A weekend in Xi'An

This year we decided to brave the popular travel season and head out of town for October holiday (the seven day long national holiday to celebrate the beginning of the People's Republic of China - works for me!). Our first stop was a weekend in Xi'An - home of the famous Terra Cotta Warriors. An amazing historical site dating back to before 221 BC - yes that is BC! The Emperor Qin Shi Huang (who unified China) built the army starting when he was 12 years old to protect his tomb when he died (now that's planning ahead for you!). They remained buried, unremembered, for thousands of years until 1974 when farmers were digging a well discovered them. It was just amazing to see rows upon rows of them and the unique faces on each one! After a morning at the warriors, we walked on the city wall (one of the few preserved ancient city walls remaining in China), had a treat of ice cream and finished up with a walk through Muslim square (Shaanxi Province with Xi'An as the capital has the largest population of Chinese Muslims).

A few updates on daily life before the holidays: We had a major scare with Joseph who woke up one morning with a seizure. After a day at the doctors and hospital, with blood tests, an MRI and answering lots of questions, we recognized that this was most likely his second seizure (he had one the day before we left the US that we didn't see, but saw recovery from) so it is officially epilepsy. He was an amazing trooper through it all. During the day we also saw the doctor who operated on him when he first arrived in Shanghai with his encephelocele - the doctor was absolutely shocked to see him in such good health, almost walking & lots of talking and said he never would have predicted this progress for Joseph - yes that's right we have a really BIG God who continues to have His hand on our little guy! He was not surprised about the seizures (based on how much Joseph's brain has been through since birth) and started Joseph on medication to hopefully eliminate them. A long day and several long nights as we sleep a bit lighter now listening for him should there be any issues...but all is good now.

Shortly after that we also discovered an unwelcome house guest...a RAT. That is correct - not a mouse, but a full sized rat. Completely disgusting. I saw it one morning as it ran from the pantry to the dining room - I'm pretty sure I was blocking its path to the kitchen so I really think it started chasing me - which only made my screaming even louder. We had about 4 days of trying to trap it - finding it had holes under the kitchen cupboards and behind the electrical box in the pantry (who else would have put the gummies in there??). Our landlord's first solution was to tell us to get a cat. Umm, allergic, that won't work. Their second solution was three 'sticky' traps that we saw the rat jump over, our dog eat the treats from and Zoe step in. Umm, that's not working either. Their third solution, close up the holes in the house - using wood in the kitchen and packing tape in the pantry. Seriously - these people think packing tape is going to stop a rat. Ugh. Finally, one night Andy actually cornered it behind the water cooler and he resorted to the trusty tennis racket and garbage can! After a short duel in a small bathroom, with lots of the racket hitting the wall and me still screaming from the other room, Andy (my hero!) trapped it in the garbage can and took it outside across the street for its freedom. Zoe was happy we didn't kill it (although I had pretty much convinced her on why it should die!) and I was happy it was finally gone. We have thoroughly disinfected every bit of can/box/bag of food from the kitchen & pantry, every square inch of counter & floor...but still look intently every time we turn on the lights at night for anything that moves!