Caden and Ava had their first "play date" of sorts as our new friends Stephanie, Will and Isabella (twins), and Evan (dad, Brian, was at work) came over for pizza and playtime last Wednesday. The Zumbolo family just arrived a few weeks ago from Minneapolis, and Stephanie and I feel like we are old friends already due to all the emails we sent each other preparing for our moves to Shanghai last winter. The adults are now planning their play time as the Zumbolos, our other new friends from Maple Grove, MN Chris and Amy Koch, and us will be attending the American Chamber of Commerce Gala on April 14th.Last Thursday brought more company in to our Shanghai home from Polaris. Brian (who has his own Ava) and Luke from the Roseau facility were here last week to visit some suppliers and they joined us for more Papa John's Pizza and Tsingtao and our second round of the movie Borat. It gets funnier each time and it was great to laugh with others from home. Thanks for a great evening guys! Why we didn't take a picture, I don't know.
Saturday evening brought more new friends to our home for a Tsingtao (hmm... there is a pattern here). Lisa and Don from Villa #78 and their three children came over. Don works for 3M (St. Paul) and they sold their home in Prescott, WI last September to make the move over here. Lisa has become quite the work out buddy for me and we are planning on doing an Antique Walking Tour that is sponsored by the Community Center next Wednesday.
Another work out companion I've met is Anna from Sweden. Yesterday, she and I and her youngest son Hugo (9 weeks) went to the Children's Clothing Market to see what we could find. Just behind the bushes you see here and down the steps was a maze of an underground shopping "mall" made up of over a hundred different little shops selling everything you could imagine in terms of clothes, shoes and toys. I could have easily gotten lost in there! Ava, as most of you know, has a closet full of her cousin Abbey's clothes, but Caden was in drastic need of some warm weather wear. I was able to score some "Gap" and "Carter's" summer clothes for him. Real or fake I don't know, but it's uncanny how the tags on them are just like you would see in the stores back home. Maybe they were snuck out the back door of the factory. Another interesting thing is that many of the clothes that are hanging in Ava's closet right now could be seen there as well. The shop owners were not as willing to deal here as they are in "fake" markets. Some would go down a little, but others would just let you walk away, a tactic that usually would let the buyer get their way. A "Gap" t-shirt ran me 25 RMB (around $3) and a "Carter's" one piece romper ran me 29RMB (almost $4). Anna bought some "Teva's" for her older son Axel that ran 200 RMB (around $25). Overall it was a fun place to go and see all that was there - especially the outfits that "modern, cosmopolitan Shanghainese" children wear, which are very sparkly and colorful.
Finally, since Caden and Ava are almost one we thought it was time that they start earning some wages to contribute to the family income. I can't believe that we decided to do this, but we took up an offer to get us connected with a modeling agent for the kids. After viewing the blog, (we've been "unblocked" again for a couple of days!) Boya, the modeling agent, called us to have the kids do a photo shoot today for the Good Baby Stroller Company (their strollers are sold here at the Shanghai Toys-R-Us and they are quite nice). So, Caden, Ava, the Ayi and myself went to the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum toda
y (just the outside of it) to be a part of a photo shoot. The kids had to wear some dreary looking "fashionable" Shanghainese baby clothing and they each took turns with the skinny blond model from the Ukraine (think LeAnn Rimes) posing with various strollers while I, and others, tried to get them to smile. It took about two hours and the kids made some RMB to contribute to their college fund. Plus they are sending me a disc with all of the pictures, and if the kids pics get selected for the catalog we will get one of those as well. I'm not sure if I will do this again, but it was interesting to say the least.Here's a picture of Caden with the photographer.
And, before we forget and not that we could..... there is soon to be another star born! Chad and Amy Gabert are expecting their son this week. We are so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When they get around to sending us a picture we will add him to the blog so you can all see the next generation of Gaberts. If they let the little guy wait until Monday he could share his birthday with his cousins. Tune in next time for the party pictures!
Love,
The Wixos
