Blogs from Evanston, Illinois, United States, North America

The kids and I went to bed at midnight and after a good solid 5 hours of sleep we were all pretty much up and about. The kids went to bed in their rooms and we all ooohed and ahhhed over the softness of our beds. Really, it was amazing. We have firm mattresses but they felt like heaven. So soft in comparison to the Chinese beds. By the morning, however, there were 4 of us in our not so large queen bed. Sleepy time was quickly over and discussions turned to the first meal. I have to go get a blood test at 10am. Which means I am fasting until then. Which means no first meal for me until later. I thought I was so clever booking these needed appointments from China (and I was ... read more

I will open by saying we did get all 4 visas and we are set to leave for Shanghai on Wed, July 30th...that's next Wed. 1 week from tomorrow. Real soon. Anyway, until we went to the Chinese Consulate and applied, we really didn't know if this would go smoothly or not. We've never applied for visas for working/living in another country...plus there's the matter of the Olympics and all they restrictions associated with visitors during that time frame so we were concerned there might be delays, but it all worked out. We have tickets, we have visas, we have an apartment, we have a school. Things are getting more and more organized at home (not quite there yet, but we will be). Since the kids are in Ohio, we are using our evenings to get ... read more

For those of you who have not yet heard, I recently accepted a job with Bottlenotes, an Internet wine company, based in Palo Alto. I will be moving back to San Francisco at the beginning of August. As soon as I received the offer, I immediately looked into places that American miles would take me. Luckily tickets to Lima were available. My best friend from Kellogg, Raquel, is also coming along for the two week trip. Since it is last minute, it was challenging to find some of the domestic flights at reasonable prices so we ended up with three stops on the itinerary: Lima, Arequipa and Cusco, the jumpoff point to visit Machu Picchu. I'll probably only shoot out a few new entries over the next couple weeks, so keep an eye out.... read more

It's Mark's birthday! He's still in China...but we talked a couple times and the kids and I sent him a movie I made with Windows Movie Maker...came with my Dell. He was very impressed, since he's the one that does things like make movies. I took videos on my camera of the kids and just put them together with that software and added an opening title and credits. It was fun. Hardly a professional job, but the best part was watching Mark watch the movie via Skype this morning. I woke up at 4am...partly due to the fact that Mark joked about how that would be the most convenient time for him to talk, since it's when he's done with work but hasn't gone to dinner yet. 4 am here is 5pm there. I woke up ... read more

When you decide to move to China, you have to figure out to do with your pets. We are not pet people (well, Mark and I aren't). Nathan is a pet person. He has a lot of Aunt Laura in him. We have 3 water frogs and 1 beta fish. Lily and Bella are going to take Buddy, the beta fish. The frogs are a little more complicated. We talked about giving them away, but Nathan seemed uncomfortable with that plan. We've had them for over a year...grew them from tadpoles we ordered online. They grew bigger and bigger, and we decided they would be happier free with more space and possibly some new frog friends. Coincidentally, we recently watched the movie "Free Willy" about a boy who befriends a whale at the aquatic park and ... read more