Where To Start? The November 17, 2013 Washington, IL Tornado

Where do I even begin?  In a million years, I never thought I would be writing about this.  For those that follow the blog, but aren't connected with me on Facebook, the community that Jamie and I lived in before we moved to China was hit by a devastating tornado this past Sunday.  One report I read said that over 400 homes were affected and entire neighborhoods were leveled.  But, the miracle of it all, is that only one fatality has been reported.  It could have been so much worse.

Washington, IL was our home for 10+ years before we became expats and moved to China.  Jamie and I moved to Washington and into our first home (a teeny-tiny 1 1/2 story bungalow) 6 months after we were married.  We met great people, found a wonderful church and began building our life there.  Some of our closest friends are in Washington.  The kind of friends that walk through adulthood with you; new jobs, babies, adoption questions and paperwork, a move overseas and everything else life throws at you.

In 2009 we had 2 young children and we were still living in our bungalow house.  We felt a little cramped and it looked as if our opportunities to move overseas with my husband's company had all fallen through.  We bought our second home in Washington, a bigger 2 story home, in an established subdivision with no cookie-cutter homes and lots of mature trees.  We thought we were staying put!  Surprise, two years later we were presented with the opportunity to move to China and we took it.  Some expats sell their homes when they move overseas, but we chose to keep our house and rent it while we were overseas.  (It was supposed to be a short 18-24 month assignment.  We're now at the 2 1/2 year mark.)  It was our plan to return to our house on Westminster.  While we've been in China we've been very fortunate to have some renters living in our home.  

Before I show you pictures, please know that our renters are safe and from what we know our neighbors are safe as well.

This is what our part of Westminster Drive looked like a few years ago...

I am not sure of the location of these exact photos, but our subdivision looks something like this now...

This is what the front of our house looked like before...

This photo is taken from the vantage of looking out our front door.  The green is our roof which now sits in our front yard.

This is LBean in our newly remodeled main floor bathroom shortly after we moved in 2009.

This is what remains.

Living room before we moved.

Living room floor now.

 Dining room before we moved.

Kitchen before we moved.

What remains, you can see the flooring and the row of bushes in the background is what we could see from the window of our kitchen sink.

Looking down the basement steps.

Backyard before we moved...

EBean enjoying our first picnic at our new home in 2009.

This is what the backyard looks like now.  You can see the round bushes on the right side of the photo and match them with the ones in the picture above.

Jamie and I lost a house and that is it.  Our family is safe, our pictures, clothing and other "things" are either with us in China or in storage.  Moving forward, our troubles are very minimal.  Friends from church, MOPS, another mothers group, neighbors and so many others have the huge task of sifting through what remains of their homes and trying to collect all that they can.  My heart is breaking for them.

Many people have sent me messages and asked what they can do and how can they best help people.  At this point, unless you have a connection to a specific family, I think monetarily supporting established groups such as the Red Cross and Samaritan's Purse are probably the best way to help.

As for our family and what remains of our house, I don't know what is next.  I think we sit and wait.  I have contacted our insurance company and they will call us back, some time.  I don't know if we will need to return to the US to look at the property.  I really don't know.

I am so grateful to our friends Steve & Dawn who literally walked up to our home and, not knowing they were talking to our renter, asked the house number of the pile of rubble they were looking at.  They had found our house, talked to our renter, and took the pictures you see above.  Had they not done that we wouldn't have known for over 24 hours how are renters were and we would have no idea what remained of our house.

Thank you to Shanna, my mom, my niece and everyone who texted me and tried calling me in China.  I woke up on Monday morning in China (14 hours ahead of Illinois) to many messages and missed calls because they didn't want me to find out from Facebook what had happened to our house.  Jamie is in Singapore for the week for training, so I called him as soon as I could to let him know what had happened.  

I've spent the last two days on Facebook just reading everyone's posts, watching videos, looking at pictures and trying to feel connected even though we are so far away.  And, for now we wait.

Humble Administrator's Garden

This past weekend our family pushed ourselves out of our normal Saturday routine (cartoons, jammies, and crafting at the dining room table) and we visited one of Suzhou's  most famous gardens.  The Humble Administrator's Garden was first built in the 16th century and it is now considered as a World Cultural Heritage Site.  It is one of China's four most famous gardens.

At the entrance:

I'll let you in on a secret, Chinese gardens are fantastic places to take young children.  Our girls love to run, jump, climb, and hide.  The gardens have water, fish, and other things children find fascinating.

Suzhou is known for its embroidery. The finest ones look beautiful from both sides and some are displayed between two pieces of glass so they can be enjoyed from the front and back.  EBean loved this creation with all the flowers.

Our girls enjoyed exploring and finding new "secret" paths.

This structure was built to look like a ship out on the water. 

And the tradition continues, we had more ice cream.  I feel as if we've eaten ice cream all across China.  One of the Chinese mothers told her son he couldn't get ice cream because it would make him sick.  It is fall now and therefore it must be "cold" out even though it was nearly 80 degrees Fahrenheit and we were all sweating.

We closed down the garden and headed to our favorite Chinese restaurant in Old Town, Yang Yang's.  The dishes we crave include the steamed dumplings, beef on hot rocks, ma po duo fu (spicy tofu), sweet and sour pork, and spicy green beans.  We tried a new dish this time and I have found a new favorite;pineapple rice served hot in half of a pineapple.  

How are your chop stick skills?

Those are peanuts, by the way!

What's That? Wednesday: Morning Exercises

One of my favorite parts of my daily routine is walking EBean to her bus stop.  It takes us about 10 minutes and I love hearing what is on EBean's mind.  On our walk we also get to witness the community that exists within our apartment compound.  

After EBean gets on her school bus, I get to enjoy some one-on-one time with ChinaBean.  We usually stop at the neighborhood grocery store (smaller than a 7-11, but filled with import goodness), maybe stop by the fruit stand, and watch the people and the shops within our compound start their day.

As we meander home, it's not uncommon to see people (or entire businesses) begin their day with some exercises.  The video below shows a realty company within our apartment compound.  They start with a chant (maybe a company motto?) and then move into some singing and dancing.  I think it's great that they are all willing to do a group activity like this.  You would be hard-pressed to find people in the US that would volunteer to participate.  ChinaBean loves to watch them in the morning!

This is how ChinaBean exercises in the morning!

I thought I was taking a video of this grandma (women are "aunties", older women are grandma's) performing her morning Tai Chi, but instead I got a still photo (below).  Using my toddler-sized Mandarin vocabulary, I've "talked" with her the last few days and she totally called me out on the photo I took last week!  I thought I was being a super sleuth and I failed.  Thankfully she is very friendly and laughed about it.  (Whew!)

How do you get moving in the morning?

万圣节快乐 Wànshèngjié kuàilè (Happy Halloween!)

As a general rule the Chinese don't celebrate Halloween.  That said, Suzhou has many western expats that do, so the trend is catching on.  Our local 7-11 sized grocery store stocks customs and decorations as does our Metro (the Chinese version of Sam's Club). Many of the apartment and housing compounds organize their own trick-or-treating events.  LBean's school does not recognize Halloween, but they did have a free-dress day (no uniform) and she wore pajamas to school.  

Dressed in orange & black and ready to party!

EBean's school does celebrate Halloween and took the children trick-or-treating in each classroom. She chose to wear her Korean Hanbok and be a Korean princess.  She's been very multi-cultural this week.  On Sunday, Jamie brought back beautiful scarves from India for all of us.  On Monday EBean decided to wear the scarf as an Indian sari to school...all day long!  She has an amazing teacher that kept re-wrapping the scarf when it fell.

In the evening a brave, brave friend in our apartment building organized a Halloween potluck.  It felt like hundreds of people (but it really wasn't) gathered in the lobby of our apartment building for hotdogs, baked beans, chips, potato salad, egg rolls, Chinese dumplings, cookies, cakes and lots of other yummy things.

We had a picnic on the floor!

EBean with her friend T

A cupcake, a Korean princess, and Cleopatra!

For the third year in a row, I pulled out my Scarlett O'Hara dress that I had made in Shanghai our first fall in China.  Did anyone happen to read the story about the high school teacher that wore the same outfit for class photos for about 30 years?  I think I'll be like that for the next 30 years with my Halloween costume!

I made Jamie put on a fake mustache so he could be my Rhett Butler.  I appreciate his sense of adventure!

ChinaBean is old enough that she caught onto the idea of reaching for candy very quickly.  She even tried saying "trick or treat" a few times, but not to the dad in the scary mask.  When she saw him she hid underneath my dress!

Often I am told that EBean and I look very much alike (minus the hair color difference).  I don't usually see it, but I think our cheesy grins in this photo do look a bit familiar...

ChinaBean didn't do too badly with her loot.  I think it has something to do with the fact that our upstairs neighbor let ChinaBean empty half her bucket into ChinaBean's Halloween sack.  (Thanks Anu - you might find that candy in your entryway some night!)

The photo below is not a great picture from a photographic point-of-view, but it sums up the night so well.  The air was cool, but not cold and the rain stopped for the evening. I like the lights of other apartment buildings in the background, children coming and going in their costumes with parents trailing behind, a big group people and bigger sense of community.  A perfect night.