Pizza and a Wedding..

We were invited to watch the Royal Wedding last night with some friends. We had 4 families there with all of their kids. We ordered pizza, had some chips and dip, and finished with brownies and rice krispie bars- The perfect wedding dinner!

The ladies watched the wedding (started at 6pm Friday night), the men chatted and enjoyed their beer, and all while the kids had fun playing with each other in the playroom. No major meltdowns or disasters.. Great family night out.

Although, personally, was a tad disappointed in the 2 second balcony peck. Half of us missed it! Otherwise Kate looked gorgeous in her gown.. Rilynn enjoyed seeing the Princess get married to her Prince :)

More wandering...

I didn't take this picture, but was taken at the Shanghai Auto Show that's going on here right now. I personally could never imagine doing this, but unfortunately it's an all too common sight to see here. At least this kid had a bottle, usually it's either in a garbage can or just squatting on the ground!!

I had an 1 1/2 hours to kill while I waited for Chad's jeans at the Fabric Market and had my camera with me so I decided to wander around a very local area. One thing about being here is really how safe I feel. I was more worried about getting lost as I started going down alleys rather than for my safety. However, the farther out I got I started seeing more stray cats and dogs and that freaked me out so I turned around.

So here's some of the sights I saw walking down the roads..

This is a price list for a hair salon, however not too sure of what some of the items were :) Plate Made or do I even want to know, Nursing?!?! LOL

I would guess chickens, but can't be too sure on that one!!

Definitely not paying for the spa atmosphere :)

I saw a lot of dogs on my walk. This one was leashed up to a bike.

Dog grooming station

Getting a shampoo

The kids here wear these split pants. Thankfully most of them here have a diaper on, but I have seen plenty of bare bottoms here too! While I was at the fabric market we heard a lady humming and looked over and she was holding a bare bottom baby (like 4 months old) over a trash can trying to get them to go to the bathroom!

I'm guessing the end is near for these chickens..

People love their PJ's here. You seen them all the time walking around in them. I think it's hilarious :)

Naptime

Not sure if this was homemade, but it looks like a baby lawn chair on wheels :)

I always love seeing how much people can haul on their bikes..

Shanghai really has a ton of parks here. Now that the weather is nice I would like to take Brady to a new one each week to check them out. We did Fuxing Park and this week was Tianshan Park by Hongqiao (near Chad's work). It was a very local park as in we were the only non local there :) But it doesn't bother Brady as he gets along and plays with anyone with a ball or will run around with him.. And I love people watching so it was great for both of us.

I saw lots of bottoms this day at the park!

This sign was posted at the entrance. Love these rules!! LOL

Brady playing with bubbles and the other kids

Custom clothing.. Cool huh?

So, I've been waiting  patiently to have some clothing custom made for me here. We had visited this fabric market on our 'look see' in August and it sounded so cool. Who wouldn't love to have their favorite pair of jeans copied or have an expensive outfit from a magazine copied to fit you perfectly..

My friend and I finally went to check it out together. She had already been there before and had some clothing made so she knew the ropes. This market is 3 floors filled with tailors and tons of different booths. They have samples of clothing hanging in/out of their booths and TONS of fabric inside. There was everything from jackets to prom dresses to jeans.

My friend had used some people up on the 2nd floor so we decided to try them out again and some new one's. We each had a pair of our husbands jeans to get copied, so that was our first stop. Easy process for that- hand over Chad's jeans and pick out a jean fabric from a large spool, made a deposit, and told to come back in a week. Onto the next booth- Saw a cute cotton button blouse, picked out fabric, got measured, made deposit, and left. Last stop- again found 2 shirts I liked hanging up, picked out the fabric, got measured, and left deposit.

Jeans- 150rmb (~$22)

Shirts- 120rmb/piece (~$18)

A week passed and I went back on Monday to pick up our clothes. I was so excited to see how they turned out!! Unfortunately, Chad's jeans weren't done yet and that I was supposed to come back in 1 1/2 hours. However, all of my shirts were ready and looked pretty nice. I probably should've tried them on, but it's not like they had dressing rooms in their booths! Thankfully though they all seemed to fit :) Finally I was able to get his jeans and they looked awful!!! And since I don't know any Chinese I wasn't about to get into it with them, so I just took them and left.

Chad also was a tad disappointed and now has a new jean rag to use :) Thankfully it wasn't that much money lost and that it was a new experience for us. Since there aren't a whole lot of options for American sizes here, I was hoping for a new wardrobe, but now know that won't be happening until I come home in July!

Our clothes..

Spring has sprung!

The weather lately has been gorgeous. It's been in the 60-70's and I think we may have hit 80 degrees yesterday. So of course another zoo trip was needed. We met up with a few friends and spent the day walking around the zoo.

Brady with his friend Aoife

Petting zoo with a some huge bellied pigs!

This picture looks bad, but I promise there was glass between the fence :)

Crazy story- See the yellow object on the ground? That is a deflated blow up toy tied to a rope held onto by a not so smart man. He kept throwing this in the lions den to get their attention. I can't say that I trust a Chinese zoo's safety regulations 100%, so when the lion saw the toy and started moving towards it, we booked it out of there! I was hoping we wouldn't be hearing about a lion escaping his cage later that day...

Another funny story- There were about 6 kids in our group and they were all lined up by a railing outside a monkey cage. All of a sudden the monkey spit a huge mouthful of what we were praying was water at the kids through the cage. I have never seen 6 kids run so fast!!! I wished I had gotten that on camera as I think we would've been rich from America's Funniest Video :) It was hilarious!!!

The Easter Bunny found us...

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!

Thanks to Auntie Val for giving the egg dye kits to Chad when he was back home. I did not see any of them here!!

Saturday morning we went to Mama Meya (Brady's favorite indoor playground) for an Easter party. We went with a couple other friends and the kids had a blast. They had a bunch of different stations set up for crafts, coloring eggs, food, face painting, games, and decorating cupcakes.

Rilynn's lovely face paint job!! She did half herself :)

Rilynn, Brady (supposed to be Spiderman) and their friend Leah

Easter morning- The Easter bunny found the kids here in China and hid their baskets and some eggs in the house for them to find when they woke up! Little do they know how hard it was for the bunny to find the basket and eggs here :)

We were invited to join a huge group of expats for an egg hunt followed by lunch at a hotel. There was probably 10-12 families and a TON of young kids. The daddies hid around 400 eggs in the lawn behind our apartment for the kids to find. Between all the kids it took only about 10 minutes to get them all :) It was so much fun and a little taste of back home going hunting..

After the hunt we headed over to the Intercontinental Expo Hotel in Pudong for our Easter lunch buffet. The buffet had a little of everything and even some great ham and awesome desserts. Only thing missing was some yummy mashed potatoes! It's also a nice find to get a good western meal here :)

Bugs Bunny (aka Easter Bunny) with Brady at the hotel

The yummy dessert spread with chocolate fountain.. MMMMMM

They had face painting and crafts in the hotel for the kids. Thankfully this face painter was a little more talented than the one at Mama Meya!! LOL

In the back of the hotel they had a huge open grassy area with soccer nets, a bouncy castle, and a swingset for the kids to burn off their sugar intake. It was like being back home, it felt good :)