It's coming up quick!!

Since it's been about a month since my last post, I figured I was due for an update :) We've had a busy month. Rilynn and Brady both had surgeries back to back. Rilynn had a tonsillectomy and Brady had his second set of tubes. I wanted to get them both out of the way and I was off for a week so thought we'd go for it. Rilynn was such a trooper!! She really did great and is finally back to her old self. Brady had a little setback, although not related to his ears. The evening after surgery he woke up from nap with temp of 102 and his fingers were swollen and had pockets of pus on them! He and I spent 3 hours in urgent care and he was diagnosed with strep throat and an infection on his hands :( So, unfortunately for him that night was 10x worse than his surgery earlier. However, he was back to normal in no time and now I have 2 healthy children.

Pics of kids before surgery

Update on housing situation- Unfortunately 3 days after we arrived home from our trip we found out that we didn't get the apt we had liked :( We then had to decide on a new place based on pictures that the realtor was sending us, which was not easy to do. Since they are fully furnished, the furniture makes a huge difference and the pictures were very limited. However, we did find an open apartment in the same building (21st floor) in Pudong overlooking the river. Negotiations are done, so now we're just waiting to sign the papers!



With working part time I have finally decided that I need to start going through this house! I'm proud to say that I've already made it through 5 rooms in the house, and that includes every last toy. I can honestly say I will never be a hoarder!!! I am getting rid of A LOT! If all goes well I plan on having a HUGE garage sale Oct 7 & 8. (hint hint, LOL)



The kids and I have made it through week 1 of 4 of Chad traveling. This will be the hardest month for all of us, Chad included! Currently he is in Indonesia, with already been to Singapore and Australia. His next stop is Japan and then on to India where he will fly home from. He then has 2 weeks of vacation to help me with the house and then it's crunch time!! Our flights are booked for all of us, November 8 we will be flying out. We found a non stop flight from here to Shanghai, which will be sooooo nice for us all! However, it's about an 18 hour flight. EEEEKK

Here are some of the pictures he sent from Australia

Hard to see, but there are a bunch of kangaroos in the back!

Opera House in Sydney on a boat tour

Well, that's all I've got for now. Plenty more to come!! Only 49 days until we leave!!

Pre Visit Day 3-4 House Hunting

Well, after 3 schools and about 20 properties we found a school and an apartment we like!! The school is called Yew Chung International School. Rilynn would be starting after we get settled in December. Each room has an English and Chinese speaking teacher. They also have an hour a day Mandarin lessons as well as violin lessons! They said that within 6 months children usually are at a conversation level and by 2 years they are fluent in Mandarin, including reading and writing!! That was absolutely crazy to us.

Today is negotiation day so hopefully our apartment we like stays available. They tend to go really fast around here. Our apartment is on the 16th floor in the compound Shi Mao Riviera Gardens in Pudong Shanghai. The views are incredible!! It has 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, living room, kitchen, maid quarters, and a private elevator and entrance. It has a huge open area right out the door which is hard to come by in Shanghai. Also, it has 2 clubhouses. One of which is right outside our apartment.

Super Brand Mall- within walking distance to our apartment. Has a Toys R Us and Best Buy in it :)

Here are some pictures of the apartment

View of the outdoor wave pool and beach

One of 2 indoor pools at the clubhouse in our compound

The 1st clubhouse is huge! Has plenty of things to do :)

Another shot of the outdoor pool

Indoor gym. Also has a climbing wall on the side

Bowling alley. (Nilla better watch out Trevor, Rilynn may become a pro bowler!) LOL

AWESOME view from the 16th floor apartment. This is on the Pudong side on the river in Shanghai. The other side on the river is Puxi which is the older part of China. Pudong is only 15 years old and is much cleaner, has more grass with lots of greenery, and wider roads.

View from our apartment of the great grass area for the kids to play in.

Bathroom

One of the kids' rooms

Living Room- We can't wait to see the view at night!!

Pre Visit Day 2

Today was a loooooong day so this will be short. We spent the day with a guide touring the city of Shanghai. It was very informative and interesting, but a little overwhelming with the amount of info we were given. Overall though, it was a fun day. Went to a couple grocery stores, 'wet market', the Bund, People's Square, Super Brand Mall, and many other places that I can't remember the names. My favorite place aside from the mall (LOL) was the Fabric Market. At this market you are able to have custom made clothing done for you for a cheap price. You can either bring in a picture and they can replicate it or else they have examples and you can pick the fabric. This included anything from leather jackets, dresses, dress shirts, whatever... Very cool!!!

For dinner we went out with Sarah, Andy, and their 2 girls who are 4 and 2 to an Italian restaurant. Andy also works for 3M and they moved here 2 months ago. We had a lot of fun with them and will be looking forward to spending more time with them when we move here!

Tomorrow is house shopping!! We are looking at 8 properties, so it will be another long day but the day we've been waiting for! More to come...


This is actually in a chain grocery store.. It actually was really nice, but I think I'll be avoiding the turtles for dinner..

Shanghai is hosting the 2010 World Expo right now, which is a huge deal to them. This is a picture of their mascot who is all over the city.

View from the Bund overlooking the river at the Pudong area of Shanghai.

Kids store they are going to love!!!! They also even have a Toys R Us.

People's Square

Movie theater

Pictures from a 'wet market'... Pretty sure we won't be buying much except maybe some fruit and vegetables from these!

Chickens awaiting their end of life...

Hard to see, but there are fish in those tanks.

And this is the way the Chinese buy their meat. Our guide said most do not own fridges so they come to the markets daily for their food. Pretty sure we'll be staying away from this meat!! I'll be sticking to the frozen beef in the stores :)

Walking into the market

Pre visit Day 1

Well, I made it! For the first time flying by myself, I think I did pretty good with the 18 hour flight. It also helped knowing that Chad would be waiting for me!!

Day 1

We both had to get medical screenings to live in the country. It was an interesting process to say the least. It involved robes, EKG (with suction cups!), chest xray, ultrasound, bloodwork, general exam, and ENT exam with about 8 other strangers all waiting in line. Thankfully, it only lasted an hour and we were done.

We are staying at the Sheraton Hotel, which is right across the street from Chad's office at 3M.

We spent the afternoon at his office going over some paperwork and then went to the bank to get our accounts set up. The exchange rate is about 7 RMB to 1 Us dollar. Interesting fact- the largest bill here is 100RMB which is only about $13.. Makes for having to carry a big wad of cash!

The weather here is HOT and HUMID. It was about 95 degrees today, with earlier this week over 100! The temperature readings are in Celcius, so need to work on learning those :)Observation- there are a lot of umbrellas around. No sunglasses, just a lot people using umbrellas. We didn't explore too much until the evening when it was a little cooler out.

Traffic- EEK! I'm so glad we are not driving.. It's pretty much a free for all, not really paying too much attention to the pedestrians. Definitely need to be observant at all times :)

We went out for a walk and found a great little restaurant, McDonald's! LOL.. It was cheap and tasted the same, woohoo for us! We took a gamble eating the lettuce on the Big Mac, but didn't drink the Coke because of the water. Probably would've been ok, but didn't want to risk it. . Thankfully, I had a can of diet coke earlier in the lounge.. (Raina, this is for you!)

Duck anyone?

Went to a mall and looked around, saw a DQ and Subway... YAY! Also, went into a supermarket and feel A LOT better about the food and prices.. I really think we'll be able to do this!

On the way back, we walked past a park playing music and a ton of people all dancing.. It was pretty cool and different.

Aside from being a little tired still, it was a good day.. I'm feeling better about going to live here for the next couple of years :) Tomorrow is a city tour which should be fun. More to come after that...

And so it begins....

We were warned that once the relocation process begins it may be overwhelming, having a bunch of different people contacting you, paperwork, phone calls, meetings, etc... They were right!!! Just in the past 2 weeks Chad and I have had 2 teleconference calls, booked our pre-move flights, applied for my visa, started the innoculation process, applied for the kids' passports, and met with a rental property mgmt company which we now have decided to rent our house out... Whew!!! Thankfully, we had a great mini vaca at the Dells in between to have some fun!

Chad leaves on Friday where he will be visiting Japan, China, and Kuala Lumpur for 2 weeks. I will then be flying August 14th to meet him in Shanghai where will stay for a week. This is considered our pre-move trip where we will be receiving a tour of the city, visit some schools for Rilynn, and check out a bunch of properties they have lined up for us.

There are 2 major areas in Shanghai, Puxi and Pudong, which are separated by a river. Puxi is on the "city" side, which we most likely would be in an apartment but would also be closer to 3M. Pudong is more on the "country" side, where they have villas and apartments, but would be further away from the office. We've seen a bunch of pictures, but we are really excited to see them all in person. From what we've seen, I'm sure we'll like them :) Definitely, not the hut I envisioned. LOL We will also be meeting a family from MN for dinner who have 2 girls, ages 4 and 2, who just moved to Shanghai 7 weeks ago! Thanks Angie and Jason for putting us in contact with them :)

We will then fly home to see our kiddos (thanks mom and dad) where Chad will be home for 3 weeks, and then will be gone for another 3 weeks in September.. He will be home most of October, between taking vacation and working at the St. Paul office and then we will fly out the beginning of November! Eeeeekkkkkk

Just this week I also put in my resignation at Blue Cross. I will be working part time the month of September and October 1 will be my last day. It will be sad leaving.. I really have some great co-workers!!! Hopefully, they will still all be there in 2 years when we come back. We are thinking our move date will be November 8, so that will give me 5 weeks at home before we go to try and get the house packed up. The kids will also be staying at school as long as they can before the move. They really enjoy school and all their friends and plus I'll get more done around the house :)

Ok, I must apologize this post got really long!!! I should probably learn to do more shorter posts :)

Can't wait to update in a couple weeks about our trip with lots of pictures!

My First Post

Well, the blog is finally up and running! I'm sure I will be still be editing and changing the layout a million times in the next couple of years, but here it is so far..

As most of you know our family will be relocating to Shanghai China for Chad's work this fall. We will be over there for 1-2 years. As of now we don't know the exact dates, but are thinking it will be around September/October. We are very nervous not knowing what to expect over there and sad about what we will be leaving behind us back home, but we are all starting to get very excited for our adventure!

This first post will be short and sweet, as I mostly just wanted to see how this blogging thing worked, but there will be plenty more to come starting in the next couple of months. Chad and I will be traveling to China in either July or August for a week to start house shopping and getting a tour of the area. So lots more to come!!