First day of seminary. Todd welcomed everyone with a smoothie. One boy said, "YUM, tastes like freshly mowed grass!" They all finished their Dixie cup sized drinks. President Ho sat in on the lesson before heading to Hong Kong, not to make me nervous or anything. Brynn and I took the shuttle grocery shopping. The people watching is the best here. A white gloved man with a whistle stands on a platform under an umbrella to direct traffic (hardly any traffic pays attention though he acts very important). A man drives by with a huge old style TV strapped on the back. Platform mirrored sandals walk by. A young dad with a little Chinese baby girl in front of him in a bike seat, covered by an umbrella. A mother and grandmother wildly trying to get two boys to shake hands with Brynn. An older lady rode by with about ten new mops attached to her bike. A lady on a bike with raincoat type sleeves and shiny silver oven mitt type things on her hand lebars. We grabbed our bags and hopped on the shuttle. We hear a noise...our cart was gaining speed rolling back down the ramp and smacked into the wall. Surprising it didn't hit anyone considering how busy the plaza can be. Brooke met a new friend, Anna, from Sweden down at the pool. Chase and Brigham met up for basketball when others got out of school. Sophie and Brynn went to a neighbor's house and for a few minutes I was alone in my own house and it felt very strange. I ordered some groceries online and went through my lesson for tomorrow and everyone was back. Leftovers for dinner and fhe.
* Every time we pass a scooter or bike with an umbrella holder, Todd says he wants an umbrella holder for the scooter. Most Chinese have a post that attaches to the handlebars to hold their umbrellas. Some umbrellas are double long to cover the rider in back. The double long ones are usually rainbow colored.
* At the first store by the entrance/escalators we picked out some things at the stationary mall- a whiteboard, markers, stapler, sharpener etc. The lady gave us her final price. We said we would check around and come back because we didn't want to carry the whiteboard around. I said hold it and we'll see. She said pay me now and I'll hold it. Uh, we will stop by on our way out if we haven't found a better deal. So of course we shop around and find a better deal. We buy the whiteboard. Because we needed to go up the escalator we had to go right by this girl and her shop. Brooke was trying her best to hide herself behind the whiteboard while we were ducking down really low behind the escalator wall. I think she didn't see us go up, coming down was the problem. Brooke hid behind it and went one way, the others and I went the opposite way. I stop to look at something and this girl comes running up behind me, shaking her head as she passes. Brooke was somewhere else with the white board but we were busted I think. She should have given us a better price! Everyone remembers us because we are the only different looking people in the place. We were busting up laughing.
* On the way to dinner there was a man with coils of wire. He was making them into bicycle figurines. We bought three different bike styles for a little China souvenir. One was a road bike, one was a mountain bike, and one was the Chinese delivery tricycle. The pedals move and they have kickstands and nubby tires and everything. Very detailed.
* We went to Coyote for Chase's birthday dinner the night before his birthday...taco Tuesday. Good tacos! Also, we found a cheesecake at Metro and frozen blackberries,so I made sauce out of them and it tasted pretty good considering the date on the package. Items here sometimes don't have an expiration date , but they have a "born on" date. This cheesecake was made in January.
* Kesters brought Chase homemade birthday cards and homemade bread. They love having him for a swim teacher. We then got to ride in the GOLD golf cart down to the gates. This is usually reserved for potential landlords. We rode to all city mall on the subway and ordered two cheese pizzas at pizza hut for lunch. One pizza came out normal and one was almost black. They said "they all come out this way." I said, "That one didn't," as I pointed to the other exact pizza on our table. So typical. We just laugh now because it's SO DANG FUNNY!! Just roll with it kids. Roll with it.
*Signed the kids up for tennis lessons. We went down to practice a bit. This coach, Peter, is going to work a bit harder than he's used to with this bunch of beginners. I think this is when we got a bazillion mosquito bites. Itch, itch, itch.
*Drivers here are CRAZY. Pedestrians DO NOT have the right of way- pedestrians are last in line. Here, the biggest vehicle has the right of way. Two cars will both pull out of the neighborhood, both turning left. One keeps honking. That's how you can tell the Westerners from the Nationals...We get ticked, Chinese are used to it. Today was stormy and a lady had an accident and was in a busy crosswalk holding her head with three men around her, calling for help and comforting her. This blocked traffic and cars were honking non-stop.
*Lots of smoking, inside restaurants, taxis, while they work, etc. Today we had two guys hanging things on walls, three guys putting tile in my bathroom shower (for some reason they like to use drywall and replace ?) and two checking the dishwasher again. They had my bathroom door shut upstairs. I went in and one worker was running his hands through his Elvis type hair in my mirror at my sink. Another guy was smoking, and they were cutting tile inside without covering anything, so my freshly cleaned towels and everything in the bathroom/closet has a nice powdery film now. I went in and said "NO SMOKING" in my house. Another worker who spoke English told them as well. They left for lunch, came back and started working again, cutting tile inside and again, smoking. I went in and said, "who is smoking? Not in my house!" They were making me grumpy!
* Our ayi eats lunch at our house before heading to her afternoon job. She brings a big bowl of noodles every time she comes and slurps them down at the table. We sat down and ate noodles with her today. She's been married 14 years and has a 12 year old son (I thought she was a teenager she looks so young! -Another ancient Chinese secret. ) who just went to a school camp. She started crying when talking about missing him. She said he has grown up with she and her husband and grandparents doing everything for him and now he's 12 and doesn't know how to do anything for himself so she was worried about him. She hemmed some of Todd's pants and had me make a grocery list of things she would bring from the grocery store on Saturday. I asked her about visiting a city in china and she said she's never been anywhere but Shenzhen and the city where she grew up. Not even Hong Kong.
*Speaking of ramen noodles-Their ramen noodle aisle is like our cereal aisle. So many types and flavors. We bought a few kinds to try and they are pretty tasty. Some have three packets to empty into the bowl...veggies, bouillon, and either a chili sauce or sesame oil. The kids don't care for the chicken but the sesame oil and the beef are pretty good. Thinking of you Ross Beeson! (he pulled some dried ramen in a baggie out of his backpack and offered me some at the swap meet in San Diego. "Tastes likes chips!" he said.
*Construction workers wear the craziest outfits. Jelly shoes. Open toed sandals, Capris, suspenders without shirts, button down shirts that aren't buttoned. pj looking pants. Some wear their socks rubberbanded up over their pant hem. Women wear heels. Finally got the tile in downstairs. No grout, however.
*Youth leaders planned a birthday party for Chase and 2 others tonight. They went bowling and had apricot cake and presents.
*We had seven seminary students today, the original count was 4 but it's a great group. We meet at 7:15am at our house. On Friday it was storming from 3-8am, and really dark at seminary start time, but they all had perfect attendance this week. It was storming so bad that the school was cancelled making one student very happy. He started doing the fist pump down the stairs. The five homeschoolers thought that was pretty funny.
*Spiders jump! Todd and I were heading out on the scooter. I walk into the garage and he has one flip flop in his hand, hopping on the other foot, trying to smack a spider on the wall. He was swatting, ducking, chasing. All on one foot as the spider was bouncing around the garage. I also found one when I picked up my laundry basket. I chased that thing from my bathroom all the way across my room, into Todd's closet, around the three walls and back into my room before I slowed it down with expensive hairspray, then smashed it. I should have kept it alive for mosquito reduction purposes.
*You don't want to stand or sit still outside. The Mosquitos and sand fleas and chiggers will eat you alive. Brynn more susceptible than most. Always gets a red patch with whitish welts. Those of us who spent time outside yesterday are covered in bites. Using lots of chiggerex.
* We found a new mall--Coastal City, and the Papa John's pizza, we will have to try that out. Always a little disappointing because it's not quite like at home. I suppose with time it will taste more like home as we forget what it tasted like. We also went to Carrefour, a French grocery chain, and found a slow cooker. We did not, however, find Jusco, the reason we went out tonight. Brigham and Chase spent the afternoon playing basketball and then we made nachos. They were off to the next door neighbor's house for games. Sophie and Todd watched a movie and Sophie and I stayed up until midnight while she did more schoolwork online.
* Ayi went to the grocery store for us and made lunch again. Today she made fish with diced red peppers and cilantro relish on top, wide noodles with kale and egg, and string bean chicken. Brigham, Brynn, Todd and I went to the gym. Heading out to mail Ally her letter. Brooke has some friends coming over to work on photoshop. Boys watching sports in anticipation of the big football game. It won't be on tv here until 4:30 AM the following day. Rise and shout, the cougars are out! They will have to get up early and watch or risk seeing the score before they watch the game.
* No Labor Day day off here, but we do have the moon cake fall festival with lantern parade on Sept. 19th. Everyone says the moon cakes are not good--fillings like bean paste and such. You should see the displays. Moon cakes at every store in fancy tin boxes and ads all over the subway. They say the only one worth eating is haagandaz, and costs 600RMB. ($100US), but worth it!
Happy Birthday to Ally this week. It's going to be strange not being with her on her day. I'm sure we will have lots of Ally memories coming up that day. The girls were playing her graduation video today during lunch. She has just over a year left.
Tonight Todd sent this text to our friends. " dinner, 6:00? Bring Sydney to hang out with the girls " So they come over with their daughter. I'm headed downstairs with my purse and umbrella, they are headed up the stairs. Turns out, they thought we had invited them over for dinner at our house and they were headed up to our dining room to eat. I, in fact, had not made dinner and was ready for date night. Awkward! We went to a restaurant in Sea World and had cheese/spinach ravioli, salad and anti-pasta platter. We went back to their house for dessert, roti with condensed milk and sugar, a Thai street food. So, so good. She sent me the recipe, here is the link: Thai market Roti. There is a video too.
* Took the girls for pedicures earlier today. It was pouring rain on us. We found a taxi driver who was yelling at us because we didn't speak Chinese. I said, as best I could with my hands, that it was just a few blocks and I could show him the way. He finally got smiling and kept looking back at the girls. He dropped us off close, but not that close. We were dripping wet when we walked into the nail place. They were handing me towels and tissues to dry my arms, face, legs and hands and feet. A little later she told me to dry my hair, then pointed to my neck. A little later she handed me a tissue to wipe my face. Then she started wiping my face for me. So funny. They look at us a little strange when we get the girls' nails painted. Our realtor said in China you don't paint your nails until you are 18.
* Church was good, the Dongguan group meets with us on Fast Sunday. The two rooms were packed! And there are some good singers. I could hear all four parts behind me, sounded like a choir. I sat in on Todd's Sunday School lesson. He was Sophie's class and it's pretty wild and crazy because of two boys for the most part. There is one other girl named Virginia. Brooke made us parmesan fries, Todd had interviews with the kids and we had President Cox and the Kester family over for "random snacks and kindness". Banana bars, fries with Thai hot sauce, oreos, lemonade, veggie platter with ranch, french baguette with olive oil dipping sauce, chocolate wafers, goldfish and sweet tarts and popcorn. Quite the collection of things that don't go together! But, the company was good and the stories told were entertaining. President Ho asked Chase to speak in District Conference Sept. 14th. He's not jumping for joy about that in addition to working, finishing school, act prep and teaching swimming lessons. It's great to be busy doing good things.
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