The Wixo's Shanghai Move & Adventure: Life A Little Easier

Happy Easter to All! We hope you enjoyed your time with family or loved ones over the holiday weekend. You were in our thoughts and minds.

Anyway, I thought I would give you a blog that kind of shed's some light on our everyday here in the "Middle Kingdom" and the people and things that make life easier for us. The Chinese translation for "China" is "middle kingdom" as in old times it was thought that the world revolved around this land. Perhaps some around here still think it does but who are we to say that it doesn't.

The above picture is one of Caden and Ayi (ahh-ee). We have talked about her before in past blogs but she is worth mentioning over and over again because she is awesome. Our kids basically are bi-lingual because of Ayi. You see Ayi doesn't speak English, she only speaks Mandarin Chinese and she talks non stop when she is here at our home. In this picture she is reading a book to Caden. We picked up some Chinese children's books at the local department store and the twins love it when Ayi reads to them. So they understand what we say when we talk to them and they understand Ayi when she talks to them. Now the problem is understanding the twins when they speak to us...so are they speaking in English or Chinese or a combo...??

The picture below is of our van and of our driver. He likes to be called "shif-fa" which is Shanghainese for "driver". He doesn't speak English either. Virtually every foreigner has a gray Buick mini van like this with a driver. They are all over the place - actually the Buick name is one of the most popular brand names for automobiles in China. In this picture, Caden and Ava have taken over the van. Shif-fa loves to let the kids play in his van and the kids love it to - - BUT it makes for a boisterous first 5 minutes of a car ride when they have to sit in their car seats.

Much of the time on weekends is spent outside as it is getting pretty nice here in Shanghai. Our neighborhood as you can see in the pictures is rather kid friendly. It has a playground & the streets are rather slow with traffic.

In the picture below Caden is riding his "bike" (as he calls it) with his friend "Josh". Josh's family is from the Wisconsin side of the MN/WI border and his dad works for 3M here in Shanghai.

This is a typical weekend afternoon much like any other in a small town neighborhood. The kids are playing in the driveway and the moms are gabbing about where we are going out to dinner later in the evening.

Once dinner is complete on a normal weeknight, it is time for the kids to shed their clothes and wind down for the evening. The picture below is one of their favorite games called "tuck" which translates to "stuck". They lay down and back themselves under the couch and then pretend they are stuck. {yes, the couch was provided to us by the housing management company - and no we didn't have many choices in colors}. The other game they like to play is "3". You probably noticed in the picture of Ayi above all of the couch cushions are pulled out. Well, this is because they just completed a game of "3". 3 is a game where you stand on the couch and count to 3 and jump or fall into the cushions... 1, 2, 3... Then it is off to bed at 7:30.