3Q (Thank you)- a China blog

We've been here for six months! Holy shit.  About two weeks ago, the homesickness really started to set in, at least for me. It cooled off a bit here, and it just reminded me that everyone back home got their sweaters out a while back. We did Halloween (which I posted pictures from on Facebook but I'll attach the link to the google drive at the bottom of the post) by running through a popular shopping area with a swarm of other kids, both foreigners and chinese, and they had a good time, but they missed going door to door with their friends and reese's cups and snickers (most of the candy was like, gummy burgers and lollipops or mints). Of course they got sick right after, Oliver first, then Nolan, so we had one miss Halloween at school and then we had to reschedule Nolan's birthday party. Which was great! We only invited kids from our building, and a couple kids who's parents work/worked with Keith. He had a great time, and I got to chat with some of the mom's

So, we left getting haircuts a little long-  I was nervous to put them in the hands of someone other than my mother in law. I could have let it grow out for another month or so, really get the windswept 90's boyband hairstyle going, but neither of them like to let me do their hair and I have little faith in their styling skill at this juncture in their lives (oliver had been trying a combover... uh, no). Both Nolan and Oliver had been asking if they could grow their hair out, but I generally still have to oversee showers a few times a month to ensure proper washing techniques, and I generally have to force Nolan to comb his hair post shower. So, maybe next year.  I picked out a few hair styles on pinterest and the boys seemed to reach a consensus (after some gentle guidance) on what kind of haircut they wanted, so we went down to the barber Keith had used over the summer with solid results. We were walk in clients, so we sat down on the bench and waited as there were two others get

So for the week after Mid-Autumn festival theres National day ( the founding day of the PRC) and then golden week, so the kids were off for school!   We mostly stayed home because it's hot. BUT We took a couple of day trips out, one to Hong Kong to visit a museum and the other to an Amusement park called Window of the World, which had a bunch of replicas of famous monuments and street preformances, and a splash pad area.  In Hong Kong we ate at a little place literally a minute's walk from our bus stop at Wan Chai station, and i think it was called boat noodle, but it was really good. A set meal cost between 68-88hkd, which came with the plate of food and a drink. I got a tasty vwggie noodle dish, ollie got hainan chicken, Nolan got a spicy pork curry, and keith got a pork noodle dish but his had blood in it. The servers at the noodle shop were impressed with nolans spice tolerance, though he did have to steal some of Oliver's rice to cool his mouth a little. A delicious m

 Summer really got away from me! We got back from vacation in Japan (I still have those posts in drafts) and I literally fell off.  Now that we're charging into October (holy shite) I do feel the need to get back on top of these posts.  The boys started school the first week of September and have really been enjoying it so far. The work load is much different than what they were used to at home (optional if any homework, etc) but with some regularity and adjustments (myself included) we're able to get the work done in a reasonable amount of time.  lunchtime We decided to enroll Nolan at the third grade level due to his academic standing in America, which was not a decision made lightly because it does make him the oldest kid in third grade, though its not a difference any of the other kids notice yet, as far as I am aware. Nolan has made incredible improvements in his adult-led activity tolerance, both at school and during homework time, but he is still very vocal about how muc

 yo! So Osaka was a pretty cool deal. Our itinerary was pretty loosely structured, I had a few things in mind that I wanted to take the kids to and number one on that list was Universal. This trip was originally going to be in August but we ended up changing the dates around to make use of some flight credits that Keith's job was offering, so I had originally planned for us to be at Universal on Ollie's birthday. While we have a much quieter evening planned out now, Ollie and Nolan had a blast! Ollie wasn't really into it when we got there, but as soon as we were on the first ride he was into it As for the second day, the kids and I went to this great place called Kids Palace! Its kind of like a Please Touch Museum! They had a ton of fun. There were a few school trips that were there with us, and they found a friend to play with while they were there! We met up with Keith for lunch and walked to a cool indian/nepalese place for lunch, where I had a Nepalese beer (not bad).

 Been a while!  Way back in January before Keith left, we had started spitballing ideas of where our summer trip should be! A few ideas were thrown around, but eventually we settled on Japan. In June we bought our tickets, made reservations, and I was tasked with the itinerary.  Originally, we had planned on flying into Tokyo and then flying out of KIX/Osaka, but it ended up being cheaper to go the other way around so we started in Osaka, spent an afternoon in Nara, and a couple days in Kyoto before taking an overnight bus to Tokyo. We did talk a lot about rules of international travel to the kids, and one of those rules was "no toys outside of the hotel." We did this because we knew at some point we'd lose something. This I knew would be especially hard for Nolan, but there was one incident in Hong Kong that we had to talk about in depth and then mostly just a little grumbling for the rest of the trip, so I say everyone had some personal growth! yay! Anyway, the first st