One For The Grandparents

Here is a posting for the grandparents. Our neighbors, the Sagans, have older children and they have what I would call "hand-me-down-toys" for the twins as their kids are getting too old for toddler toys. Their youngest is 6. Caden and Ava love this because they get to try out all of these "new to them" toys. Recently they received a battery operated trike... and our kids just love it. They don't know quite yet that you need to look where you are driving as they just push the button and "go"...into the curb on the street, into the garage, into the grass, etc. Yes, wipe outs do happen, but usually dad is running behind and guiding them on their way.

The weather is now getting very, very nice here at our home but we expect the rainy days to happen very soon.

One Week Later

One week ago was the earthquake that rocked southwest China. The severity of this disaster is now better understood as there are some 220,000+ people injured and 33,000+ dead. To put that in perspective, this death toll, when all is said and done, will be 10 times that of the September 11th World Trade Center attacks. Most of the dead are school children as it occurred in the middle of the afternoon and the largest buildings in this area of China are schools. Complete communities were leveled from the quake as well. On Sunday an aftershock registering a 5.9, started a landslide and buried at least 200 rescue workers. The pictures attached are from the MSN website. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24690053 It is now considered the worst quake in China in 59 years and they are saying it registered a 7.9.

Today, marked the one week anniversary and at 2:28 PM local time here in Shanghai. The complete city, and I believe country, came to a stand still in honor of the dead and the disaster. This is a country of 1.3 billion people and Shanghai is a city of 18 million people...cars stopped on the freeway, people stopped on the sidewalk, etc. I witnessed this from my office window which peers down over an elevated highway it was like time was frozen for 3 minutes or so.

-

For those of you that are thinking of us, thanks and we appreciate your concern and emails. We are fine here in Shanghai and life progresses as normal. We had an awesome weekend for weather as it is about 80 degrees here now and time to visit the swimming pool. All I can say is....for those of you with children, take time to enjoy them.

Until next time...

Tremors

Today, you'll see on Good Morning America, CNN, or some other news outlet: "Earthquake Hits China, Registers a 7.5..." The quake occurred in the southwest province of Sichuan and we felt the tremor here in our office in Shanghai...hundreds of miles away. I had just stood up from my office chair and had walked over to the photo copier when I heard this tapping noise. I asked what that noise was and Jason, my co-worker, said he felt a little dizzy and said the chains for the window dressings were swaying back and forth and tapping against the window frames. There are about 12 windows in our office and all the chains were swinging in perfect unison. I said I didn't really feel anything but it must have been an earthquake. Sure enough, the reason he felt dizzy & the chains were swinging was because the building was moving ever so slightly from a tremor. We are on the 7th floor of a 25 story building. So we walked down to the main lobby in our office building and all of the larger hanging lights were also swaying back and forth as if someone had just "tapped" them. The lady at the front desk confirmed that there had been a tremor from an earthquake somewhere in China. The building started to clear as workers left their offices for the sanctity of the open sidewalk. We spoke with people in the upper floors and they said that the building was swaying so much that it was very noticeable and it lasted for about 3 or 4 minutes.

----

I wrote the above portion about a 1/2 hour after we felt the tremors. This I am updating at 11:13 PM my time. Much more is known now and this is turning out to be the worst earthquake in China in 30 years. Apparently there are more than 7500 people suspected dead...many of them are children as a number of schools have collapsed. 2 chemical plants have also collasped.

Wild Animal Park & Spring in Shanghai

While many of you that we know and love are still being pounded by old man winter, I thought that I would give you a little glimpse into our little "Spring Break" trip to the local Shanghai Wild Animal Park. Our dearest friends, the Hess's and the Sagen's kids, were on break from school so us three moms packed all 8 kids, Grandma Hess and Ayi into three vans and headed off to see the lions, tigers and bears - oh my! (I couldn't resist because I knew you saw it coming).

We saw them, all right, Jurassic Park style from the comfort of an air conditioned Chinese equivalent of a Greyhound Bus. And, contrary to some guidebooks, no live chickens were dangled outside the windows of the bus to provide for extra entertainment. (This did happen to one poor family in our neighborhood during their visit to the park with their, at the time, three year old daughter looking on.) We did happen upon one very stiff and bloated zebra, however the kids claimed that they saw its chest rising with breath. Phew...it was just "sleeping"..."night, night zebra"...

After the short bus ride through the large animal viewing areas, we all piled onto a tram to whiz us through the rest of the park so as to keep the three two year olds moving right along. The tram driver drove through the park avoiding trees and other park goers like the best of Shanghai's experienced taxi drivers - no Disney World pace for them and no hope of seeing more than a glimpse of most of the other animals unless we wanted to back track by foot. Did I mention we had three two year olds along?

HEY, LETS GET ALL THE KIDS TOGETHER FOR A PICTURE!!!!

Attempt in setting # 1: nope, Ava didn't think so

Attempt in setting # 2: even the animal statues aren't looking at the camera
I can't even tell you how many shots four adults took and not one turned out much better than these. But hey, they tell a story too.

Here's Josh, Caden and Ava having a snack outside of the white tiger viewing area. (Yeah, I know what you thinking - snacks. ) Josh thought it was pretty cool seeing his big brother hoisted up by the elephant, but Ava and Caden were not going anywhere near this guy.The highlight of the day happened to be the first picture that I posted - our visit to Lemur Island. For 5 RMB you could buy a cup of apple slices as get up close and personal with the fuzzy striped tailed friendly guys. Caden was brave about holding out the apple and held onto it until the lemurs took it from him, Ava tossed hers way ahead of time so as to not let them get close. They both were grinning from ear to ear as we left these friends behind. I was expecting the terrible twos to throw a twin tantrum when it was time to leave, however, they were content to end their day at the zoo.

Until next time...it was 80 degrees here for much of what was a national holiday weekend as it was Labor Day in China on Thursday. In this picture Ava and Caden are trying to catch minnows in a little pond in our neighborhood complex - see we even have our own wildlife here in our backyard.