Piece of Humble Pie

Remember that time last weekend when I hopped on an airplane with LBean to go to her orthodontist appointment and I realized half-way through the flight that her appointment was actually the next weekend? Yes, that was my weekend.  How about yours?

Let me back up a bit.  LBean is of the age where orthodontics is a regular part of our monthly routine.  When we lived in Suzhou, we would drive the hour to Hongqiao (a Western-suburb/neighborhood of Shanghai) for her monthly orthodontist appointments.  After we moved to Xi’an, we talked with Jamie’s company about how to continue her orthodontic treatment and if it was even possible to continue her treatment in Xi’an.  It was decided that it would be best that LBean and one parent fly to Shanghai for her appointments.  It’s a 2 1/2 hour flight each way, so think about that the next time you’re sitting at the dentist or orthodontist waiting for your appointment!

Thankfully LBean’s orthodontist suggested that her appointments could be spaced out every 2-3 months and we won't have to make the flight every month.  And, I found out that other families in Xi’an have flown to Chang Mai, Thailand for orthodontic treatment, which made me feel a whole lot less ridiculous about it all.  At least we were staying in the country!

Checked in and ready to go

Speed ahead to this past Saturday.  LBean and I packed our bags, hopped on our flight and were enjoying some great mother/daughter time.  About half-way through the flight I decided I needed to double-check the time of the appointment so I could better plan our day.  As I was reaching for my planner a few thoughts converged…hmmm, I never got a text reminding me of her appointment, and wouldn’t that be funny if her appointment was next Saturday.

I opened my planner and staring back at me was her appointment time, which was listed for the next Saturday.  Right next to it in the notes section of my planner were our flights.  Why I didn’t put two and two together, I don’t know.  I put my head in my hands and LBean became concerned.  “Are you crying mom?”  I lifted my head and I was laughing.  I mean, really, who does something like this?  I just couldn’t stop laughing.  I said, “Just wait till I call your dad.  He won’t be mad.  At least I don’t think so…”

Starbucks helps our subway ride go well

We got off the plane and I immediately called the orthodontist’s office.  “Can you please confirm my daughter’s appointment?  Hmmm, next Saturday, well now I get to admit something very embarrassing to you.”  Thankfully, LBean’s orthodontist has three offices, 1 in Hong Kong, 1 in Hongqiao (where we were staying) and 1 in Pudong (closer to the big airport).  We were in luck because the doctor was in the other Shanghai office.  Instead of walking out the front door of our hotel and across the driveway to the Hongqiao office, LBean and I trekked to the other side of a 24 million person city.

We dropped our bags off at the hotel, grabbed a quick lunch and started our 1 1/2 hour journey to the other office.  We stood on the subway for an hour where we changed subway lines three times and then walked about 25 minutes to the other office.  But, we made it!  In the process we discovered a whole new part of Shanghai that we had not been to before.  LBean was such a good sport about it all and had a great attitude.

LBean enjoying her new book and taking a break.

Still happy and standing in line in Marks & Spencer

To break up the 90 minute return trip, we stopped at West Nanjing street for a little retail therapy and a snack at Marks & Spencer.  That night we celebrated our success with a tasty hotdog and cheeseburger from Blue Frog. (And, our waitress did ask why she hadn't seen us for a long time).  I told Jamie that the extra 3 hours we spent getting to the other office was my penance for making such a big mistake.  

Just a few people at the West Nanjing Road subway stop

LBean and I spent Sunday morning going through the import grocery store stocking up on a few things that I haven’t managed to find in Xi’an yet (or haven’t looked for on TaoBao).  We stopped at the Pearl Market for a few gifts for the little sisters and enjoyed one last tasty meal.  

We brought two big suitcases for our overnight trip.
You can see why! 

That is a proper stack of nachos.

The weekend turned out to be wonderful, but I dined on a big slice of humble pie for my mistake with a huge scoop of grace on the side.  I was right, Jamie was not mad and he has given me a lot of grace for my mistake.

I will consult my calendar before the next appointment.  I promise.

Well, hello there!

I feel like I must re-introduce myself.  My name is Kara.  And I live in China.  Still.

We did not fall off the face of the earth, just moved our family.  It’s been a whirl-wind 6 months and we’re getting settled into our apartment, the girls are enjoying their new schools and we got a puppy.  Bring on the chaos!

As I mentioned in my last post, we fully intended/believed that we would be moving back to the United States this summer.  Needless to say the move to Xi’an was a bit of a surprise.

Let me take a moment to introduce to our hew city…

Name: Xi’an (pronounced something like “She ahn”)

Population: At least 8.5 million people (which is roughly the size of New York City)

Fun Facts:

• One of the oldest cities in China
• It’s the oldest of the Four Ancient Capitals of China
• It is the start of the famous Silk Road
• It is the home of the Terracotta Warriors
• Xi’an people love noodles.  Generally speaking the people in the southern part of the county eat rice with their meals.  For those in the north, it is noodles.  

Beijing is in the NE corner of China.  Suzhou (our home from 2011-2015) is by the big red arrow.
Our new city is 2.5 hours inland by plane (by the blue star).

(All my facts are from Wikipedia because we know that everything we read on the internet is true.)

I am looking forward to getting back to blogging and introducing you to our new city.

We're Moving!

After a few (okay, many) weeks of uncertainty, we are able to officially announce that...

As my dad quickly pointed out, "That's not in the US."  No, we are not moving back to the United States as we thought that we would.  It seems fitting that the first move to China was a complete surprise to us and so when Jamie was approached about a position in Xi'An we were equally surprised.

Xi'An is most famous for the Terracotta Warriors.  So, if you've been waiting for one more excuse to come visit us, I think you've just found it.  From what we have learned, it seems that Xi'An is a larger city than Suzhou, but the expatriate population is 1/2-2/3 smaller.  I think I will be saying goodbye to some of my favorite creature comforts in Suzhou!

Over the next month we hope to visit Xi'An and find our next apartment/home, decide on a school, pack up our Suzhou apartment, finish the school year at Dulwich, say goodbye to  our Suzhou friends and then unpack a few boxes in Xi'An.  The tentative plan is for me to be in the US with our girls for the month of July.  We'll see how that pans out!

Emotionally, everyone seems to be doing pretty well.  It was a shock to us all because we honestly believed that there was a strong chance we would end up back in the US.  However, at one point Jamie was looking at positions in 3 continents, so we knew that nothing was a given.

The morning we revealed our next city to our girls, we toasted daddy and his next job with sparkling juice.

We put out our miniature Terracotta soldiers as a clue to where we were headed next.

I guess that means the overseas adventure continues and maybe this blog too.

Nobody's Cuter Than You

See if you can recognize anyone you might know at 2:03 in the video...

This is where we sat for most of the weekend.
However, the majority of the time we were
in pj's, glasses, and no make-up.  I spared you that photo.

A few weekends ago my family and I took a quick trip up to Beijing to visit my friend Megan and her family.  They had recently moved to the capital from Suzhou and it was our first time to see their new apartment and neighborhood.

Megan and I planned to spend most of the 40 hours we had together talking.  We were pretty successful and managed to only waste 12 hours sleeping between the two nights that we were there.  

On Saturday night we were approaching our 2 a.m. bedtime and Megan said that we should watch the video trailer for a new book that is going to be released. One of our favorite authors, bloggers, and podcasters, Melanie Shankle, has a new book coming in April.  Megan's prompting reminded me that several months ago I had submitted a photo of the two of us after the author asked for pictures of friends to help promote her new book.  Well, about half way through the video Megan and I start giggling (and I might have shrieked a bit) because our picture was chosen to be in the promo video!  And, to prove what a great friend Megan is, she did not immediately strangle me after seeing that this is the photo I submitted…

Rest assured, we are the only ones in the video 1) on an E-Bike, 2) in China, and 3) wearing very stylish bicycle helmets!

Here are a few excerpts from the email I sent to the author describing my friend and what she means to me.  

…In the Spring of 2011 my husband was offered the chance to our family to China for his next work assignment.  In fact, he was offered the position on March 2, which was the day after all of our paperwork to adopt a little boy or girl from China arrived in Beijing. 

As any Type A, stressed out mama who was about to move her two little girls across the globe would do, I started looking for blogs about expats in China, specifically in Suzhou where we would move.  I found a cute blog called Apple Pie to Stir Fry and began reading about life in Suzhou, China and pouring over the author's photos to give me a visual of what I was about to experience.

Fast-forward a few months and our family arrived in China, we're living out of suitcases in a local hotel until our sea-shipment of household goods arrive and we take our family to church for the first time.  As we're settling our oldest daughter into Sunday school class in walks a very cute mama with her two daughters.  I break out of my introverted self and walked up to her and asked, "Do you have a blog?"  She looked surprised, and said "yes..."  "Is it called Apple Pie to Stir Fry?", "Yes..."  (I tease her now that she was suspicious, she swears she was just excited that someone was reading her blog).  I had finally met Megan in person!  

From the beginning Megan's hospitality (she's from the South, I'm a Yankee) and smile eased my homesick and over-whelmed heart.  At one point I looked at my husband and said, "I think she's the one", I thought I had found a best friend in China and I did.

Megan & I have now known each other for three years and we are each other's go-to person.  Texting, emailing each other book recommendations, forwarding blog posts, gabbing about new podcasts we've found (she introduced me to your podcast), and our bi-monthly "meetings" (we sneak off to Starbucks or the like on Wednesday afternoons, without children) cement our relationship. 

I feel a bit selfish because I think I am defiantly getting the better end of the friendship deal!  Megan & I know that our time together in China will be coming to an end and we're trying to treasure all the "meetings" we have left.  But, the gift of friendship, honesty, accountability and the example of Megan's relationship with the Lord will be something that I take back to the US with me and share with the three besties I left in Central Illinois.  When the time comes & we're not in the same country, all I have to say is thank goodness for technology! 

As for Megan's blog, it is no longer.  I encouraged her to let it go during one of our "meetings", it was stressing her out and not any fun.  I think the blog had already served it's purpose, it had brought us together.

I am sending a photo of Megan & I from this past spring.  As we were planning our next "meeting" she asked what I wanted to do and I told her I wanted an E-bike (electric bike) ride.  Most Chinese in our town have one and I'd never been on one.  Megan agreed to give me a ride.  Because we are responsible mothers who harp on our girls about wearing helmets, we rode bicycle helmets for our ride.  We're so cool!  I couldn't stop laughing because we were moving at approximately the speed of smell and I felt like we were stepping into the movie Dumb & Dumber.  Such a great memory!

I don’t think that I’ve ever plugged a book or product on my blog, but I am very excited for Melanie’s new book Nobody’s Cuter Than You which releases on April 7, 2015.  

Megan and I have decided that we will pay full price for it, we won’t even wait for it to be on the $1.99 Kindle list.  Maybe you should look into paying full price for it too.

2015 World Figure Skating Finals (Women's Long Program)

I happened to pick up a copy of the China Daily newspaper on a recent flight and was excited to find that the World Figure Skating Finals were going to be in Shanghai.  First thing on Monday morning I had some help tracking down tickets (because at the point you had to go to the venue to pick them up in person - will call would have been a bit handier).  

We spent Saturday enjoying some very talented figure skaters.  We had no idea what to expect and we didn't know that we'd be there for 4 hours and over lunch time.  In the US at a sporting event there would have been several options for food, most of them covered in processed cheese.  This being an event in China, I should have known to bring our own food.  I was not thinking!  The girl snacked on popcorn and suckers.  Towards the end of the event I almost got bold enough to ask the couple next to us for their extra chips.  The guy virtually had a grocery store in his bag...sandwiches, chips, and some other snacks.

Despite our hunger, we had a great time.  The staff at the event were so kind and polite and the spectators were amazing.  When the last 2 groups of skaters performed the audience pulled out flags for each of the performers respective countries, even those with complicated histories.  Very impressive!

It was very special to cheer on the US skaters while on our "home" soil in China.  We proudly waved our flags and screamed just a bit!

First competitor

Unless cousin Molly competes some day, I doubt
we'll be at another World Championship!

Flags ready and watching closely.

Impressive

US skater Gracie Gold 

US skater Ashley Wagner

Great job Ashley!

Waiting for the scores

Sporting some US pride 

US skater Polina Edmunds

The little skaters picking up the stuffed animals
thrown to the skaters.

This bear was bigger than the little skater
trying to carry it!

The winners...Russia, Japan and Russia.

Medals ceremony

I enjoy going to Shanghai to take advantage of the opportunities "city" has to offer! 

And, no, we don't have 4 girls now...we grabbed a friend of LBean's so she could enjoy the day too.  Jamie weathered the estrogen, Taylor Swift tunes and figure skating very, very well.  We appreciate his dedication to his daddy duties!

Avoiding Bitterness: Why Not Knowing is Okay

“So, you’re moving this summer, right? You’re moving back to the US?”

The question that keeps getting asked.  A lot. Well, actually we don’t know.  

“You mean Jamie doesn’t have a job?!”

Well, Jamie’s role during his time in China was to train up a Chinese national to take his position.  The time has come for the national to take over and we are excited about this!

“Can’t he just go back to the job he left in the US?”

Jamie’s company encourages their employees to move roles/positions/jobs every 3-5 years.  It is necessary for career development and learning new skills.  Jamie’s skills have grown, changed and evolved while we’ve been in China and a different position will be a better fit (just like if he would have been in a role for 4 years in the US).

“Is there a job for him?”

Well, in a large company it is really about timing.  What other people are also looking for their next position within the company and what positions will be available when we think we'll be moving?   This is the point that we’re at, looking at what might become available in the next 6 months.

“Don’t you want to move back to the US?”

Sure, that would be great.  Family, friends, cheese, driving and Target are all great things about the US.

“Don’t you want to have another expat assignment?”

Sure, that would also be great.  We love to travel and there are so many more places to see.  The experiences that our girls are having are shaping their world-view in such a positive manner.

“Aren’t you freaking out?”

Not yet.  I had tea with a friend last week and she mentioned that there were about 102 days between last Friday and their projected move day (at the end of the school year), which is potentially our move date.  She was meeting with the relocation people in the afternoon to start assessing their belongings and what it would take to move everything back to the US.  One hundred and two days is not long at all!

The conversation with my friend put me in a very reflective mood.  I started remembering all the feelings that I had before we moved to China and one of the emotions I had was bitterness.  I was excited to move, I was ready for an adventure, I was sad to leave family & friends, but our little family of four wanted to go.  We were choosing this.  However, as the process got started, emails started rolling in, the continuous stream of calls with lawyers, accountants, packers, etc. I developed a lot of bitterness.  I didn’t want to spend my last 8 weeks feeling harassed by my to-do list.  I had the distinct feeling that the only thing keeping me from breezily sailing through this move was me.  Me not willingly to stay up all hours of the night filling out forms, responding to emails, organizing our things, and marching through the to-do’s.  But, I couldn’t escape it and those things had to be done.

I wanted to spend the time leading up to the move savoring time with family, enjoying one more round of hugs and laughs with my closest girl friends and giving my girls an extra big dose of Americana to sustain us through the first 6 months of our move.

So for now, from my perspective, if we don’t know where we’re going, then I can’t have a moving to-do list.  Frankly, if an international move gets crammed into 30 days, then fine by me because it will be crazy and exhausting no matter how many days I am given.

I’m avoiding bitterness at all costs.  Instead, you can find me soaking up all things Suzhou and China and enjoying what time we have left here.

More Evidence that It’s a Small World

If you're a faithful reader (thanks mom!) you might remember few posts about small the world can really feel.  Let me think back…

The time we met friends of my parents at an international meeting in Korea.  My parents' friends next stop was Shanghai.  They were meeting in-laws of one of their own children.  However, the in-laws they were meeting didn’t actually live in Shanghai, they lived in Suzhou.  Hmmm, I’ve heard of that place before!  A few years have passed since that realization and it’s fun to chuckle about it because the people they were visiting have children LBean & EBean’s ages and our kids all go to school together.

Another reminder was just this past fall when our taxi driver on the island of Borneo had not only been to the US, but had lived in souther Illinois (my home state) for over a year.  He had attended flight school at Southern Illinois University.

Later int the fall we were in line to board our flight back to Shanghai from southern China and the father behind us nudged his son.  He said “Did you tell them?” and his son shook his head shyly.  Turns out that they had stayed at the same resort as us in Borneo 6 weeks earlier and they remembered us.  (So much for being anonymous while on vacation.  My first thoughts were: 1) Had I been yelling at my kids and 2) What had I been wearing?!)

In January I was scanning through a Suzhou friend’s FB page.  I was helping put together a photo book for her going away party and needed to find some contact information for her friends.  As I was scrolling through her friends list it told me if some of my Facebook friends were friends with her Facebook friends (did you catch that?).  Most of the friend connections were easy to figure out…people from church, Girl Scouts, housing compounds and other Suzhou-related ties.  But then, there were at least 4 or 5 connections that had nothing to do with Suzhou at all.  A dear friend of Jamie’s from college (a study buddy that we have camped with on many Labor Day camping trips), one of my good friends from college (we might have passed the time in class by trying to complete the daily crossword puzzle in the Daily Illini), and someone I know only via a Facebook introduction (but she also lives in SE Asia).  It was fun to keep discovering the connections.  

ChinaBean "demonstrating" some
of my physical therapy exercises

Most recently I started seeing a doctor to address some pain in my foot from running.  During our first meeting we started chatting and as it turns out, he is also originally from central Illinois (my home state in the US).  We grew up within hours of each other.  Now I can pretend to be very particular about my health care and say that I will only go see a doctor from my home state.  You can do that, even in China!

She is having way too much fun with this!

Maybe instead of seven degrees of Kevin Bacon, it should be the seven degrees of Suzhou?