Heidi left on Wednesday to go the US for about a week to help celebrate her parents' 50th wedding anniversary. The rest of us have been hanging on here in Shanghai, keeping up with school, swimming, piano lessons, gymnastics, church stuff, etc. Here are a few of the things that happened this past week:
We have a few stray cats around the neighborhood. One of them, Tippy, hangs out at our back door, or at our front door, most days of the week, waiting for some attention or food from Mallory. The management of our compound put some traps around the neighborhood to catch the stray cats. One night as some friends were leaving, we walked outside with them and heard the sorriest cat meow we have ever heard - it was a loud, distressed-sounding meow. Sure enough, about two houses down from us, we saw Tippy inside this cat trap (that's a dead fish dangling from the roof of the trap). Grant figured out how the contraption works and opened the door. Mallory and Heidi were able to finally coax Tippy out the door. He/she (I'm not sure which) was spooked for quite a while, but Mallory finally lured him back to the safety of our back porch. Mallory has been checking the trap every day to make sure Tippy doesn't fall for the same thing again.
They have some really interesting means of transporting things around Shanghai. We often see the styrofoam recycler guy riding his motorized bicycle / tricycle thing.
Monday was Mallory's birthday, which started out with waffles for breakfast.
And then some presents after dinner (one of Mallory's favorites -- stroganoff).
A zillion markers made Mallory pretty happy.
Family photos - serious and not.
The "1" and "0" sparklers took the place of candles -- not sure if those are even be legal.
I love the expressions on Grant's, Mallory's, and Heidi's faces -- their reactions to this firework of a candle.
"Hey, Shanghai. The 1980s called and wants its candy bar back."
We found these Whatchamacallit candy bars at the Hershey's store in Shanghai. Last time I saw one of these was in the 1980s. Both Heidi and I remember when they were introduced, and we both thought it was the greatest new candy bar. Then we forgot about them until about a month ago when we found them here in Shanghai. I guess that's where they've been hiding all these years.
