Routine??

Today marks 3 weeks since we 'landed' in Shanghai and if we had to characterize our routine so far we would say CRAZY! Hoping this is still a lot of transition and not the new normal! Here is a peak into our daily routine for Mon-Fri:

6am - Everyone is up - not sure what we all do for 90 minutes but we are usually rushing out the door at 7:30. Breakfast is a bit of a challenge for family that loves cereal and used to consume 7+ gallons of milk a week. French toast/oatmeal (both which require cooking at breakfast when we don't even actually like to have to cook for dinner!!) are standard and a treat is when we splurge for cereal. Thankfully the girls all wear uniforms so that makes picking out the clothes quite simple - we'll take a picture and try to get it to upload soon!

7:30am: We all head out...

The girls head to the bus - there are Ayi's on the bus who immediately attend to Zoe & Abigail getting them buckled in and then at the school they gather up all the 'little ones' and walk them over to their classrooms. School goes until 3:30 at which time Andy & Mr. Xu are there to pick everyone up. Then it is home for a snack (cut up watermelon when Ayi Shi has been here for the day) and homework. Everyone down to Zoe has homework - every night. It is intense!

Andy usually heads out for a run or a meeting at the school (volunteering, HS coffees talks..) or one of many errands to continue to get things settled for the house. Three days a week he meets with Ayi Shi as she comes over. This week she went shopping and cooked sweet & sour chicken (which is really an American Chinese dish, not traditional!) and homemade dumplings.

Sue heads out with Mr. Xu to the office. The drive lasts 45 minutes passing masses of people doing tai chi, making dumplings in their small shops on the street, hanging their laundry out, playing badmitton on the sidewalk and a sea of humanity riding bikes & scooters all in a nutty driving pattern that just seems to work.

6:30-7pm: We're all back at home and getting dinner underway. We have our favorite local 'noodle man' restaurant where we can feed 7 people for less than $20, we know the best delivery places, have a few (as in three!) dishes we can actually prepare and are working to have our Ayi cook every day that she comes!

Everyone finishes up homework, trying to contact friends, preparing for the next day and we all get to bed later than we'd like!

So what have we learned in the last week....

• Don't buy the watermelons from the back of anyone's truck (they sometimes inject them with river water to make them look bigger) - this tip thanks to one of Lindsey's friends! God watched over us when consuming the two that we had purchased before this learning!
• When it rains, plan on it taking significantly longer to get a cab...poor cab planning caused us to be 25 minutes late for church on Sunday - not fun! And when you can't find a cab to catch home, it only takes 30 minutes to walk back - even for little legs.
• Everyone needs rabies shots - rabies is one of the top killers in China, even a scratch by a stray would need to be treated as if it is rabies. Wish I had known this one before we left home!
• ATM and Ikea sound very similar to a Chinese driver as Mr. Xu headed off across town to the Ikea when all Andy really wanted was to go a few blocks away to the ATM. Now we say Starbucks (which is right next to the ATM) and Mr. Xu just looks at us oddly when we come out without any coffee!
• A 4 lb package shipped from the States to PuDong China costs $93...thank you Mom and Dad for sending the world's most expensive coloring books for the girls!
• To a 5 year old (aka Abigail) as long as you're with your family, you have no concept of other things going on. Last weekend she asked Zoe when we were moving to China and each week she asks if her best buddy Parker Stucky is going to be at church! Now she does know something is up, because most mornings she asks when her Legos will be here!
• Unfortunately the last learning is that our shipments won't get through their inspections before the two upcoming holidays so we are looking at mid-late October before anything arrives from the States. Hoping the temperature doesn't cool off too much before then!

We love you all!