Home sweet home...for now.

Well, we moved into the house on Tuesday. We do not have the phone hooked up again yet. Hopefully, by the end of next week. We met our neighbors across the street and next door. Both are very friendly. When I meet the wife and kids  across the street I found out that they are GM people too, but not in Finance. We decided that Bill and her husband probably did not know each other. Later that night her husband came over to meet us and .....what do you know...Bill and Ube-Bei worked together at the Milford proving grounds! They knew each other very well. They have two girls, Tiffany is 11, and Valerie is 8. Tiffany and Ethan are very much alike and so are Brennan and Valerie. Yesterday Brennan played with Valerie after school and before you knew it, we were having dinner there. We ordered the kids Papa Johns and we ate the traditional Chinese dinner that their live-in Ayi had made. The girls had violin lessons at their house last night and we spoke to their teacher. He is now going to teach Brennan on Thursday nights too. He will buy the violin for us and bring it next week. It is costing us a whopping $45 for the instrument! The lessons will cost about the same as they do in the US. Brennan has been waiting patiently to start violin for about two years, we hadn't gotten around to setting it up yet, so needless to say, he is very excited!

My lawn here is absolutely gorgeous, thanks to the gardeners. It will never look like this at our home in Michigan. I  definitely do not have a green thumb! Once everything is in full bloom, I will take a picture and put it on the blog. We have roses bushes, and bulbs, pansies, and who knows what else! The gardener's wife is totally amazed by the westerners with the Chinese baby and wants to hug and kiss her all the time. Carleigh would rather not be touched. It is a little too aggressive for her. This lady will lure her over like she is interested in the dog, and then throw the dog leash out of her hands and try to grab her to give her a hug. I tell Carleigh to just tell her "no, thank you" in Chinese, but that hasn't stopped her yet. Our neighbors told me that she will eventually give it up. It is pretty common in China for the older ladies to walk right up and touch or try to hold someone's baby.

Unlike the gardener, Carleigh LOVES our driver. She will run out to the car yelling "Mr. Tao, Mr. Tao!" He really gets a kick out of it. She likes to tell him stories or show him something new she has gotten. He doesn't speak fluent English, so we have to help him understand what she is trying to say. Mr. Tao is teaching us a few Chinese works everyday. I may know about 30 words/expressions now..but that may be optimistic. He likes to teach us and appreciates our interest. I'm sure his family enjoys the stories he comes home with about the American's chinese lessons in his traveling classroom!

One China fun fact - they have these trucks that shoot water out the bottom/side of them to clean the roads. They play music that is very similar to what the ice cream truck plays. Only one problem......the tunes are American Christmas music (Jingle bells,  Santa Claus is coming to town) or Happy Birthday. Funny.

Love to all!