Shanghai

I'm in Shanghai now, made it successfully on the trip and am a bit jet-lagged but otherwise OK. Trying to get around, but don't know a word of Chinese, which is interesting (I think I need George here- :))

A funny thing is that my travelling companion's name is Michal (pronounced Mee-How), he's our marketing researcher from Poland. His name apparently means "hello" in Chinese, so he's found it increasingly confusing to use his name here "Mee-how, I'm Mee-how" so we had reservations last night, and he used "Mike".

We took the Mag lev train from Pudong airport to Longyang road station. It was super fast - 430 km/hr. The weirdest part was passing another train going the opposite direction at that speed-- it seemed to take just a fraction of a second.

A lot of American restaurants here-- maybe because we are staying downtown at a touristy area. McDonald's and Burger King are both within walking distance, and we stopped at ColdStone Creamery for ice cream last night.

Museum of Science and Industry

Had a good time with today's activities - did the Museum of Science and Industry, American Girl Store, and John Hancock building observatory. We did all the travel by train and bus, which worked out pretty well and saved some gas.

Lake County Children's museum

Yes, cleaning out the camera -- here's a picture of the kids on a simulated roller coaster at the children's museum.

Chicago Botanical Garden

Here are a couple of shots of the kids at the Chicago Botanical Garden. Courtney liked the flowers; Dan liked getting wet!

Hal playing tennis

Hal is enjoying playing some tennis this summer. Here he is playing in the court at the park behind our house.

Supersize Me

I thought this was an interesting movie - not completely fair at times, but it has made me think twice about what I eat.

Settling in

Here's a picture of Allie from the Kirtland temple. I downloaded it from our camera and thought it was cute.

The bunnies left our yard after enough handling by the kids, and we no longer have an excuse not to mow the yard. Teresa is watering our flowers with Dan right now, and we are getting pretty used to the new house. Chores have been allocated to the kids, and we are back into a similar schedule as before the move.

Enjoyed seeing Dewey and Susan this weekend-- they brought Hal back from the UP from a week at Camp Hiawatha scout camp. Did an afternoon session with them at the Chicago temple, which was great. Had a good time with them, and we were also surprised to see several friends from when we lived in Appleton WI.

Hot dogs, schools and bunnies

Here are some pictures of the kids in front of their schools also in front of an authentic Chicago hot dog restaurant. We also found some baby bunnies from our back yard! The bunnies are about as long as my index finger, and do not yet seem big enough to hop away.

Move in for Teresa and the kids

Teresa and the kids have left Ohio and are driving to Chicago now. The moving van with all our stuff is in town now and will be unloading early tomorrow morning. We're excited to be together and to get settled in!

The report is that the kids are in good spirits and all are asleep in the van except Courtney and Hal.