2014 August 24 - First Week of School / Too Many Boxes

We've survived another week here in Shanghai - first week of school, and then our sea shipment was delivered on Friday.  We're tired and feeling a bit overwhelmed with all of the boxes in the house, but happy to have all our "stuff" here now.

Like last week, here are some impressions from each of the kids about the first week:

Grant

This week we started school at Concordia. I think it is a really nice school and I think I will like it this year. All of my classes seem like they are going to be really fun this year. Even English (I can't believe I just said that). It shouldn't be too tough. I am really happy that I am able to go to such a great school. The only down side is the amount of stairs I have to climb. Some days I have to go up 5 floors only to come all the way back down again after the class. It is difficult, but I will have thighs of steel!

Luke

The first three days of school have gone pretty great. We finally have the chance to ride our bikes to school! The campus is huge and the food isn’t actually that bad. I signed up for the fall play this year and got a lead role, which is pretty nice. I’m also going to sign up for yearbook, which is going to be pretty fun. My interim trip to Inner Mongolia is in a few weeks. We get to go camel riding and sand-sliding, we get to plant trees in the wilderness, we get to sleep in a yurt, and we get to eat dumplings with an inner Mongolian family. It’s going to be really fun. I’m super excited.

Mallory

Last week I started school and it was great. I’ve got two really good friends. They’re super nice. I love this school.  My teacher is good and I love art. In art we’re doing a unit on animation - it’s awesome. I love P.E. - it’s super fun, too. My teacher had us do a pre-assessment. He gave us a paper that had a bunch of instructions on it. The first one said read every thing before you do anything. And the second one was write your name in the top right hand corner.  Nobody read every thing, they just started and the instructions were like poke three holes in the paper or shout out your name and things like that. On the last instruction it said now only do step two, which was write your name in the top right hand corner. Nobody did that so it was pretty funny. It wasn’t a real assessment  but it was still funny. He did that to see if we could follow instructions.  We all really could but this was just to see. I love my school and I think that I will like it.

On his way to his first day of seminary (Luke wasn't far behind).

Heidi made them pancakes for breakfast for the first day of school.

Fingers (and toes) for their grades.

One of Mallory's first homework assignments - a collage about herself.

Grant and Luke both had homework on the first night.

The moving process.

This was in one of the boxes - a poster from Nash's middle school musical -- in Jakarta.  Not sure why we've been hauling that around for 6+ years.

Mallory made good use of the boxes - a cardboard keyboard.

2014 August: Shanghai - First Impressions

We went to dinner over the weekend with some friends to a restaurant called Lost Heaven - excellent Chinese food!  Afterward, we walked over to the Bund, right along the river, to show the kids the views.  There were thousands of other people walking along the promenade looking at the sights.

Shortly after taking some photos of the family, a group of 3 or 4 giggly Chinese young women asked if they could each have their photo taken with Grant.

Mallory in front of her school, which starts on Wednesday this week.

The pool at the club in our compound.

A few photos of Mallory in our neighborhood.

This is the entrance to our street / courtyard.  Our house is on the right, exactly above Mallory's head.

Grant and Luke, pulling in to the driveway of the home of some friends from church.  They love riding those things around Jinqiao (the name for our area of the city).




A few first impressions from our kids about living in Shanghai (and some comments about the summer):


Grant

Living in Shanghai has been pretty fun so far. We have been riding around on our scooters visiting
Exciting new places. I love it. It was hard leaving all of my friends in Budapest, but I am glad that I can
Develop new relationships with new people. I love visiting new places, but wish I wouldn't have to
Zoom away from places so quickly. I really like that Asia is so foreign. I hope I really have fun and
Enjoy my time in Shanghai. I have had a lot of fun going to shops like the DVD shop and different
Places like the slushie shop. I really like our house, even though I have to share my room with my
Preposterous brother. The house is smaller than most houses that we have lived in while we have
Explored the world. We will really have to reduce the amount of furniture that we have just so we can
Live without feeling crowded. I think I will enjoy living here. It's just a 3 minute bike ride from school.
I am pretty excited about going to Concordia. It seems like a great school and I am really glad that my
Next two years will be at Concordia. Overall, I am very happy with Shanghai.

If you see it, you are special. "I am a traveler of both time and space | to be where I have been"

Luke

Last week we moved into our house, and personally, I love it. On Saturday we walked under the tall skyscrapers of the city center, and we went to a restaurant with some killer Chinese food. Living in Shanghai reminds me a lot of when we lived in Jakarta, even though there are a few differences.

I had the opportunity to do a bunch of great stuff last summer, like Cousin's Camp, scout camp with Gavin (my cousin), EFY, and, of course, the Thomas family camping trip. Throughout the summer I got to make a wallet, build a hut in the woods, see the head of a moose on the side of the road, stay with my Miller grandparents for a while, eat some american food and go to a Boston concert. Although it's been great, I miss Budapest a lot. I also miss Nash. A lot. I'm still glad we moved to Shanghai, though.

Every day we see something cool or interesting, and we often go on trips on our scooters. On Friday we got to see our new school, and it looks awesome. It's close to our house, which is great, and in a few days is the first day of school.

Mallory

This summer was really fun. On the camping trip we had the same cabin as last year with a hot tub. We went in the hot tub with my cousins a lot. Then when we came back from the trip every one who went in the hot tub got sick since the hot tub was dirty. Anyway I also had a really fun sewing class too with my cousin Lucy. I made a bag, a little snap bag, and pajama pants. I loved it. I also stayed at Lucy's house for a week. On the 4th of July we went to see hot air balloons with my cousins. They were cool. Shanghai is really good so far. In our neighborhood there's an outdoor pool that is really big and an indoor pool that's about half the outdoor pool's size. I'll sometimes walk to my friend's house - just ten houses down. It is really nice. I really like it so far. The church is really good too.  In Budapest the speakers didn't speak English so somebody had to translate for the English speakers. Now the whole church speaks English! I like it. The girls that are my age are really nice.  One of them wasn't there - she was gone probably still in America because her school doesn't start for a long time. I love my school and I think that I will like there a lot. There's a slushy shop near us that I really like.  Grant and Luke took me there once and it was really good. There's also a DVD shop that sells cheap movies. I like my house a lot.  Even though there's not a lot of things in it, I still like it. I think that I will like it in Shanghai.

July 2014 - House in Vizcaya

Our new home in Shanghai.

  

Outside view of the kids' new school:  Concordia International.

Master bedroom.

Mallory's room.

The boys' room.

Upstairs "attic."

Terrace #1. 

Terrace #2.

Views from the terrace.

From the terrace, looking down onto our main door / entrance.

Patio off the living room, at the front of the house.