Category: Thoughts

Leaving on A Jet Plane and Fly Me Away…

Flying bird 

A – 0 days.

And we are off today. The bird is from a tiny little detail on the wall in Lili’s room. We are fully stocked, and over-loaded with more DVD’s, magazine’s and books than there are hours on the plane. We arrive in Beijing Tomorrow evening at 9:30 pm. And while it is a long flight, Bejing is 13 hours ahead of of the U.S. Eastern Time zone and we have two layovers which will allow us to stretch our legs.

Our neighbors Kevin and Peter drove us to the airport this morning, which is amazing when you consider Kevin is a teenager and is more used to going to bed at that time of the morning, not getting up.

We’ll post more when we get chance. It seems so unreal we are finally on our way. A – 0 days; L – 5 days.

-t

Sending out announcements in the digital age

It’s amazing how easy it is to send out an announcement via email. While we’ll still send out the traditional paper announcement via the post office, or what passes for traditional, when we return. It still amazes me how quickly I can send something to a group of people and I’ve been using email for over 18 years. Of course back in 1989 I had to call my friend Dave to tell him I sent him an email, but hey it still counts.

I notified my boss last week and he’s been great with the “short” notice considering everyone from him on up to the CEO has been asking since August of 2005 “when are we going to China” – yes the wait was roughly 2-3 times longer than we anticipated, but I guess we are lucky compared to families who are now  looking at a 2-year plus wait.

The amount of support we’ve had has been tremendous, especially once we told everyone we got our referral. It seems like 18 months of pent-up support has poured out all at once. From our friend painting the room (Sara Lee it looks better every single day and it looked phenomenal the first day) to baby showers in two states, to cribs and changing tables miraculously appearing from friends. Even our contractor is finishing up the remaining jobs quickly so we’ll be all ready to come home with our daughter.

Thank you all and be prepared for more pictures and some videos since we just bought another camera. I think this one is camera #11 but who’s counting. -t

A – 6 days; L – 11 days

Shower in Chicago(and my first blog entry)

It has been over a week since my friend Anne, sister Christine, sister-in-law Brett and my mother threw me a shower in Chicago.  I want to thank them for all their efforts.  It was a wonderful time.  Actually, I think it is the longest shower I have ever been to since it started at 1pm and the last guest left at 11pm.  My father and Uncle Bill came to eat and stayed until about 6pm.  I’m sorry I don’t have any pictures yet.  I did not bring my camera and I am waiting for someone to mail me pictures(Steve?).

The surprises started when I arrived at Anne’s apartment and found to my utter amazement that Sara Lee was there.  I had no idea that she was coming and she said she had a hard time not blowing it the weekend before when she was painting the mural.  She kept almost letting things slip.  Of course, I had brought a lot of pictures of the mural and so I could show off the room and the artist at the same time.  Then Anne arrived home from school with Brett in tow.  Another shocker.  Brett had apologized to me on the phone because she could not make the shower although she had done the invitation.  It never occurred to me that she was lying about not coming.  After successfully keeping those two secrets, my three friends were unable to continue secret keeping very well and hints kept coming my way in the things they said so that I knew one more surprise guest was coming although I still did not know who it was.  Diane arrived with Anna P a little while later having flown into from Minnesota.  Another fun surprise.  In the end, I had guests from Montana, Illinois, New York, Minnesota, Michigan and RI at my shower.

We went out for some Mexican tapas that night with Christine, my parents and Aunt Carol and Uncle Bill.  It was very good.  The next morning was an unusual experience for me since I am usually the one made to cook when I visit Chicago but I was taken to Anna P’s where Diane made scones like she does on the sailing trip.  I had nothing to do all morning except hang out with Diane and Anna P and put some handles on Anna P’s cabinets.  At 1:00pm we went to the shower. 

As I said the shower was a lot of fun.  The food was delicious.  My hosts made orange marinated pork tenderloin on garlic toast with a 5 spice dipping sauce, sticky chicken wings, a coleslaw like salad, sesame noodles, and lettuce wraps.  Dessert was cupcakes which Christine had investigated and so they were, of course, delicious.  Sara Lee, is not only a great artist, but she is someone you want on hand to help with the cooking and cleaning. Per everyone, give her a task and it will be done efficiently and quickly and she does dishes like no one can.  Christine gave a lovely toast.  Lili got a lot of great presents: towels with her name and a panda bear on them, clothes that make her more fashionable than I could ever dream of being, toys, a life preserver from Captain Emeritus, a frog pod, books, a bitty baby with Anne’s old doll cradle and quilt, books which I love and I hope she will too and many other great gifts.

On Sunday, we went to dim sum.  The food was great.  Then we walked around Chinatown and then took Brett and Sara Lee to the airport.  It was great to see everyone and I realize how lucky I am to have so many great friends and family and I can’t wait until Lili gets the chance to meet and know everyone.  Thanks again for a great shower!!

A – 9 days and L – 14 days -c

The Star of Nanchang and the real star

Apparently Nanchang, Jiang Xi province China is home to the world’s tallest ferris wheel at 160 meters. It’s even taller, by 82 feet, than London’s famed “Eye of London”. A full revolution takes about 30 minutes.

Star Nanchang

Maybe we’ll be able to take the “real” star of Nanchang on a ride around the Star Ferris wheel. In case you’ve forgotten what Lili look like here’s a picture just to jog your memory.

Lili Jpeg small

 

 A minus 11 days; L minus 16 days -t