Who's Cuter than Eli?

No one.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs

Some things that made me giggle in the past few days:

Yum?

The rest of the pictures didn't make me giggle necessarily, but I thought you all might enjoy them.

The entrance to Century Park outside of the science museum.

We turned our storage room into a game room for our gamer boys.

Now they can have an ongoing game of Axis and Allies without El Diablo playing the role of the atomic bomb.

Look who came to visit.  We took Gretchen out for a birthday treat (except we didn't know it was her birthday).

Naomi and I found a fancy shopping area -- Grandma G, you have to come back!!

Our last day with our favorite Mandarin teacher, Zoe :(.  She's moving back to Chengdu.

Mindels in the House

Here's a summary in photos of our time with Grandma and Grandpa.  They leave on Monday.  It will be sad times. We love them so much.

We had many metro adventures. But it's always an adventure taking the metro with Eli...

Eli took this picture.  Not bad considering he had his eyes shut.

Naomi on the Bund.

Townes had two birthday wishes -- try exotic teas and go to the top of the Pearl Tower.  Check and check.

It was lovely.

We also ate super delicious dumplings.  With instructions.

We did some shopping too...

But we didn't spit.

We flew kites.

Even when we weren't supposed to.

We finally put money in the rides outside the grocery store.

Naomi got her hair cut.

We began our ascent to the top of the Oriental Pearl Tower. It was crazy.

We made it back down again.  Some of us didn't think we ever would.

Birthdays, Visitors, and Colds

On May 8th, we went to the airport to pick up Grandma.  Look who she brought with her as a surprise for the kids...

Yay Grandpa!

The next day was Townes' birthday.  It started out great.  It was like Christmas morning.  Grandma and Grandpa brought packages and cards from so many of our friends and family.

Thanks Sabos!

Thanks Anya!

And one of our very favorite teachers of all time, Sue Evans, sent goodies for everyone.  Naomi was SO happy.

Eli loved his card from his BFF Owen.

Thanks to all the kids and teachers at Doty for sending along cards and gifts.  And to the O'Hanlon boys and Townes' friends from Roots for the porcupine quills :).

After this exciting morning, we took Townes for a birthday boat ride.

By the time we picked up Eli from school, Townes and Eli were both sniffly and beginning to cough.  By the time we went out for Townes' birthday dinner (with special guest George Hamilton), Eli fell asleep at the table, and Townes faded fast, not even wanting to stay for dessert (a huge sign that not all is well).  Both boys were nebulizer bound within hours.  We busted into our suitcase of medicines and fought back.  After a few fitful days and nights, everyone's back to normal.  Now for the delayed birthday dessert!

Hot and Hazy

We're getting a little taste of what the summer has in store for us the past few days.  But on a much smaller scale.  It's supposed to be 88 today, with extra thick air.  I think we may test out the air conditioner later in the day.  It's not really hot enough for us to have the air on, but the air is bad enough outside that I'd like to keep the windows closed and the air purifyer on.  But unlike summer, tomorrow or the next day will bring rain, and the air will clear and we'll be back in the 70s again.  Just in time for our visit from Grandma G!

We've fallen into a nice schedule.  Take E to school daily, N & T Mandarin lessons twice a week, everyone has engineering once a week, T has taekwondo on Fridays, N has band on Saturdays, we pick up E in the afternoons and try to do something outside, farm school every other Sunday, and starting this week, weekly speech therapy for E.  That doesn't even include weekly AATY field trips!  We're slowly gathering a list of people to do things with.  Other homeschool families, spouses' of Matthew's colleagues, etc.  But like a newborn's schedule, our's changes with each new development.  And hopefully will grow as we meet more people and find new things to do. 

Here's what we've been up to in pictures (sorry FB friends for any repeats), including my debut in the Shanghai Evening News:

I'm pretty sure the headline says, "US woman with grotesquely long arms, steals tomatoes from innocent children."

Me and the kids at Nature School showing off our carrot kids.

It was Yellow Day at Eli's school. One of his teacher's actually recognized the Eat More Kale shirt!  Said he'd seen a story about it on the news.  Go Team Kale!

Naomi and I spent an afternoon together exploring the shops and galleries on Taikang Road.

The kids finally convinced us to rent one of these bikes in the park.  It was as much fun as Matthew and I thought it would be...

We visited the Shanghai Natural Wild Insect Museum.  In the top 10 oddest museums I've been to.

Flowers blooming in Lujiazui.