Birthday

Our tiniest Tot just celebrated her 2nd birthday, both of which have been in China.  Basically that means they have both been pretty low key events.  This year Madi's sisters worked her up a bit so she actually had expectations on her birthday.  This is unfortunate for her father and I because our favorite birthdays are the years they don't even realize that the day is supposed to mean something.  This whole older sibling thing is not working out for us :)  Anyway, she talked about having cake for about 2 weeks before her birthday, she told everyone she wanted cake.  Then the week of her birthday she decided that she wanted cake, toy, Grandma and Grandpa.  Ok.  That could be an issue.  We told her that Grandpa and Grandma probably weren't going to fly in for her birthday, BUT we could have cake :)  hopefully.  And toys?  Let's just put it this way, toys that don't qualify to get shipped to America due to toxic materials, quality issues and basically being just plain crap get kept in the country and sold to parents here.  Joy.  You can get good toys, like lego's and real barbies and such, but I've only seen them in Hong Kong and Shanghai and they cost a fortune so that wasn't happening. Basically I have convinced the oldest child that there is no way I'm going to spend actual money on the toys here, but the other two still are hoping...  So, of the three wishes we were down to one.  A cake.  Being from America and having a serious sugar issue, basically that I am addicted, I can't really imagine a place where you cannot get a cake.  Or where you CAN get a cake but it is a serious challenge to get one that takes ok.  Let's face it, the Chinese do not like sweet things.  Their idea of a cake is a very bland thick, almost pound cake like, thing stuffed with smashed up beans.  Or a bun that is stuffed with Mayo.  That is considered a delicacy here.  WHAT?  That is a tragedy.  And disgusting.  Although Madi eats them up like I eat skittles.  But I digress.  The day of her birthday I procrastinated all day with the idea that when Kyle came home to have his Chinese lesson I would take the girls out and we would go find a cake.  No problem.  I can fumble my way through anything...  just lots of gestures and grunts.  You can do amazing things with grunts and gestures, I mean I surprise myself on a daily basis :)  Anyway, so after Kyle got home we set out on our adventure.  Several months ago one of the guys Kyle works with came to visit and brought us a cake from Thomas cakes and it was pretty decent, I had spotted a Thomas bakery that opened about one mile from us, this was going to be so easy!

Maybe not so much.  The place was locked up and shut down.  I am constantly astounded at how quickly businesses come and go here.  There have been several little shops and restaurants that we have really liked that have opened and closed in the short amount of time we have lived here.  I really don't understand how business works here, how much money they get from the government, how much freedom they actually have, I often wish that I was fluent so I could talk to the owners around here to know how it works.  Anyway, strike one.  Luckily there is another bakery down the street so off we went.

Take two.  We went in and they had small cakes in the class under the register, so I was like this is going to be so easy.  I found a lady who seemed to be the baker, or at least wasn't a cashier.  I indicated that I wanted a cake only I wanted a bigger one.  She nodded, I nodded, this was off to a good start.  Then she started talking 100 miles an hour about something and I had no idea what she was trying to get across.  I gestured a few more times, even threw in a grunt, but this was not going to happen.  Due to my ridiculous idea that I could get this done I had left my phone at home.  Darn.  So the girls and I walked home, after I let her know that we would be back, with a lot of arm waving.  We got my phone and set back out, this place was about a mile away so it was taking us a bit of time.  Kyle couldn't figure out what in the world I was doing.  I got the translator on the phone and told her what I wanted.  She told the lady, then the translator told me the options and yada yada...  these things take FOREVER.  One simple sentence in English equals 5 minutes of insanely fast talking in Chinese.  I don't know how they get anything done here, seems to take so long to convey a simple idea.  Anyway, turns out they had two kinds of cake.  One was white and filled with fruit.  The other was chocolate.  Well, in my mind I was imagining normal chocolate cake and I was thinking heck yeah.  Let's get us some of that!  So that is what we went for.  Now just to let you know, I've only ever had the white cake filled with fruit here so I had no idea what I was getting myself into. 

I was basically thrown completely off my game this night and failed to get a pre-devourer  the cake picture.  But this was it.  And it was not good.  Had some seriously funky after taste.  However, the kids were in heaven.  I mean they loved it!  They have obviously been deprived from real sugar long enough that they have no idea what is a delicious cake! 

 The party goers

 The birthday girl

ummm... yeah, that was SO good! :)  hahaha!

Fall Festival

At the end of my previous update I ended with visiting the 'beach' at the lake north of Huzhou.  I am going to pick up from that point, we were still on fall festival so Kyle was home and we were doing some local stuff that we have never done in Huzhou.  After going to the beach our friend Angela volunteered to take us to a popular hiking area.  I always thought that it was a temple when I could see it on clear days from the river walk but it turns out it is just a pagoda you can climb after you climb the mountain/hill it is on.  I was surprised she volunteered to go up with us because her husband is out of town and her daughter is just a few months older than Madi which means she would need lots of help up the path.  The Chinese are not into physical activity.  It is normal to see high heels when you go to a designated 'hiking' area.  And when I say high heels, I mean 3 - 4 inch contraptions that the women here wear.  I am constantly amazed at how well women here can walk in heels, and the crazy thing is they all wear them!  Even their tennis shoes are usually elevated a couple inches.  It is rather humorous. 

I wish that I knew the name of this place, Angela told me but it has been a few weeks so I forgot.

 The entire hike was stairs.  The little people thought they could do it and insisted on walking.  This made it an exceptionally long morning!  It was a nice walk, but next time our little tot will not be walking by herself!  The other two girls did totally fine, but they were very tired of stairs by the end of the morning.  Kenz decided that hikes were not something she enjoyed :)

 At the top!  We wanted to go up inside the pagoda but they saw us and said there is a charge!  Even though Angela came up here with her husband and of course it was free.  Foreigners equal money, the problem for the Chinese is that I am almost as cheap as they are so I said forget it!  :)

 Views from the top

At the end of the week Typhoon Fitow hit China and the Zhejiang province got a LOT of rain.  We figure that over the three days it rained we must have gotten at least 15 inches.  The river rose over 10 feet.  It was impressive!  And turns out, it also became really entertaining.  This is day 1 of the rain.  The Chinese drive through anything and they do not like to pay for parking so they park on the street, at night they double park, park up on the sidewalk, drive up the ramp and park on the river walk, if it is a flat surface they park there.  So, normally this street is full of cars at night, this was during the day so only a couple cars got stuck at first. 

Next came the people who thought they could get through by just gunning it.  Entertaining.  HAHA!  We actually went down on the 2nd day to get some food because I was not prepared for a Typhoon, this is what happens when you are completely disengaged from local news...  anyway, we took the girls over the bridge to the river walk and Kyle went down to the street.  No way the girls and I were getting into that water!  SO GROSS!  Anyway, it was above Kyle's knees at that point and it rained for a solid 24 hours after that.

The owner comes out and decides to put a sack and rubber band around her muffler...

Then they push her to higher ground.  The fact that they all had their umbrella's made me happy :) 

 Next morning this Mercedes was in the middle of the road.  Evidently he thought he could get through.  Why you even start down a flooded road with a Mercedes is beyond me.  Keep in mind this road goes to nothing, it is in the back of our complex, not a main road, mainly a parking lot by night and a truck route by day

 This guy came in and was loading flooded cars all day, the girls had fun watching that process.

 Bystanders.  Smoking and yelling instructions.  Classic

 Advising the owner of this car as she tries to clean it out.  The best part about this car was that we saw her drive down the road, saw her get stuck, a bunch of guys tried to come and push her out, they couldn't get her up the ramp... didn't help that the 5 passengers didn't actually get out of the car.  WHAT?  3 of them were guys!  I was kind of shocked.  Anyway, they finally got her car doors above water and as the guys were pushing her to higher ground the dudes in the back seat opened the doors and using their hands pushed water out.  Thanks guys.  Good effort.

 Remember the Mercedes?  The flat bed truck was not good enough for this guy.  He actually brought in a 5 section crane.  YES!  This is really happening.  I had to call Kyle at this point.  I was actually gleeful!

I have plenty of video.  I am not going to lie, it would have been even better if they would have dropped it...  I know, that isn't nice to say, but I could have had a video go viral on YouTube.  Think of the possibilities! 

 The girls were pretty much entertained all day.  And yes, I know this is dangerous...  Don't worry, I was holding them in when I wasn't taking pictures of video's.

 The owner letting all the water out.

 

 Storm moving out...

Tea Parites

Our normal morning schedule goes something like this, wake up, get the kids up, run around like crazy trying to get them dressed and fed and out the door by 8:15.  It doesn't seem to matter what time we get up, it is always the same.  I guess when we get up earlier I feel like I have so much extra time that I do dumb things like look at pinterest before kick starting everyone into action.  Dumb.  So this morning was no different, Kyle and I woke up sandwiched between two kids.  Kenz had a nightmare and Madi missed Kenz...  how does this happen?  Anyway, normally the girls and I go drop Kenz off at school and then we go for a walk before returning home to do whatever needs done before we go back out to pick her up.  This morning I decided that we were going to skip our walk because I had extra stuff to do in preparation for leaving for Hong Kong tomorrow morning.  Unfortunately it is now 3:20 pm and I still haven't done anything, but back to the main point of this post.  So we came home right after dropping Kenz off for her morning of learning, haha!  I was in the middle of looking busy so that the other two kids would leave me alone when Kaylie started yelling about water.  In a land where the average height is real short and the kitchen counters about 18 inches shorter than American counters the trouble a toddler can get into in the kitchen is real and often problematic.  Also, living in a land where the water can be fatal to any living thing a mother has to be sure about what water is in question.  So I headed for the kitchen, only to find this:

 The tiny tot decided to have a tea party with her barbie tea cups.  Reasonable I guess when you are that size.  She decided to get her own water which made a lake but she had shoes on so no big deal...  a little extra water certainly did not stop her from enjoying a little "tea" out of her tiny tea cup. 

Gan bei 

(or cheers for those of you who struggle with google.  yeah mom I'm talking to you)