Big J

in

It is still unbelievable to have to write this...we got a call this morning that my dad's best friend, Jason Rains, passed away yesterday.  He has been in our lives for a very very long time.  Jason was always at all of our "big" events; graduations, weddings, birthday parties, kids parties, etc.  But, he has been a party of our every day lives hanging out, laughing, playing wii bowling, going to Rod Runs, and working on street rods with my dad for 20 years.  Its hard to go "home" and not see his truck in the barn, or having highball, or making faces at my dad.  What an incredible person he was.  He will be greatly missed by us all...45 years is way too young.

Boracay is awesome!

in

Ok, so I know most of you are really only wanting to see pictures of our perfect, relaxing blissful beach vacation and don't want a bunch of stuff to read...so this post you get your wish. :)  Our internet is back (only took almost 2 months) and both Mitchell and I are sick, so this is a much quicker option for me.

All in all, our vacation was amazing.  We had a wonderful time with Dan, Nikki, Jake, Cameron and Haylee Esmond.  There were no fights, arguments, fit throwing, tantrums, etc with the kids...they spent the entire week loving every second of being together (even asking on the flight back to Beijing when they could get together for a play-date).  They built sand castles, played "pretend" in the hammocks around our hotel, swam, met new friends, explored "Pirate Pete's Cave" thanks to Dan and his creative imagination, swam, ate ice cream (every day...a Staecker family tradition that is now passed on to the Esmonds, thank you grandma and grandpa!!) and swam some more.  The adults also enjoyed all of these things plus naps, $10 hour massages, cocktail hour on the deck, tons of great conversations and a week long of just enjoying and appreciating our kids.  It was darn near perfect I must say!!

 

Manila

in

I had heard mixed reviews of Manila before we arrived, but I have to confess that of the (less than) 1% of the city that we walked around and saw first hand, I liked what I saw. To be fair, we only saw the part that was near the airport but I would be up for spending more time someday investigating what Manila has to offer. Terminal 3 of the Manila Ninoy Aquino International Airport is exceptionally clean and was mostly empty when we arrived from our Cebu Air flight from Caticlan.

We had pre-booked three rooms at the Manila Marriott Hotel (highly recommended). We could see the hotel from where we stood on the arrivals platform at the airport but because we had several bags and even more children, we decided to wait for a shuttle. Without going into all the luxurious details, the hotel is very nice. I’d put it into the “moderately luxurious business travel” category instead of the “staying with family and kids” category. By the way, the kids were very impressed by the bomb sniffing dog at the front gate; however Jess didn't seem to share their enthusiasm.

At first glance, the bomb sniffing dogs and under-car mirrors look out of place, but the precautions are not unwarranted. In November 2010, the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand warned their citizens that Manila and other parts of Philippines were a terrorist threat and issued travel advisories. Also, there were at least five incidents in 2010 that were attributed to terrorist groups. I think now is a good time to digress and write a little about my thoughts regarding Philippines' pre-occupation with security protocols. We had many opportunities to witness the country's love of metal detectors, x-ray machines and pat downs during our vacation. My only realization is that they make up for their complete lack of thoroughness (or in many cases sheer apathy) with raw quantity. There are metal detectors before entering major hotels and casinos. Heck, you can't even enter the airport without showing your ID, boarding card and then going through a metal detector (with all bags going through an X-ray machine). Through all of these security measures, I always managed to inadvertently smuggle some sort of 'contraband' past the eyes of the security detail. At the Manila Airport it was just easier to receive the cursory pat-down for weapons then it was to properly remove the metal and liquids from my person.

I will say one neat thing about the security guards in the Philippines is that they are armed. In the case of Boracay, many of the security guards looked scarcely old enough to drive but they had impressive looking bandoliers (with shiny gold belt buckles), batons and service revolvers (one of my goals during vacation was to talk a security guard into holding up his revolver James Bond style so I could take a picture but I never quite had the nerve to ask). And since the security guards (think “rent-a-cop”) had the revolvers, the actual police officers often had sawed-off shotguns and bulletproof vests (although it still doesn’t match Italy, which has army personnel with machines guns stationed at the airport. I think they just do it as part of a macho guy thing…).

After we got ourselves settled into our rooms, we went in search of the pool. The kids had been sitting patiently on cars, boats, buses, shuttles, and airplanes all day so letting them burn off some energy in the pool seemed like the right way to go. After a quick check for the pool on the 8th floor (sorry everyone in the VIP Executive Lounge, we're just confused tourists with a gaggle of children. What, no pool up here? Very strange …) we found it outside on the second floor. We ordered lunch and cocktails and let the kids do their thing in the pool.

After several hours at the pool and a nap for me, we decided to shower the kids and walk around until we found someplace family-friendly to eat for supper. After a 10 minute walk around the immediate area, it looked like our best bet was actually back inside the casino building that was attached to our hotel.

We wound up eating at a very nice New Orleans style restaurant (how very Filipino of us...) and finished it off with some crepes and ice cream. Luckily for us, right outside our restaurant they were performing a Chinese New Year dance. I’m not sure they realized we actually fled the country to avoid such things… (just kidding, sort of).

Back up at 3:40am on Saturday to get the clan back to the airport. Travel Day #2 here we come! The Manila Ninoy Aquino International Airport has several terminals and they are actually 10km apart. We were staying by Terminal 3, but we needed to get to Terminal 1 (the International terminal). We piled into a couple taxis, made our way through the aforementioned x-rays machines and metal detectors and promptly walked into the most dysfunctional airport I have ever seen. Seriously. The exact opposite is true for everything good I said above for Terminal 3.

All I can say is that every step that a traveler must take between entering the airport to boarding the plane was seemingly a surprise for the airport staff. It was Saturday was everyone's first day on the job. In no particular order, I’ll list off a few struggles we ran into:

  • Every line is unbearably slow.
    • And it is unbearably slow because each station is understaffed by 300%. Why would you lay out an airport so you have 10 immigration lines feed into TWO security lines?
  • No respect for the gold card.
    • This may sound a little snotty to some of you (because it totally is) but if I have a gold card and you don’t, that means you’re going to wait and I’m going to cut you if there is a separate gold card line available. The little red ropes with the VIP lines are there for a reason, people. I have a flat spot on my butt and bruises on my knees from all the airline miles I’ve suffered through and that entitles me to faster service. I’m nice as a wait in line, but dammit, I’m not waiting in the Economy line.
    • So we and the Esmonds (Dan is also the owner a magic gold card) are waiting at the Business Class check-in line. We don’t fly business class, but our gold card lets us pretend like we are. An airport worker held us in the line and made us wait until all the economy passengers had been serviced before we could go forward. Partway through the drama, Dan asked the worker if we were indeed standing in the business class line and he replied with a firm “yes”, then he proceeded to continue to hold us there. If I was traveling alone and had time to kill it would have been funny, but with all the children, at 5:00am, with very little time to spare it wasn’t so humorous.
  • Ticket-counter workers who are friendly, but utterly clueless.
    • Maybe I’m being too harsh, but the ticket counter attendant put Jess, myself, Henry and Addi (Truman had no ticket) in FOUR separate rows spread throughout the airplane. Ummm, who does that? When Jess requested that we sit together she looked confused and replied that the plane was full. Jess replied that it was too bad but entirely the agent’s problem and that we needed to be seated together. After several such iterations, she managed to get Jess and the kids together but I was ticketed for a seat 15 rows away. But she kept smiling warmly at us the entire time. At that moment I would have given anything for the fast, efficient coldness of a United Airlines ticket counter attendant. I’m pretty sure they take care of your problems quickly because they hate you and just want you to leave but in the end they still solve your problems. No such luck with Air China in Manila.
  • Terminal Fees that aren’t included in the cost of your ticket.
    • That’s right folks, after the check-in line, they put you in a separate line and make you pay 750 Pesos, per person, just to continue on to the immigration line. I'm not sure what happens if you have no money to continue. Do they hold you in the airport? We were expecting 200 Pesos per person so we ran out of money. Luckily Dan had brought along some US dollars and she accepted a combination of Philippine Peso and US dollars. In my opinion, the entire operation is a way to enable corruption (which is rife in the Philippines). That’s the only explanation I can come up with why they wouldn’t include it in the price of the ticket.
  • Bad lounges, bad lounge staff.
    • We found the airport lounge. In short: it sucks, don’t bother. But that’s nothing new. Nearly all United lounges in the Unites States suck. Sucky lounges, I can deal with. But the woman took our tickets and did some lounge bookkeeping with them and neglected to tell us that our flight had an early boarding time and was boarding at that exact moment. She may not have noticed the six kids with us when we walked in but she must have realized we’re not the fastest walkers in the airport. We had just sat down with snacks and juice for the kids when a frantic Air China worker comes in and tells us that the plane is boarding at the doors are closing in three minutes! After we wet our pants we grab our stuff (except Jake’s sweatshirt, Dan had to run back for it later), and start power walking through the airport to our gate. We made the flight but the entire debacle could’ve been easily avoided by the lounge staff telling us about the flight.

All-in-all, Manila seems like a very cool place and I would love to visit again to check it out. Of all our experiences in the Philippines, I have to say that Terminal 1 of the Manila airport was really the only downer during the great week we spent there.

Boracay + Esmonds = Perfect Chinese New Year Vacation

in

So we are currently sitting on Dan and Nikki's deck at our hotel in Boracay, Philippines...so relaxing, so beautiful, exactly what we all needed.  The kids are quietly (believe it or not) playing together in the hammocks, Truman is napping and the adults are reading or posting blog posts. :)

The weather has been absolutely beautiful...add that to the white sand beaches, crystal clear turquoise blue water and 6 happy kids and you have the perfect mix.  They have all absolutely loved being on vacation with their friends and so far we haven't had any issues!!  Of course its been a dream vacation for us too...we have friends to hang out with and the kids are loving it too. :)

Some of our highlights so far...building sandcastles, swimming in the ocean 100 yards (300 ft) out because it is so shallow, swimming in the salt water pools at our hotel, mexican food, sangria :), naps in hammocks, gorgeous weather, great conversation, finding a Starbucks so we didn't have to drink Nescafe anymore!, clean air, vacationing to a place where English is spoken and long walks on the beach.

I will try to get pictures posted soon...

Halfway To The Beach

in

Hi everyone. Sorry the blog has been so silent lately. We haven't had internet access in China since we got back from our US holiday trip. 

The reason I'm able to post this is because we're sitting in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila Philippines at 3:30am waiting for our flight to Boracay. It's going to be a blast but right now we're dead tired. But in a good way. :)

Hopefully we'll be able to send a better update later.

Sheep

in ,

Let me paint the scene for you: Mr. Ren and I are heading from our house to our favorite vegetable market. Everyone stayed home (usually Addi comes with me; she is my super trooper shì chǎng shopper. She isn't squeamish about looking at the meat and the dead chickens, chicken feet, etc ...) so it was just Mr. Ren and me. He's driving, I'm trying to look cool riding shotgun in the GL8. We turn from our service road onto the main street and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer a crap-load of sheep.

Now we're no city slickers. We're used to seeing livestock near our house. Chickens are prevalent, especially near the school. Every once in a while we'll see a guy walking a big white goat on a leash (I'm not even kidding). There are frequent carts being pulled by donkeys. Heck, once we even saw a small pickup trunk with giant pink pigs in the back. But this is my first run-in with sheep so I wanted to savor the moment. So naturally I made Mr. Ren stop in the middle of the road so I could take pictures.

Stopping in the middle of the road is not unusual in Beijing (whipping an impromptu 3 point turn in the middle of a major street is completely acceptable) so he didn't mind. I do think he got a little embarrassed when I rolled the window down and started taking pictures. The gentleman in the green (facing away from the camera) is the proprietor of the sheep operation. He only briefly glanced at the crazy white guy, hanging out of the passenger window of the minivan trying to take pictures of his sheep.

We started driving away but then I noticed the lambs. So we stopped again and I may have asked Mr. Ren to put it in reverse so I could get a close up picture (in the name of journalism). I'm not saying I did but I think the picture was worth it.


Doug’s visit (October 1 – 10)…might be the world’s longest post! :)

in

Hello all!!  Doug came and visited us for a week and we had a splendid time!  It was fantastic to have company, we really missed him, and it was great to finally get out and see the sights in and around Beijing.  We thought for sure our shipment would have arrived before Doug, but since it didn't he also brought us some much needed things from the US. :)  He picked a perfect time to come, during National Holiday in China, so the kids and Mitchell were off for the entire week.  We did a lot of sight-seeing, but we also did a lot of hanging out and relaxing.  It was a wonderful mix, we just hope Doug enjoyed it as much as we did! :)

I think the thing we did the most was eat this week...there were so many places we wanted to take Doug to and so many new places we wanted to try.  Since we were basically on vacation too, we figured why not!  We only struck out a couple of times, one recommendation from Mr. Ren (hot pot) was disastrous, but all in all it was fabulous.

 Eating at Ganges, one of our favorite Indian Restaurants.

 Din Tai Fung...yummy dumplings!!

 Doug's favorite...with the hot pot. :)

 This is one of our absolute favorite restaurants in all of Beijing, Let's Burger.  It was so delicious!!  Good pick Doug!

 Addi was thrilled she finally got to have french onion soup again!

 Showing off their Iowa pride. :)

 Mitchell's creative photography.

We had an absolutely gorgeous day over the weekend and were able to spend the entire day walking around and hanging out at Chaoyang Park.  It is a huge park in the middle of the city, it was beautiful.  There were trails for walking/running, kite flying, grass for football games (we actually saw a pretty pitiful attempt at an American flag football game...quite funny), a ropes course in the trees, water activities, Olympic Volleyball court, etc. etc.  We even got to observe some pretty bizarre photography in the park.  For once we were the ones pointing and taking pictures.  It was great! :)

 Yes, they are fishing in a swimming pool for gold fish that they take home.

The next day found us at the Beijing Zoo...this was an experience. :)  It was packed because of National Day and we were quite the spectacle.  There were (literally) more people lined up to take pictures of us, or with the kids than there were people taking pictures of the animals.  Every time we would stop to try and see an animal a line would form around us of people wanting a picture.  The kids were troopers and at one point Addi actually told Mitchell "it's ok dad, its kind of like being Hannah Montana".  People would pose their kids around ours, putting their arms around them, etc.  There were also quite a few people who would just come up and want to touch Addi's hair.  It was a crazy experience for sure!  It was a little overwhelming too and after we saw the Great Panda exhibit we took a quick walk around and then left.

 Good thing daddy is tall or she never would have seen the pandas! :)

 Truman is such a good sport.  He smiles for anyone! :)

 This poor girl followed Addi around the zoo for 10 minutes before she got her picture.

We finally made it to the Great Wall!!  It was definitely a highlight of the week to visit a portion of the Great Wall at Mutanyu.  It was absolutely surreal to be on the wall, amazing history.  The kids loved it and actually walked with us for almost 3 hours before complaining they were tired!  We took a chair lift up to the wall from the village and then a toboggan sled down when we were done.  It was so much fun!!  I can't wait to take more visitors when they come.  There are so many portions of the wall that are just a short drive from Beijing...we will have to try more, but the slide was great fun! :)

 Super excited to be on the chairlift!

 Doug and Henry having fun on the toboggan slide on the way down from the Great Wall.

 Doug's favorite wall sales lady. :)

 The toboggan slide from the chairlift.

 If you look really hard you can find Doug and Henry waving in the picture...its a little easier when you click the picture and it gets bigger. :)

 Jess and Truman on the slide.

 Henry and Addi had so much fun playing with their new Great Wall swords, while daddy did a little negotiating. :)

 Mitchell trying to get a better price. :)

Mitchell and Truman on the chairlift.

After that we went to the Ming Tombs, another recommendation from Mr. Ren. :)  I can't say it was my favorite thing and don't know that I will revisit it, but it was interesting.  We visited Ding Ling tombs which originally housed an emperor and two empresses.  Everything in the tomb was a replication, but people were throwing yuan after yuan onto the throne, tombs, etc.  I guess maybe I just don't understand it...but I found it quite odd. We did come across a couple of our favorite "Chinglish" signs here though...gotta love it! :)

 This is the slope the sign in the next picture is referring to. :)

 This is by far my favorite one!! :)

We also took Doug to the Pearl Market and the "secret handbag shop".  You can't come to China and not buy something fake! :)  On the way we did a drive by of Tianamen Square, next time we will actually get out of the car.

 Here are a few more random pictures from the week.  We had an amazing time and loved finally getting out to see the city.  We can't wait for him to come again!! :) 

Miss me??

in

Ok, I guess it is time to write again...especially since everyone is enjoying Mitchell's witty posts so much. :) 

We had our first real emergency yesterday and got a real feel for "expat" health-care in China.  I was having lunch (and coffee) with Nikki and Truman when I got a call from the school nurse.  Henry had collided with another student at recess.  The only description he gave me was that he had gotten Henry to stop crying, but he was pretty sure I needed to take him in to have him looked at.  Nothing more.  When we arrived at school I found poor Henry in the nurses clinic covered blood and looking rather beat up.  He had been running when they collided, as was the other boy, and they both looked worse for wear.  Henry had split a good portion of his lip in two places and was bleeding like crazy. 

We dropped Truman off with our ayi and headed to the Beijing United Clinic (BJU) in Shunyi close to our house.  After being seen by 2 different doctors, both saying that Henry needed quite a few stitches, they sent us to the ER at BJU hospital in the city to have it done.  Henry was totally freaking out...as was I remembering how hard it was to pull him out from under the table in the doctor's office last time he had to get a shot.  We picked up Mitchell from work and headed to the ER.  Same diagnosis here, by 2 more doctors, stitches were needed.  Henry was shaking with fear, literally, and was begging for them not to do anything.  So my darling husband, remembering what it was like when he was 6 to get stitches in his own lip, went and privately discussed the situation with the doctor.  They came to the conclusion that stitches could be avoided if Henry kept it clean, was on antibiotics plus a mouthwash, and he avoided running/etc so he wouldn't injure it more.  It would take a lot longer to heal this way, but would save the poor kid the dramatic experience of getting stitches in his lip. 

I won't lie to you, it looks horrible and I thought avoiding stitches was a bad idea.  It has started to reattach a little bit and the swelling is slightly less.  Mitchell keeps reassuring Henry that he looks very tough and I just keep silently praying that it will heal ok. :)  I will continue to keep you updated on his healing process.  He is one brave kid!!

On our way to the ER.
Day 2, heading to school.

Must’ve Been Foggy Today …

in

Mitchell here.

Jīntiān de tiānqì qíngkuàng fēicháng bù hǎo! That's what I told Mr. Ren (our driver) today as I got back into our Buick GL8 after dropping the kids off at school and starting my commute to work (although since Mr. Ren drives me, does that make it our commute to work?).

I'm not sure if we've mentioned the Buick GL8 before but it's the de facto expat minivan around here. It only comes in two colors: dark blue or silver and it's what all the cool kids are driving these days. When we were looking for cars to lease back in July, we were offered three GL8s (all dark blue) to choose from. You guessed it, we went with the dark blue. I asked the rental agent if it also came in "navy" but she didn't get it. If she spoke English I bet we would've been laughing together instead of just me. Anyway, the GL8 is L.A.M.E. but it's become our home-away-from-home in the world's worst traffic. We'd take it over a taxi any day.

So back to the tiānqì (the weather); it was absolutely rotten today.

Snow? No.

Cold and windy? Not really.

Thunderstorm? Wrong.

Pollution? Yup, and lots of it. It was basically like running around in a slightly smelly cloud all day.

So back to me, Mr. Ren, our kick-ass GL8 on the open road, heading into work this morning. I wanted to take a picture with my new iPhone (thanks Jess!) to show you guys what it's like but the scenery wasn't cooperating at 80kph (I've been here five months and I still have no idea what the k stands for). I took these pictures so you'd get a feel for the pollution.

But then I turned my head and saw the sun rising over the buildings next to the Expressway. Somehow, I was able to stare directly at the sun without eye protection.

I should say, it's not normally like this and most days I have a nice view of many of the tall buildings that make up Beijing's NE skyline (that's only a fraction of Beijing's skyline. Beijing currently has 899 high-rise buildings).  On really nice days I can see the mountains that circle the north and west sides of the city.

P.S. Jīntiān de tiānqì qíngkuàng fēicháng bù hǎo! means today the weather situation is very bad. Or at least that's what I think it means ...

P.P.S. Katie, before you comment, I was only joking about not knowing what the k in kph stands for. It's Chinese for miles, obviously. :)

2010-12-02 Update: Okay, Jess said no one understands my joke. I know kph = kilometers per hour. I was just being witty.

Chinese Inches

in

Mitchell here.

Jess and I were at the tailor last week when we discovered that China has their own unit of length very similar to the inch, called a cun. When I remarked how odd it was that the Chinese had their own version, he politely reminded me that China had been using this system for thousands of years. The way he said it implied that whatever us new kids are using over in America is simply a fad that will eventually go away when China takes over the world.

And just in case I find myself in the dire situation of trying to order pants in a China controlled world, I made a mental note that mine should be 26 cun long.
For those craving a little more background, you can read about the Chinese cun on wikipedia.

Night Before the Bird

in

Hey everyone, Mitchell here.

This year we're celebrating our Thanksgiving 2010 here in China on Friday because the kids' schedules work out better. We're having our friends from California come over to help us celebrate and we've been looking forward to our little slice of Americana here in the Eastern Hemisphere for quite a while. We've been preparing for a few days now but unfortunately things haven't gone as smoothly as we'd have liked.

Turkey. Check. Wait, it's still frozen? Hmmm, the turkey is still frozen and it's been 'thawing' in the refrigerator for 3 days now. If it doesn't magically finish thawing tonight we'll need to do so fancy cold-water thawing tomorrow morning. Speaking of turkey, we got ours at the market near the embassy district. It's a frozen 14.5 lb Chinese turkey (or huǒ jī as it's referred to around here. That literally means 'fire chicken'). My chicken people at the market didn't carry any so we had to drive down to Sanlitun to pick one up. And the only reason I know it's 14.5 pounds is because I stood with it on the scale in our bathroom. :) Our tiny oven won't accommodate a roasting pan so we're kicking it old school with a rack and some tin foil. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I finished the pecan pie tonight. It would've been finished earlier but Jess and I had to shell the fricking pecans by hand! Now we know why they're so expensive, they're impossible to shell without completely destroying them. In the end it didn't really matter since my Chinese convection oven burned the pie. Oh well, I'll cover up the burnt taste with Cool Whip when we eat it. Oh wait, they don't have that there either. Sigh. I may be the only one eating my burnt, pecan dust pie with no whipped cream tomorrow although Henry will probably help too.

We're making Mom's cheesy potatoes. No frozen hash browns so we're going to manually grate the potatoes. I have no idea how well that will work. I'm more concerned with the lack of Cream of Celery and Cream of Potato soups. We're going to supplement with Cream of Mushroom (must be internationally loved since they sell it here) and just ignore the mushrooms.

Jess made pumpkin and banana bread. That turned out well. Apparently she's more vigilant with the Chinese convection oven than I am.

She also made a kick-butt cheese ball that we can snack on all day while we're cooking the rest of our meal. We typically eat it with Wheat Thins, but, you guessed it, you can't get those here. Typically in this situation I'd settle for Triscuits, but I think you know where this is going ... In the end, Jess bought 4 brands of foreign crackers; hopefully one will be a hit.

The biggest Thanksgiving issue we seem to be encountering is the complete lack of football on TV. Unfortunately, I won't get to see the Lions lose. I'll catch it late on Sportscenter. Oops, no I won't. They don't have that here either. I need to befriend someone who works at the U.S. Embassy; I bet they have dish.

I know for a fact our cranberries are going to rock. We had Ocean Spray put them in a can especially for us.

We'll be sure to take pictures and get them uploaded. No really, I promise we will.

I hope everyone is having a great Thanksgiving. We miss you all.

Mr. Ren: the coffee addict

in

Hey everyone, Mitchell here.

Well it took exactly 90 days but we've managed to corrupt our driver, Mr. Ren. When we first hired him, he announced proudly that he did not drink alcohol, coffee or tea. He has faithfully driven us to Starbucks and Costa Coffee every time we asked. As he dropped us off he would typically make a comment similar to "coffee sleep no good" or "coffee make the body rowdy" (yes, amazingly our driver knows the word "rowdy").

A few weeks ago we were returning home from running errands and I noticed a McDonalds sack in the front seat. I've heard him repeatedly mention that he didn't like McDonalds food so I felt I had to give him a hard time. It turns out that he went there to get a coffee! Apparently, after so many times seeing us get morning coffee, afternoon coffee, and nighttime coffee, he felt like he needed to try it. We asked him how he liked it and he said it wasn't very good.

The next day Jess bought him a Caramel Latte at Costa Coffee and now he's addicted! Each time we pass by he asks me if I want to stop for coffee. Too funny!

What you have been waiting for…

in

I suck, plain and simple.  I am sorry it took 3 months to get pictures of the inside of our house posted.  I guess the only excuse I can come up with is that I wanted to have it look more "homey" in here before you guys saw it.  I wanted to put some sort of signature Cooper family mark on it. :)  It is still not quite complete, but done enough that I will share. :)  We got confirmation this weekend that our shipment is scheduled to arrive today.  They are already late, so we will see what happens.  We are sooo excited to get our things, blankets especially, our house is freezing!!  It is so sad that we are so anxious for the "things", but will help the homesickness a little I am hoping.  I promise you more blogs to come this week.  It is written in my planner with ALL CAPS!! :)  Wish you guys were here...Addi reminds me daily how much she is missing everyone in Colorado and in Iowa and she just doesn't understand why they don't come if she is missing them.  Doug did it, so why can't everyone else?!  It is a very hard concept for a 5!! year old.  Sending our love...

Laundry Room in the basement...still no dryer.

The only Chinese piece of furniture I have bought. :)

The office...the desk is so tall my feet don't touch the floor.  We were going to have them shorten it (we had it made), but it fits Mitchell perfectly so I am making do. :)

The hallway in the basement leading to the laundry room.

Living room in the basement (my favorite room!!)

Kids' toy room.

Looking into the toy room from the living room.  We had the bench  and the train table in the picture made.

Our awesome couches that I looked high and low for!! :)

My favorite part about the room are the pictures.  You can click on the pictures on this page, the ones that don't have a caption, to see the pictures bigger.

Yes we think it is quite odd as well to have the toilet encased with glass...don't give you much privacy. :)

Master bathroom.

Closet in the master bedroom...its a little lacking.

Master bedroom...we had all of this furniture made.

Master bedroom.

Spiral staircase.  I love it!!

Henry's room...he saved up his money to buy his own plant...cost him 20rmb (almost $3).

Henry's room.

We bought Henry a "closet' to try and close off his room because it only had 3 walls and no door.  He doesn't mind and loves how his room is turning out.  He can't wait for the rest of the Star Wars decorations and bedding to get here!

Addi's room.

Mitchell's $500 grill.  We are enjoying it, but the price took a while to get used to!

The little kitchen, yes there are 2.

Living room off the kitchen.

I love this plant...its in the guest bedroom.

Guest bedroom.

Mitchell didn't want to be left out of the picture taking. :)  Yes, girls he is drinking  Starbucks!

Dining room.

Living room on the first floor.

 I just realized I didn't take any pictures of the larger kitchen...oops.  Will do that in the morning and add those in.  I am off to bed now.