Goodbye China!

We are now back in the States! It's good to be back, but we are struggling with the time change. I was looking over some of our photos from China, and here is a glimpse of some of our most memorable moments in China that we will never forget.




Our Apartment - and Taelyn's first home






View of Hong Kong







Ralph & Snowball










Bamboo Construction









Communist Bill Boards

The Best and Worst of China

Now that we only have a couple of weeks left in China, we have started to reflect on our time here. Here is what we have come up with.

Things We Will Miss About China:
* 70 minute foot massages for $4 (this has been a weekly treat since we first moved here two years ago)
* Simplicity of life - no bills, no car, we would simply just walk to work together in the morning, and then go home afterward and spend the evenings together. Time outside of work is always "quality time."
* Random Chinese people saying "hello" while we are on a run. They will even call out from the 10th story of a building to say "hello" to us.
* Traveling at least five times a year. During our time here we went to: Hong Kong, Xian, Yangshao, Beijing, Macau, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia.

Things We Will Not Miss About China:
* The extra step - whenever we are getting a service such as eating out at a restaurant, there is always an extra step. Ex: when going to the doctor, first you go to a desk to pick up a service card, then you see the doctor, then go back to the front desk to pay, then back to the doctor to get the service, and finally back to the front desk to return the service card. Do you really need to go to the desk three times??
* Sidewalk chaos. With 14 million people in Shenzhen alone, you would think there would be some organization on the sidewalks (stay to the right, no sudden stopping/starting, etc.) but people seem to wander from side to side, push and shove, and dart in to oncoming traffic (people and cars) at any time. Just this morning, I took out a woman with the baby jogger on my run because she wasn't looking and made a sudden move to the side as I was running by.
* No personal space. If you are not touching the person in front of you in a line, then someone will cut in front of you!

Taelyn Rolled Over Today!

It all started after Taelyn was screaming for a good half hour. This is very unlike her. She will usually get a little fussy when she is hungry or tired, but light crying is very different from screaming. I tried all the basics to soothe her: feed her, rock her, put her to bed, but nothing seemed to work. So I decided to go through the bedtime routine to calm her down. First I gave her a bath (which she loved but started screaming again once I took her out), then I put her on her tummy and gave her a back massage. During her massage, she kept leaning more and more to her right side and my anticipation rose. I started leaning to that side too, just waiting and hoping for her to make the next move. Then before I knew it, she leaned far enough over that she rolled right over on to her back - amidst the continual screaming! I put her on her belly one more time, and she did the same thing! So it is official: Taelyn has rolled over (twice).

I never did find out what she was screaming about. I thought she might be teething, so I gave her a cold wash cloth to suck on which helped for a little while. I also thought she might have some gas, so I tried moving her legs and bouncing her to move it out. That was a temporary fix too. Eventually, she was so exhausted from crying that she fell asleep in my arms. Oh well... at least something exciting came out of it!