Ahh… Normal.

Strange how a city seemingly so exotic and far from home could feel so normal. We LOVE Hong Kong. It has just enough of Asia to make it feel cultural, but under that facade, it’s just a perfect rendition of North American… on an Island. The harbour looks just like Vancouver, the people are such a beautiful representation of multiculturalism, English is everywhere, streets are clean, and we can find just about every favourite thing from home here, from playgrounds and restaurants… to sunshine! Blue sky and beautiful sun shining on us every day so far. I’m never going back to Chongqing…

Early Friday morning we heard through the Consulate that we needed to send someone to Hong Kong to pick up some items being sent from Canada. Of course, I volunteered for it right away. Realizing it would be an overnight trip, I would have to take still-nursing Evelyn along, so we decided to make it a family get-away. We scrambled to pack and get the kids ready to leave right away, and caught the first flight available to get here – Saturday morning. We flew into Shenzhen, only a 1.5 hr flight from Chongqing then caught a mini-bus for the 2 hr drive to Hong Kong. We booked a beautiful suite in an incredible harbour-front hotel, and I think we were all surprised at the view when we walked in. Wow.

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

 

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

 

We spent the next few days doing the best of Hong Kong’s visitor activities – taking the ferry across the harbour for some shopping, visiting the Science Museum, and Victoria Peak, going to all the most popular parks like Hong Kong Park and Victoria Park for some time spent playing in their beautiful playgrounds, and wandering around the gardens.  We made it Hong Kong’s traditional “Disneyland” – Ocean Park – and loved our first theme park experience with kids.  The theme park was such a long day, we even had both kids nap in the stroller on a beautiful stretch of path overlooking a sparkling ocean, ships passing back and forth, and waves crashing on islands.  What bliss.   Then off to a gorgeous beach town for a restaurant overlooking the bay, thankfully – with a kids play area.   I set a goal to eat no Chinese food while we were here, and for the most part, I achieved that!  Kyle caved in for some instant-noodle, hotdog and hunk of ham concoction today at lunch that left even Luke asking “Daddy why are you eating THAT?”  But all in all, I have loved reuniting with pasta, ribs, pizza, baguettes, and Starbucks muffins.  We’re all going home a few pounds heavier.

Tonight we say goodnight to our twinkling view of Hong Kong Harbour and head back to Chongqing tomorrow.  We’ll definitely be back here, this city is such a great getaway, and at a 2 hr direct flight from Chongqing, it makes it really practical to escape here.  We decided next time we’ll bring the Ayi though, it would be fun to see Hong Kong at nighttime, or be able to do some non-kid activities like shopping!

Here are some pictures and video of the highlights of our trip

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Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

 

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

 

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

 

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

 

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

 

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

 

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

 

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

 

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

 

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

 

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing
…Before…

 

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing
…After…..

 

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

 

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

 

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

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Out and about

I know… I have got to get better at blogging more often. Otherwise, every blog ends up pages long and full of so many different things it’s impossible to explain them all in detail. But finding time when I’m not busy, have internet access, and can upload pictures is such a task here it takes weeks and weeks – it seems – before all the stars align and I can post something! But I do want to try to get more up here, even if I start posting less pictures, so I’ll make a more concerted effort.

First, here is a brief look into the sights I see every day going to and from work.

Apparently where our vegetables come from…

The square near my office

The view from my office, on one of the only TWO days we have had blue sky since we got here. Seriously, most of the time, I can’t see those shiny gold buildings the haze / fog is so thick.

Looking the other way out the window

Halloween came and went. As there isn’t much to do in Chongqing for Halloween (no trick-or-treating, the locals don’t really do that) we decided to go to a party at the Intercontinental Hotel. After a mad scramble for costumes, we found a few options at the local Toys R Us, and thankfully our good friends here are big Halloween fanatics, so we all got something acceptable to wear! Luke loved his Thomas train costume and Evelyn was surprisingly very happy in her 14-layer, itchy, heavy, uncomfortable seeming traditional Miao (a minority group) children’s costume. We had a great night out, incredible dinner, and a lot of fun altogether.

 

 

The kids continue to have a ton of fun playing with Nico and Anita, their new friends here. The outside spaces around here are so great, it’s nice to be able to go outside whenever we want and enjoy them. So far the temperatures are still very temperate – around 14 at night, 16-23 during the day. Sometimes they have to wear sweaters, but that’s about it. We are not missing Ottawa’s winter at all! And thankfully, a couple days ago, the complex managers in our gated community sprayed toxic, disgusting fumes of pesticides everywhere – even telling us all to keep kids inside for 2 days and close the windows – but now? NO mosquitoes! Not a one. Surely that’s worth the near-death pesticide poisoning, right? It’s so great not to be covered in bugs when we’re outside… I’m almost becoming a believer in those sprays.

We have made it out to a few more new places, including some time spent at Hongyadong and a trip across the Jialing river on cable car to the new Opera House and the Science Museum. All in all, we’re starting to figure out what’s where and find new things to do.

One year old

We have been waiting to post some pictures and a blog about Evelyn turning one until we could get a scar-free picture of her.  Unfortunately, the morning of her birthday, Luke’s fingernails happened to brush across her forehead with enough force to leave a huge gash, which of course turned scabby and puffy and then finally calmed down to a red welt.   So now, a week later, we finally got some good pictures of her.

Evelyn had such a low-key birthday that I’m embarrassed to admit we barely took any pictures of it.   We really did try our hardest to make it special for her, but it’s hard in a new place.  My work schedule was crazy that week, I ended up having to cancel one dinner scheduled for the night of her birthday just to be able to be home with her.   I tried to make a carrot cake, but realised we had no cake pans, nor any icing sugar.  Luckily, our good friends loaned me some and I ended up making cupcakes with cream cheese icing – a huge treat.  But they overcooked (thanks to our oven) and were definitely not up to caliber.  Evelyn ate one, but certainly not with the fanfare and excitement I recall from Luke’s birthday – his first tasting of real sugar, first time really diving into a cake.  Evelyn ate a few bites of a cupcake, then screamed – as usual – to leave the table after dinner.  Dinners are pretty rough for her lately.  We opened a few presents that luckily made their way ALL the way from Grandma in Victoria to Chongqing, and she loved the clothes and shoes.  I bought each kid a little toy at Toys R Us, and we had a great night playing with those.  But otherwise, it was a day like any other – whiny kids at dinner, a bath that was too splashy for my liking, and an early bedtime.   I can specifically recall, though, as I stepped into the elevator on my way back to work after lunch, looking at my watch and realising that – with the time change – exactly a year ago from that moment midwives were rushing into our bedroom, Evelyn was emerging faster than we expected, and we were finding out that we had a beautiful baby girl.  It’s incredible how different life is now, than we expected it would be last year!

Evelyn’s first year has passed very much in the same fashion of her birth – all too quickly, with surprising intensity, and with incredible beauty.  There has of course been a bit of pain thrown in there too – mostly for me. Like the fact that she still won’t accept a “Lovey” like Luke’s SleepyBear, choosing instead to comfort herself while nursing or falling asleep by pinching and scraping my arms and chest.  That’s a habit I can’t wait for her to grow out of… as it is I’ve got bruises all over my upper arms from her strong little fingers.  She’s a gregarious child who loves performing – luckily for her, she’s always got an audience here.  If she hears music, she will dance – in her monster-stomp, one-leg in the air style.  If people smile at her, she’ll quickly wave back, play peek-a-boo, or start chortling at them at the top of her lungs!   She loves chasing big kids around, and gets most frustrated when she can’t do something her brother can.  She does have quite the temper, far more than I recall Luke having at this same age, especially about toys and items she wants.  She is definitely prone to throwing herself on the ground flailing around and screaming bloody murder if she doesn’t get her way.  She can say a bunch of words, but only a few of them consistently.  We realize that she mimics the sounds of Chinese and English words that she hears all the time, but then can’t replicate them to label objects.  But Mama, Dada, Bra-bra, Kitty, Ball, Jump – she can say these things really easily.  Compared to Luke, who didn’t even say Mama until 17 months, her talkative-ness is such a treat!

She still naps twice a day, in the morning about 2 hrs after waking up she’ll go back to sleep for 1.5 hrs, then sleep another 1.5 hrs while Luke sleeps in the afternoon.   However, her nighttime sleep still mirrors her brothers – up anywhere from 5-9 times / night, screaming each time and waking up around 6am for good every day.  We’re working on it.  She eats just about everything we offer her, and is a refreshing change from her brother’s limited diet.  She does seem to prefer Chinese food – she prefers Chinese bread with bean paste for breakfast, Jiaozi (dumplings) over a sandwich for lunch, and she coats herself in rice on a nightly basis.  She loves all meats, and doesn’t have much time for vegetables apart from carrots and broccoli. 

Here are some videos of Evelyn at her best – dancing ands singing to herself. 

A weekend away

Last weekend we took advantage of a suggested work meeting to travel to Dujiangyan – a town in Sichuan province.  Ryan, the other Canadian at the Consulate, and I were attending a meeting of all the other consulates in Western China, and it was just a great opportunity to get out, see something new, and take the whole family along for a weekend away.  Dujiangyan is about a 5 hr drive from Chongqing, however, and we weren’t sure how our kids would handle such a long trip – particularly without known rest stops, not knowing the highways, etc.  In the end, we were lucky – China introduced a new fast-speed train from Chongqing – Chengdu (a 3.45 hr drive normally) just 4 days before our departure, which would get us there in under 2 hrs.   And what 3 yr old doesn’t love the idea of going on a train??  The kids loved looking out the windows, and generally being wild on the train – much to the dismay of our fellow first class passengers.  We quickly made it to Chengdu, found our arranged transport van, and drove the last hour and a half to Dujiangyan – a little town in the mountains that was all but levelled by the Sichuan Earthquake last year.   We checked into our 5-star resort, the Howard Johnson (yep, due to some great marketing on the part of US chain hotels, many local entrepreneurs buy the Franchise rights, establish these spectacular resorts with Shangri-La like facilities, then wonder why they have trouble attracting foreign tourists, who would rather pick a Hilton or a Marriott than a Days Inn or Howard Johnson…). 

There were a ton of activities in Dujiangyan.  The kids loved walking the gorgeous grounds through winding paths and trickling streams, which led out to an enclosure with three reindeer.  Of course.  There was also a huge Hot Springs pool complex which we had a lot of fun at – in addition to two huge pools, one indoor and one outdoor (with a swim-up bar… I love that) there were little smaller pools spread all over this forest with different seasonings in them (aloe, flower petals, etc.) and different teperatures.  It was so cool!  The Howard Johnson Resort is also located just opposite one of the most important places for Taoism in China – Mount Qingcheng.  On Saturday we all hiked UP the mountain, which involved endless stairs, a ferry across a little lake, and finally a chairlift ride up to the very top.  All amidst gorgeous misty mountains and some pretty spectacular Chinese scenery.  The temples at the top were incredible, and the kids (despite being cold & hungry at that point) really loved getting to light candles and see the Monks. 

Here are some pictures of the trip, in gallery format.  We’re still really struggling with uploading pictures to various websites here so it makes doing this somewhat different.  For now, I’m trying this method and will see if I like it.  Usually I embed the pictures individually in the blogs but my two favourite photo-sharing websites (Photobucket, Dropshots) just got cut off, we can’t access them anymore…  If you have any ideas, let me know!!  Here are some videos as well.

 

Big Boy…

 

Anyone notice what is missing from this picture of our gorgeous sleeping boy? No more pacifier! I know, seriously, he’s 3, it was MORE than time to give it up. But we always said – when he was consistently sleeping through the night, we would do it. Unfortunately, that time has STILL not arrived… but given the fact that he was just getting WAY too old, and that we worried about his teeth being impacted, it was time to lose the “Su-Su”.

We did a reward system, similar to potty training – each time he slept without it, he got a sticker. 10 stickers later, he got a remote-controlled excavator. After the excavator, we waited to see if he was going to catch on that the whole game was over and he could have it back – but he didn’t even seem to think about it. However, he still liked to grab the pacifier and suck on it every now and again… until one fateful night when we went looking for it and realised it was GONE! Completely gone!  It seems the su-su Fairy arrived while Luke was eating dinner, grabbed ALL of his remaining su-su’s, and flew them back to Canada – because Luke’s friend Tommy is about to have a little sister who may just need some (icky, old, grimy) su-su’s. Who knew?!? Since that day, Luke hasn’t asked for them once. I’ve got to make sure they are well-hidden, lest he realise the Fairy story was a bit far-fetched. 

Pretty cool achievement, huh?  My big boy…

 

P.s. This picture was taken while sleeping on the high-speed train from Chengdu this weekend – I’ll work on getting that post and the pictures up tonight or tomorrow!

Hao guai!

This may as well mean Hello – we have heard it FAR more frequently since our arrival, from people on the street, neighbours, even people speeding by in taxis shout it out the windows.  It’s meaning was lost on me until this week when a friend finally explained it.  Until now I had been taking it with a bit of offence – guai (4th tone) usually means “strange” or “weird”, but here in Chongqing-hua, it’s a variation on the words “Ke Ai!” which mean cute – so it’s like shouting “So cute so cute!” at us – wherever we go.   Seriously, our kids are THAT popular.  Every morning we walk out the front door to a gaggle or neighbours with their babies loafing at the end of our driveway waiting to “see” us.  When we emerge, there’s the standard chorus “Gege!  Meimei! hao guai hao guai!” or “look, it’s brother, and little sister, how cute how cute!”  The Chinese have a way of calling all other kids brother or sister to their children, based on whether they are older or younger.  It was a bit strange at first, now I’m used to that.  The Hao Guai! thing is still more than a bit annoying.   I just get sick of hearing it everywhere we go, of being such an immense spectacle.  We went downtown this weekend to see a Children’s performance (wow, was that  scary) and walked to a toy store to check it out, then attempted the fun treat of Pizza Hut (a novelty in Chongqing) for dinner.  As we waited outside Pizza Hut for our table (because apparently no matter how cute our kids are, there was no way they’d consider jumping us up the queue to get in – if nothing else the Chinese prize social order over cute foreign kids…) we looked around through the throngs (see the pics below) of mid-Autumn Festival revellers, only to realise – they were all (ALL!) looking at us.  It’s a strange feeling to be so on display.  As usual, our kids proved exceptionally popular, people coming up forcing their kids to stand beside ours to take pictures, trying to speak English, grabbing them to pose for camera-phone pictures, following us around shouting the usual “Hao guai hao guai!!”  Really folks?  Enough.  Go find your own lives, and leave us alone.

Blending in is something we no longer do, and I think I am mourning that.  This is what our view of China looks like:

In every direction we turn, there is a crowd of people just like this one, watching us, pointing at us, taking pictures of us.  It’s hard to see the sights of China when you’re trying to look through these folks. I hate it.

So as for an update – week 3 in China is coming to an end.  We got to experience Chinese National Day holiday yesterday, and a delightful 4-day long weekend!  Luke loved the parade broadcast on TV from Beijing, standing up, saluting and shouting “Tongzhimen hao!” (Hello comrades!) right along with Hu Jintao. He wasn’t so much a fan of the fireworks though. We decided not to take him downtown to watch the fireworks which seems like a good decision. They started up right as he was on his way to bed, and he was pretty freaked out.  We made it to a new park to explore (and ate real Chinese street food – $1.20 for all four of us!), and spent some time at Chongqing’s touristey “Folk Art” market on the Jialing River.  Last week Kyle and the kids made it to the new Science & Tech museum and loved it, we’re making good use of the pool in our complex, and we spent a lot of time playing with Nico & Anita – their new friends.  Here are some pictures… the rest didn’t upload for some reason, so I will leave it at these.  I’ve also included as many videos as I can below.

Luke in one of many Taxi’s that we have taken.

Evelyn in a Taxi on the way home one night

Evelyn making friends on the street, feeding a ‘pet’ bunny…

Looking out the window at the Jialing River

Jialing River, with the Science Museum and new Opera House in the background

A view over Chongqing

The video showing the panorama from where we were

Eating noodles at a local noodle shop.  And yes – those people were all gathered around just to watch us eat.  They stayed there for about 10 minutes, until we finally forcefully said “Please leave, goodbye!” when they moved a few feet down the street, and stood watching us and chattering from there.

Evelyn is whole-heartedly embracing Chinese Food.  Luke, on the other hand, will likely be the first child to survive 2 entire years eating white rice alone.  That’s ALL he eats, day in, day out.

Just about everywhere we go has these insane Childrens amusement park rides.  Here is Luke on some bumper cars.

Here’s a creepy ride outside of Walmart

Here’s Kyle and Luke playing at our pool:

As we’re talking about “strange foreign” things, here are a few of the strange little China-isms that have struck me this week:

The Chinese like to group shops & markets of each type together. So if I need to buy a lamp, for example, I have to find the lamp market. Then there are about 400 vendors in this massive inside space under a building all selling exactly the same lamps. For exactly the same prices. Same thing with furniture, meat, vegetables, etc. You’d think someone would have the bright idea to put one of each kind of product together in one main market and then people wouldn’t have to walk from one end of town to the other, visiting many different markets, to buy meat, vegetables, and cleaning supplies! Today I found an entire market – at least 4 floors that I could see – dedicated to Karaoke equipment today. Why…?

The only milk you can buy is 100% full cream heavy milk. It’s even artificially sweetened. It really changes the taste of coffee, cereal, just about everything. I worry we’ll get used to it and won’t go back to Skim milk. When we first arrived, it tasted awful. Now, I actually kinda like it!

The Chinese love name-brands, so you don’t shop by item, you shop by name. Department stores, markets – they’re all arranged by brands. We went looking for a toaster, and had to go to 8 different shops, each one selling all small kitchen appliances – Phillips, General Electric, etc – all of which each only had 1 kind of toaster for sale. For us westerners, we don’t care what brand of toaster it is – we just want to compare them all equally and get the best price with the best features… the Chinese shop very differently. Even department stores are arranged by brand names of clothing – you’ll look around and see bathing suits in 13 different locations in the store, depending on what brand you want to buy.

Life in China

We’re partway through our second week in China now, and we honestly feel like we have been here for ages. Despite the fact that poor Kyle and the kids rarely get out of our super-protected, western-style little housing complex, we are all feeling more and more comfortable with our surroundings. We’re getting used to the various things that make China our home – like the location of the local places to buy bread, where to find western foods, where our neighbourhood parks are, which restaurants have take-out, and how to get around.

We are also getting more used to the spectacle of being foreigners in Chongqing.  The big cities in China – Beijing, Shanghai, Xi’an, Guangzhou – are all very accustomed to seeing western faces, and to hearing English.  Chongqing is definitely on a different plane.  There are so few westerners here that we are absolutely fascinating to the local people – so much so that they stop in the streets to watch us walk by, gather around anytime they hear us trying to speak Chinese, and generally want to grab our children, hold them, kiss them, and take pictures of them.  Here is a quick video Kyle took the other day of poor Evelyn getting accosted – as she does maybe 10-15 times daily! – by gaggling groups of Chinese people.  It makes me a bit nervous – there is the germ factor, for one thing – and beyond that, there are a TON of pictures of my kids on Chinese cell phones now roaming throughout the country – who knows where they could end up?  It’s a bit creepy, but I just have to believe they are just really curious, because there really is no way to stop it from happening. 

We are getting to know our local neighbourhood quite well – here are some pictures of our kids playing at various parks nearby.  One funny thing about China - it has spectacular public parks and spaces, all wonderfully landscaped  – labour is so cheap here, it’s easy to clean the grounds and to plant flowers daily as old ones die!  Every park though seems to have this exercise equipment which is heavily used by the elderly and retired residents of Chongqing.  These little spinning disks must be used to stretch out backs, maybe?  And there are these bars for various stretches, climbing things, pulling things – countless little “public fitness” activities, all included in every park.  And inevitably, each place will be full of old retired Chinese people doing their daily exercises!  Our kids love to play on all the equipment, which is definitely NOT child-friendly, but is always good for a laugh.

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

Try this link for a video of the Exercise equipment: http://www.dropshots.com/lindsaymargenau#date/2009-09-20/23:12:58

We continue to love our house and the extra space we all have. It would be nice to get some of our stuff – to make it feel more homey – but we still have no idea when our air or sea shipments will arrive. Although we did just recently hear that our sea shipment hasn’t even left Canada yet – it’s ship is set to sail October 2. Yikes, it could be a long while without toys… In the meantime, Luke and Evelyn love playing in our backyard and here are a few videos of the house – we still have to get one of the upstairs… it’s next on our list!

The backyard:

The downstairs:

Try this link: http://www.dropshots.com/lindsaymargenau#date/2009-09-17/02:12:46

The stream beside our house:

Try this link:  http://www.dropshots.com/lindsaymargenau#date/2009-09-16/21:39:14 (you may need to copy and paste it into another window

 

I’ve got a few more pics and some video to post, but will wait until tomorrow!

Dajia hao!!!

Or hi everyone in Chinese!

We’re here! We made it!  The flights went fine, remarkably the cats travelled extremely well, we transited in Beijing where some friendly customs officers waived the mandatory quarantine and let them continue on with us to Chongqing.  We arrived late at night to be greeted by a familiar face – Ryan, my colleague – who took us to our new house in “Fragrant Garden Villas” on the outskirts of Chongqing.  Wow.  We live in a marble palace.  It is an absolutely incredible house, with so much space and such wonderful outside areas for the kids to explore and play.  We have spend the last few days having tons of work done – from furniture deliveries and moving, to fixing appliances, installing new items we need, and receiving deliveries of water, etc – it is keeping us all busy.  Thankfully, our Ayi (housekeeper) also started full-time Monday morning, so we haven’t cleaned a thing since then which makes us all pretty happy.  I love the housekeeper concept, it is so much fun.  Anyways, not much time – I’m at work.  We can’t access a lot of websites from home, and when we can the internet doesn’t seem to be working.  It’s a slow process, but we’re getting there.  Our phones are all hooked up and if you email us to our gmail accounts we can give you phone numbers, including a local US and a local Ottawa number, so you too can call China for free!

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing
Unhappy cats en route to Vancouver airport

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing
ALL our luggage in Vancouver – checking in.

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Our house from the outside

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Oli in our entryway

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Looking towards our front door

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing
Our backyard

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing
Luke and his new friend Nico swimming at a really cool outdoor pool near our house

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing
En route to the grocery store – considering Kohler is right near where the Margenau family hails from in Wisconsin, we appreciated this little reminder of home!

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing
The view out our front door – past those trees in front, you go down about 30 stairs to the playground, on the edge of Dragon Lake.

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing
That’s our house on the right – this is a winding stream that trickles and bubbles down beside us, so cool huh? Jen notice the stroller – Luke LOVES it!!!

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing
The kids at the park across the street – notice the little gazebo and behind that, the lake. No swimming, but it’s nice to have a view!

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing
Luke throwing sticks into the water – easily his favourite activity

We will take a few videos of the inside of the house with the kids, so you can see them – but have to figure out a way to load them on youtube. You can also check dropshots, that seems to be the easiest for us to upload pictures, so there are these ones and many more up there so far – www.dropshots.com/lindsaymargenau.

More to come when we get a chance!!

The big move

Luke turns three next week as we prepare to move once more. This will be the third country he has lived in since birth, which sounds like a startling record.  Evelyn will have lived in 2 different countries before her first birthday. This is a good indication of what their childhoods will involve.  And luckily for us, they seem to be weathering it all pretty well so far.

Our big move took place this week. Last week my mom arrived to help us pack, shop, organize, and take care of the kids. On Monday the movers showed up – 3 of them – to pack and load all of our belongings into three different trucks heading in three different directions: one to a plane for immediate delivery, one to the Port for shipment on the proverbial slow-boat-to-China, and the third into Long Term Storage. In the end, we think everything got put in the right boxes, but who really knows. It was more than a little chaotic. We shopped – $4000 worth of grocery items and comfort foods are now making their way to China (for many of them, BACK to China, as most everything we bought originated there – yet can’t be bought locally, in a strange paradox). Grandma kept the kids busy playing at parks and going out to fun activities with friends.

Then finally came the inevitable goodbyes – which were heart-wrenching for all of us.   We are leaving behind some incredible friends and a great neighbourhood.

We all made it to Victoria, safe and sound, with counltess pieces of luggage, baby gear, and two remarkably well-behaved cats.  But we do miss everyone already, especially our afternoon pool parties.  Luckily for Luke, Aunty Heather had a new idea for Happy Hour, and introduced Luke to the wonders of the slip-n-slide.  It took him a couple tries, then he got it.   And boy, does he love it.

As the days go by faster and faster…

I think we are all coming to terms with what we are going to miss most of all. In the end, its the friends we have here who make Ottawa an actual home – despite how reluctant I am to admit that! We spend time almost every day with different groups of friends, trying to give the kids more time to see familiar faces before their whole world is turned upside-down.  The goodbyes haven’t started yet – thankfully.   I can’t bear to think of the day we say goodbye to Mackenzie – Luke’s absolute best friend.

Kyle took Luke to walk Mer Bleue swamp with our good friends Keith and Roxanne.  Tommy, Luke & Mackenzie had an incredible time playing in the bog, looking for bugs and turtles and – of course – splashing in the water on the boardwalk!

We headed up to Parliament Hill one day to see the Changing of the Guard, then Luke and Mackenzie had a great time throwing sticks into the Ottawa River across from Parliament.

Kyle and Keith took the kids out to see the Rockcliffe Airport one morning, watching planes coming and going and also spending some time on the docks.

And one night we went to the magical Ottawa Lumiere Festival!   Luke’s friends Rebecca & Mackenzie both dressed up beautifully.  Luke loved making his own lantern and seeing all the other ones, and of course throwing yet more sticks into the river.  Good thing there are a lot of rivers in China.  Although we didn’t dress up the kids, a friend got Evelyn a pair of fairy wings that she actually wore for a split second before tearing off!  The resulting picture isn’t great, but its too cute to leave out.  I’m sure they’ll come in handy as she gets older and is more interested in playing dress-up.  It was a wonderful, magical summer night with good friends.