controlled and that they walk., feed and water him everyday.  I am going to have to turn a blind eye and just suck it up until Monday morning when I will be breaking down the door of that darn place to retrieve my son.  Thank goodness Grandma Wilson fattened him up while he was there.  He weighed in at 109lbs.
My thought on this.......and there are many......is, what on earth do they do with all of that paper work??  I know sometimes we feel like they are overzealous in the US on things but I have never in my life seen a bigger racket! 

That is Tuckers crate (big square box) coming off the plane.

The cargo hold where he spent over 24 hours in solitary confinement!



A stressed, but alive and well Tucker Lee DeSmet.

In the hood in Yosemite!

Today is Saturday, August 25 and the girls headed out with the neighbor girls to explore.  They returned home and came up with this great idea to have a lemonade stand.  There were several neighborhood boys that were by the park area trying to sell fish and turtles that they had caught.  My girls have always wanted to do this, but there were only like 2 cars that ever came by our driveway.  So they made a stand out of cardboard boxes and made a batch of the only drink mix I had in the house.......crystal lite Mojito's.  I thought it wasn't a great idea to call them Mojito's though so they called them the sweet and sour drink!  I walked down to check this all out and there were tons of people out and about.  When I got to the "sweet and sour" stand the girls were beaming with pride.  Those stinkers had made about 41 RMB (roughly $7 US dollars)  but they were only selling them for 1 RMB a piece.  I think they need to raise their price!!!  As I walked home I felt tears coming.........this is exactly what being a kid is about!!  I just feel so blessed with this whole experience so far!  Tomorrow the kids are heading back out with some of the "junk" that we brought along that we shouldn't have.  They are going to sell them at their stand............I think we may have some little entrepreneurs on our hands!  Kelly will be so proud!

Cha-ching!

India (Australia),  Marie (Germany), Julia, Ella and Annique (Australia)

The boys didn't like the girls honing in on their "territory".

The boys collect fish and turtles from this little pond and sell them for a great price!  LOL

Me and Jules hanging out on the swing.

Julia's first school dance!

Julia had her first school dance on Friday!  It was for all of the ISB middle school kids.  Of course, Julia had to go in style.  She was rocking a pair of crutches that she received from the school nurse after she sprained her ankle at soccer practice Thursday night.  As if my legs weren't killing enough, I literally had to carry her on my back, home from school after I found her in the infirmary.  It has been fun for her climbing all of these stairs too!!
A couple of her friends from school, that live in the neighborhood, came over and all got ready together.  They are both sweet girls.  Both are originally from Australia and are named India.  Jules returned home and was hurting but had fun!  I asked her if she danced with any boys and she said that one had asked her but she gave the lame excuse that she was on crutches!!! LOL  I thinks she is going to fake an injury every time there is a dance now!!!

Julia, India and India ready to throw some shapes!

Ella and Annique hung out at home with me!!!

Moving In!

On Tuesday the girls went to school and I met our new Ayi (means Auntie in Chinese).  Her name is Xiao Liu and she was recommended to us from some of our friends.  She met me at our house along with the 8 China men moving crew.  They were all very efficient and by 4:00 had all of my belongings in the house and assembled.  Then came the fun part of putting everything away!  (it is Sat. night here and I still don't have everything put away)  This is why I am a little delinquent on getting things posted this week!
All in all it has gone pretty smoothly.  The house is quite lovely and had a few (estimated 50) steps from bottom to top.  I had my first grocery shopping experience. ( I came out with like 5 things and it cost me a ridiculous amount of money)  I also went to the Chinese Walmart with Xiao Liu.  Let me tell you,  that was an experience.  I wish I had my camera in there because it is not your typical Walmart shopping!!  We picked up cleaning supplies and some other things, including some lunch.  Xiao Liu introduced me to some Chinese noodles (that looked pretty inoffensive).  We got them at the counter (equivalent to the US Walmart counter where you buy fried chicken).  This should have been my first red flag!  But what could I say, I was literally starving as I only had 5 things in my refrigerator.  So we got home and I dished out the noodles that had Tofu in them.  My first bite was not bad.  By the time I had my 3rd bite my face went numb from the fire that was raging inside my mouth!!  I am sure that I was sweating profusely.  I swigged down a few bottles of water and was back to unpacking some boxes!  The next morning I walked the kids to school.  (We live close enough to just foot it there.)  When I came back home my stomach was not doing well........(I am sure you can see where this is going)  You know, if I didn't know any better I would have thought that my Ayi was already trying to kill me!!! That Johnny Cash song kept reverberating in my head "I fell into that burning ring of fire....etc"  I knew bad things were a coming and I must have been a site to my poor Ayi as I literally hobbled up all 50 stairs to the master bathroom on the third floor.  When I slowly returned to ground level Xiao Liu just smiled at me and said "how you today?"  "Oh great", I replied smiling.  What I wanted to say is, "Well, I can hardly walk from going up and down all these darn stairs the last 2 days and to top it off I feel like I need to sit on a bucket of ice!"  I just stuck with the "oh great" because she is so nice and I truly don't know what I would have done without her this last week.  I think we are going to get along great! (As long as we steer clear of the Walmart)

Last night in the hotel!!!

Monday, August 20th was our last night in the Marriott.  Our shipment has arrived!!  We had to say our goodbyes to the lovely staff that had become part of out family.  We even received cards from some of the girls in the executive lounge that "took care"  of us in so many ways!! 
Kelly left to head back to the US for some business meetings and to collect our sweet boy, Tucker, who had been been living with my parents for the last 3 months.  So it was just us girls.  We celebrated by walking down to a good Texas barbecue restaurant for some beef brisket and some red velvet cupcakes.  (good sweets are hard to come by here)  We then hung out in the room and amused ourselves by face timing with friends, doing a photo shoot and Julia put on a fashion show for us.  She came up with about 10 different wedding dress styles all by using the same fluffy white hotel towel!  I think she may be on to something!!!

A visit to Kelly's office

3 story escalator in the Gateway building

Julia in front of one of the many huge palm trees inside the building.

Ella bell

We love our deere daddy!

Inside the building which comes complete with a wine store and a Starbucks inside!

This is a ship that is made out of some type of stone located inside the foyer!

After our fun at the park we made a stop at the Gateway building were Kelly works.  It is an impressive building that has two 25 story office towers connected by a three story retail podium and 3 levels of basement car parking.  It was like an amusement park ride just going up a 3 story elevator!

Chaoyang Park

On, Saturday, August 18 we ventured out to the Chaoyang Park. It is the largest park in China and used to be known as the Prince's Palace. There is a lot to do and see there. It has paths for biking and walking and lakes for boating and fishing. There is an amusement park within it that has a Ferris wheel, big swings, roller coaster, zip lining, pools, serious laser tag courses and other numerous rides, games and vendors. There are also soccer fields, basketball and tennis courts and several sand volleyball pits that were used for the 2008 Olympics. We could have spent hours there just people watching alone. I will share a few photo's to recap the day.

There were random pools set up for little kids to go "fishing".  They are trying to get goldfish.

I think Kelly would have looked amazing in one of these hats!

This was the giant swings that went so incredibly high and fast that Kelly and I were green the rest of the day!!

The lovely ladies having fun!

Whoa buddy, did you lose something???

Great game prizes.  This one had a random box of turtles!

The cute matching family.  I can't tell you how many families that we see that wear matching shirts.  I am going to have to go shopping and coordinate us all better!

Ella and Julia on what I would have to call the hamster wheel on water!

Now that is one self sufficient toddler!

Baby cheek chillers,  baby chaps, crotchless pants........you see them everywhere on babies.  Note to self....don't set your purse in the front of the cart where the babies sit!  Could you imagine trying to go down a slide or play in the sand with those things on??????

Ella and Kelly on the giant swing, before he turned green!

This little girl was one of many running in this big pool area trying to catch live goldfish with a net.  They dumped the poor things in buckets to take home with them.  I am pretty sure there are health violation all over this park!!

If you've never seen one of these....you don't know squat!!

My friends,  let me introduce you to a staple in the Chinese restrooms.............it's called the squatter.  Aptly named because you literally pull your pants down (off in Ella's case) and "squat" over it.  It is a bit tricky at first but I am proud to say that we have mastered this beast.  If you know Julia well, then you know this one was easy for her.  ( Moline United G-99 soccer team), girlfriend can go behind a tree in the woods like it was nothing, ( like she has demonstrated at soccer practice a time or two).  Ella on the other hand, oh Ella!  I've only had Ella pee on my shoes once!!  It was her first attempt at it, and I went with her.  She removed her britches and got on with business.  Then, she asks, "Mom, why is the floor all sticky?"  This is when she got a little careless and missed the target a little, and hit my shoes.  "That my dear, is why the floor is sticky", I quickly replied.  She made a disgusted face and said, "Now,  where is the toilet paper?"  This leads me to the next issue with public restrooms here.  There is not always toilet paper handy!  Some times it is on the wall when you first walk in the restroom, so you had better remember to grab some as you go by. Or, if your in a "not so nice" public restroom you had better hope you have a wad of Kleenex handy!  I myself am going to start carrying a roll of TP in my purse when we go out!  And by god, after three years of using these, I am going to have some strong quadriceps muscles in my legs! 

And yes our hotel and house have actually toilets in them!!!!  Thank heavens!

This is the nicest squatter I have seen.  It was in the Chinese Theater.  I am sharing this one with you to not totally gross anyone out,  but having said that,  the garbage can you see in the back is where the toilet paper goes when you are finished!!

Sunday soccer, lunch and foot massages!

On Sunday we started off the day with Club Futbol practice.  Again, we were the only girls there!  It's alright lassie's it build character!  They had fun though and got a good workout in.  We were then invited to lunch at a coworker of Kelly's.  Her name is Chang and she lived in the US with her husband and 3 kids, but is a Chinese nationalist and they are all fluent in Mandarin.......very helpful!  After a great Mexican meal ;)  we all went to the spa for foot massages.  It was heavenly!  They even had those little glass pots that they put a flame in and stick it on the bottom of your foot like a suction cup, then they pop it off.  Just like in the Karate Kid!  Even Kelly joined in the hour long event!

Ella at club Futbol

Julia at Club Futbol

Ella getting her legs rubbed down......she almost fell asleep in the chair! (and of course was a crowd favorite)

Julia and Kelly getting their legs beaten with mallets!

If you look closely you can see the glass bowl stuck to Julia's foot!

Chinese Acrobats

After the Houtong village we went to the Chinese Acrobat Theater to watch a show.  All I can say is "holy cow" .  This was the most amazing thing that we have ever seen live.  There were several different acts and not a single one of them left us anything less than astounded.  If any of you are brave enough to come visit us,  this is a must see!

This girl was doing acrobatics and balancing on 10 chairs and a huge stand!  Her life insurance premium has got to be huge!

These girls were being thrown and flipped around all while balancing a glass bowl on there foot.

These are 2 dudes that were balancing on each other going up and down the stairs with just 1 arm!.

These 2 home boys were crazy.  They were jumping rope on the outside of these hamster wheels as well!

How many Chinese lady acrobats can you fit on 1 bike????   Well 12 actually!

This may look like a disco ball but inside there were not 1, not 2 but 8 motorcyclists flying around that cage.

Here they all are afterwords.  I wonder how training went when they first started this gig!