Happy New Year

For the last week, we've been running around trying to spend as much time as possible with parents, siblings and cousins.  We've now had three gift exchanges, a trip to the Virginia Aquarium, light show, etc.  The kids have had a blast and tonight they basically turned into mush at dinner.  An update on their favorite presents before I continue:  Reid blew all of his money from my parents on DS games (as did Riley) and Rowan spent his on a Lightning McQueen scooter.  I refuse to acknowledge the Zhu Zhu Pets as a surprise favorite because of my intense personal dislike of the sounds now emanating from the family room, kitchen, back seat of the car, etc.  I curse you, inventor of Zhu Zhu Pets.

Tomorrow to kick off the new year, we begin sorting all of the things we've bought in preparation for the move (everything from cereal to over the counter drugs).  I'm leaving to head back to Indiana Sunday to tie up loose ends for work and move the household goods, so everything I leave here is going on the plane.  We're approaching the 10 checked bag limit.  We bit the bullet and purchased a luggage scale to help, so we'll see how it pans out tomorrow.

Below are some pictures from the last few days, most of them are random Christmas photos.  If you see fish or animals, that's from the aquarium trip.  I begin and end with pictures of Rowan because quite frankly he's so stinkin' cute it's ridiculous (even when he can't get the monkey off his back)!

Christmas Eve

One of the much anticipated events of Christmas Eve for everyone was that the ladies took off to get their toes done, while the men were to eat hot dogs and do man stuff.  Well the ladies took all the cars, so we decided to punt and order pizza in.  The "man stuff" was watching Phineas and Ferb then decorating a gingerbread house.  I decided to go ahead and "glue" it all together while the boys watched TV, thinking that extra set up time would be a good thing.

So after I was done, I joined them in the living room and let them know that the house was up and needed to rest for a few minutes.  About 15 minutes later I had a conversation with Rowan that went like this:

Rowan:  "(something, something) ginderbed housh (something, something)"
Me:  "Yeah, the gingerbread house is in the kitchen, resting."
Rowan:  "(something, something) touched it (something, something) fell down"
Me:  "Uh-huh"
*audible clicking sound as the light bulb went off in my head*
Me:  "You touched the gingerbread house and it fell down?!?!?!?!"
Rowan:  "yesh!"

Aaaaahhhhhh!  It looked like something out of Tom and Jerry when we went in the kitchen, where everything was folded on itself and the roof laying on top.  Thankfully those premade kits are pretty sturdy and Daddy Mac, Reid and I had it back together in no time.  Below is the finished product.

Christmas in Indiana

Before we left for Virginia Beach, we went ahead and did our gift exchange at the house in Indiana.  Since Rebecca and the boys won't be coming back here, we figured we would open most of the presents and just leave those items that will be shipped as opposed to what we want to lug through airports.  Rebecca was struggling with strep throat and I had something going on (probably due to the cocktail of inoculations I received Friday), so for your benefit most pictures are of the children.  Anyway, the favorites were:

Rowan:  Football and Baseball pillows, a bike lock, overall he was sorely disappointed that he doesn't have a DS like his brothers, even though he can't read yet.
Riley:  DSi (insists that everyone call it an "intendo DSi" to distinguish it from Reid's earlier model DS)
Reid:  A real digital camera, DS games
Rebecca:  Nook, bike basket for tooling around China
Dave:  DSLR camera, Colts "Snuggie"

We took off the next day and drove both vehicles to Virginia.  The boys took turns in the truck with Dad for "mini man time", as Riley coined it.  Even though the car has the dvd player, they all wanted to be in the truck for a second turn.  Maybe it's because I bribed them with Pringles, or possibly it was the dull hum of the road that lulled them all to sleep.  Trucks are just cool, apparently.  I should have taken a picture of the loaded vehicles, but I neglected my blog duties.  Instead, please enjoy the below victors with their Christmas spoils...

P.S.  I am now an unashamed Snuggie convert.  On a day I was recovering from Hepatitis A&B, Typhoid and Japanese Encephalitis all at once, it comforted me like nothing else could.

Cold Snap!

I guess it's really just a cold snap for Rebecca and me.  We returned two weeks ago from Suzhou to find the temperatures in Bloomington, IN below 20 degrees F.  We'd spent the last two weeks in 70 deg. plus weather in Hilton Head and then Suzhou!  It has snowed three times there since we departed for China, totalling close to 12 inches!  Rebecca blames herself because she's been praying for snow before we leave (it's the last unfulfilled promise that we made the kids when we left Williamsburg, figuring we had a few years to see it through).

Attached are some snow pictures, most taken in the dark after I got home from work.  I was shoveling the driveway while the boys were enjoying themselves (although they did help me when I started piling the snow up into a hill for them to sled down).  Rebecca is nursing a sore throat and fever, which is really bad timing I must say! 

In the next two days we need to finish wrapping presents, pack for Virginia Beach (Bec and boys will not return to IN), open presents on Saturday, go over what we want to ship one more time, and then drive to the beach on Sunday.  Please pray that she will heal or cowgirl up very quickly (hopefully she won't read this before she gets well or this may be my last blog entry)...

House hunting!

So it begins! 

First, allow ourselves to introduce ourselves: Rebecca and I (Dave) have been married for 11 years and are the proud parents of 3 young boys (Reid, Riley and Rowan).  We have been blessed in many ways, recently by the opportunity to transfer to Suzhou, China for work. 

Thanks to "Daddy Mac" and "Gramma Mac", Rebecca and I traveled to Suzhou last week to house hunt.  We spent the week doing a city tour, getting medical checks, interviewing schools and actually looking at housing options.  We feel like we accomplished a lot at this point and also realized how much more we have to do!  Everyone on the visit was very nice, we were even able to meet a few expats in the area.  The housing compound we liked the most is "Golden Lough", which is located on the East side of Jinji Lake.  While the housing is pretty modern for our tastes, the neighborhood has many of the amenities we were looking for:  a pool, playground and many expats.  The school we settled on (Dulwich College) has about 100 children attending from the neighborhood!  We're still waiting to hear back from the landlord of the first house we liked...

Things were decorated for Christmas already; and I'm pleased to announce that there was not a "Happy Holidays" sign in sight!  We walked around Walmart and heard actual Christmas songs, including Run DMCs Christmas rap.  Yeah, my kind of place!  At the school, we walked in on the pageant practice where they were singing "The Little Drummer Boy".  I guess you have to travel to communist China to get freedom of religion.

Even though I love the food there, since this was my third visit, I decided to branch out and try some of the "foreign" food.  I found things to be a little bit off (the chimichanga had batter on it and the burger had rosemary in it).  Not bad food, but just not how we do it in the states.  I decided for the rest of the trip to stick to the turtle, duck tongue and jellyfish which were all delicious.

I just put the one picture up this time, its from our hotel room.  In it, you can see a construction worker in a blue jacket riding in the bucket of the excavator to get from ground level down to the pit.