Back from China and Summer Lovin'

We've been back from China for a few weeks now and we are really enjoying the last bit of summer.  China was a very interesting experience.  We flew into Hong Kong, made it over to Shenzhen when my brother and his new wife picked us up a day later, toured a little of Shenzhen, attended their wedding, flew over to Xi'an for a few days, then flew to Beijing for a handful of days, and made it back to Shenzhen before catching our flight out in Hong Kong all in almost 3 weeks.  When we arrived a typhoon had just blown through so turbulence was bad and the rain/wind was so strong that it took a few circles around the airport with aborted landings before we were able to finally touch down.  The last aborted landing was too turbulent for Jakob and he vomited all over himself and Paul.  So very gross but luckily Jakob had one last change of clothes in our carry on but not Paul.  :(  We all just didn't smell very good for most of the day.  Other than that the flights were very uneventful.  Meeting up with lots of family was so great.  We really had a good time together on an extended vacation.

                                                               In some souvenir China pjs!
The wedding was beautiful and small and pretty much all in Chinese unless my brother was speaking.  They waited until most of the guests had arrived (even though it was over an hour later) and said a few vows, fathers gave toasts, they cut the cake and poured some champagne. Then we ate and the cake fighting began.  It was the most intense cake fight I have ever been in.  Even Jakob got cake smashed all over him and he looked very confused and sad as it was happening.  Broke my heart!  But when the fight was over everyone left and my parents put Jakob to bed while we went out with Adam and Jun and their friends to celebrate.  Conrad and Paul tried ordering Budweisers at the bar and they were served 2 nice hot glasses of water- SO funny!  So they then learned the chinese version of Budweiser.  Adam and Jun did not travel around with us which was disappointing but we were very happy to have my cousin Richie and his chinese wife, Susan, with us.  We ate so many wonderful meals because of them.  In Xi'an, some of us biked while the rest of us were driven around the city walls.  But because of the split pants (and no diaper) that they use for babies/toddlers, a little girl peed on the seat during our ride around the city walls.  I was soooo thankful to not be sitting next to them especially when the mom started wiping it off the seat with her hand.  yuck.  We visited different towers (bell, drum, etc.), saw the terra-cotta warriors which was unbelievable, visited a few tourist traps, and even saw a theater show with dinner about the different periods of China.  Some really yummy dumplings were also consumed a couple times while in Xi'an.  Filled with duck = shaped like a duck.  Filled with a walnut puree = shaped like a walnut.

Some delicious homemade fruit smoothies

In Beijing, we got to walk along the Great Wall which had beautiful views, ate at the famous duck restaurant where Paul ate duck brains, gizzard, heart, along with some regular meat, saw Tiananmen Square and some temples, shopped, and tried to order food at Burger King for a change which definitely took a few orders to get close to what we wanted since we didn't have any chinese speakers at that point.  :)  When we got back to Shenzhen, things were still a little disorganized so Jun took us to a fishing hole (cement holding pits with water and fish) where the boys fished and we sat in the SUPER hot and humid weather, caught a few and then ate at the restaurant on site who had their own 'farm' to the side.  You order duck, they go grab one from the pin, slit its throat, clean it, cook it, and bring it to you.  Can't get much fresher but man I really didn't like seeing everything get killed and then seeing it on my plate.  I understand it has to happen and that's fine but it's a lot to take in.  They do the same with chicken, geese, fish, and dogs.  Yes, I saw the dogs and it really broke my heart... luckily no one ever ordered one.  The next day we gathered our things and eventually made our way back to Hong Kong since Adam and Jun were a bit busy with life and we thought we'd try to tour a little of Hong Kong.  Well, no hotel reservations were ever made and there just happened to be a conference at the same time which made finding a room at 6pm a very difficult experience.  We ended up at a Conrad Hilton and although $500/night it was so incredibly comfortable and beautiful with a fantastic view.  Really could not have asked for more for a good sleep before the long trek home.  We had a SUPER fancy dinner that night of delicious italian food and Jakob even got a bib made out of a white cloth napkin with his own plate, cup and silverware.  Despite how tired he was, he loved it.  Our flight didn't leave the next day until close to midnight so we were able to go to the top of a mountain, take in the view, shop, fill up on food, and by 2am on the flight, Jakob was passed out in the bassinet which he was a little too big for.  The flight was surprisingly very easy and we stayed up all day when we got home at 8am doing laundry, a little cleaning, and unpacking.  Pretty much no jet lag which was fantastic!  And we had the whole weekend to relax.

A little hike we did when we got back home (below is how he escapes from the stroller)

The next Monday I had a second interview with Wärtsila.  Still haven't heard back but I'm not nervous. If it's meant to be, it will happen.  Otherwise, I will always enjoy staying at home with my little boy.  :) I'll just have to think of some challenging things for him to try.  We've been hanging out with new friends, enjoying the sunshine, playing at the pool and lake, and even hanging out with our stand-in grandma who lives below us.  She loves Jakob and always makes a huge scene when she sees him and gives him capri suns and even chocolate candy that we've mostly been eating.  :)  She is from Kosovo, but has lived here for almost 20 years so she speaks german.  Paul can chat with her but if he's not there she uses a few german words and most of the time I can get what she's saying and reply in english (or german if she's lucky) and she understands a little english.  It's very interesting/awkward.  This week she was taking her laundry off the drying lines while we were about to start hanging.  So she helped hang our laundry, insisted we use her clothes pins, played with Jakob and herded us into her flat for capri suns.  Luckily, Jakob has finally warmed up to her and played with her millions of knickknacks, used her remote controls for telephones, and danced to her russian music from the tv.  I kept telling her we needed to go eat lunch and it wasn't until I finally remembered a german food word and said 'essen' that she let us leave.  Then she walked up the stairs bringing her antique mini stroller filled with knickknacks for Jakob to play with.  I didn't understand the 'for how long' part of the conversation though.  So we'll have to return it soon.  He does love it though.

Anyway, this is the first labor day weekend in a long time I won't be with my friends!  Very sad and I really wish it could have happened but we really want to come home for Christmas and plane tickets are not getting any cheaper especially when Jakob will have to get his own seat for Christmas- expensive but totally necessary.  So we're going to Stuttgart, Germany for the weekend to meet up with a distant cousin I haven't seen but maybe once in my life.  We're excited though to finally spend a couple nights in Germany and tour around.  But I guess this post is super long as it is.  So as soon as I go through at least 1500 pictures, I'll do a post with just pictures from China.  Definitely have some I want to share but the task is just so daunting!

Made his high chair into a big boy chair!  So far so good :)

Holy Hail and more... :)

Gotta get an update in before we leave for China in 4 days!

Life is moving so quickly lately.  Paul came back from the conference to a hail storm.  The storm came right as his plane was about to land so they ended up circling around the airport for a long time.  At 7 am I heard it coming down but instead of the sound dying away like it usually does, it sounded like it was going to rip apart the apartment.  Luckily, Jakob slept through it but I watched it from the window (after closing them all!) it was intense- by far the most intense one I've ever seen.  After it quit, trees were wrecked, leaves everywhere, cars dented, planters filled with hail, and on the ground it looked like leftover snow- piles of ice everywhere.

Now this was extremely scary to watch because just the night before Jakob and I had gone with my friend, her husband, and daughter to her daughter's kinderkrippe party.  Our babies were strolling around, getting soaked in the little pool, playing in the dirt, listening to the kid concert, and having a good time with the other kids and we stayed until after dinner when it looked like rain was coming.  Unfortunately we left too late and the rain turned into a HUGE thunderstorm with torrential downpour but only for the exact window of time we were trying to get to the tram stop (about 10 min away).  Had we known, we would have waited it out but in the end we had no umbrellas and were all soaked to the bone except Jakob who luckily was in the stroller bubble.  So I was just imaging, as the hail was trashing the city, 'what if this had happened last night?!'  Surely, we would have broken bones- it was that intense.

Anyway, Paul finally made it back and a couple days later some friends from Minnesota came into town.  They stayed with us just for the night before moving on to other sights but it is always very refreshing to have guests in town.  Jakob then had his 18 month checkup, vaccines and all.  He is 83cm (32.7in) and 12.85kg (28.3lbs).  He's definitely a big, heavy child compared to a lot of the kids around here.  And when the doctor gave him the shots, both times he just made a face and leaned away- not one peep.  Talk about a big boy!  At this appointment I also talked with the doctor more about the Hep A vaccine and while the disease is very treatable and worse in adults, I just didn't want to take the chance since his kidneys have already been maximally tested.  So Paul got it too and now we are all set for China!  Our visas were finished and in our hands within 6 days.  Impressive but when we pay 450chf for them I am glad that they at least work efficiently.

Jakob's first poop in the tub. The next day he let an even worse one out in the filled tub... yuck!

We went to a goodbye party for our friends one afternoon/evening and as usual Jakob loved the crowd.  He wasn't too interested in the food we put on a plate for him but everything on the twin 3 year old girls' plates was to die for.  He would run over there and snatch something before anyone could get to him.  Jakob also became their dog and would stand there with his mouth wide open as they filled it with cherrios.  Such a ladies man.  ;)  He loves all the attention and will do anything to get it from any familiar face he sees.

Lately, I've been noticing a woman and son in the park close to our place and thought that it could be the same mom/baby we roomed with at the Universitätspital when we gave birth.  Well, I checked it out, and it was!  Our baby boys are 1 day apart and they were having so much fun together.  Little Jaden is adorable (his mom is Swiss and his dad is from Ghana) and he has the sweetest curls.  They were laughing with each other, following each other as they ran away, played in the water together, and even hugged and kissed each other multiple times- of course Jakob began this.  He loves giving kisses and I have to admit I ask him for lots but the hugs are all his doing.  He is so sweet.  So we chatted for awhile and found out our babies are so similar: sleeping late, short naps, climbers, runners, the list goes on.  It was so fun to finally chat with someone new in the park.

We've done a few new recipes and Paul's trying to develop his fresh salsa recipe.  Fresh food is just so delicious.  Raspberry white chocolate creme filled sugar cookies and summer quinoa salad are my contributions.  :)

I'm not sure if I wrote about a job interview I had awhile back.  It was the end of April and I met with Wärtsila for a position in the Application Software Team for 2-stroke diesel engines.  I thought the interview went so great and I felt so comfortable.  I met the same woman from HR about a year before for another interview that I thought did not go so well but she is really nice.  Anyway, the start date was set for June 1 but I did not hear back until the end of June when they said they had a surprise reorganization of the company and had to wait indefinitely til the position was re-approved.  Relief of not being rejected was nice but waiting indefinitely... :(  So only a short while later did they say it had been re-approved, asked if I was still interested, and now I have a interview/meeting with the big big boss a few days after we return from China.  They went as far as to make sure I could start asap and reading inbetween the lines made it seem like I needed to start searching for a kinderkrippe for Jakob.  The HR woman was very excited and positive sounding which I hope is all true!  The company is 45 min away by tram/train/walking and it's a great job with 5 weeks of vacation. We'll see but I really hope it all works out.  Jakob would absolutely love kinderkrippe- except the waking up early part which funny enough is the same thing I'm not going to enjoy.  He is definitely my son.  :)

We had a taco night a few dinners ago and it was such a hit!  Jakob loved it and hardly made a mess.  Wrapping it like a burrito definitely worked!

just me and my little dude

Paul is in the states now for a conference which leaves me with a lot of time on his computer to get things done- including this blog and pictures.  :)  (*Maybe next time I'll have pictures of things other than just my precious child. ;) *)

Trying to get China visa pictures ourselves...

Not too much has been going on but I have been taking a ton of pictures (as usual).  Kindermusik started again and it has been a lot more fun this time.  More kids to interact with and better games/songs.  Although it is becoming more and more of a workout for me since Jakob has got to be about 30 pounds.  He has his 18 month checkup in a couple weeks.  We went to the pool that is right down the street from us on a great Saturday and it was a lot of fun.  Very relaxing but the water was a little too cool for Jakob's liking.  We'll go again on a hot hot day.

We threw a little housewarming/thank-you-for-helping-us-move party a couple weekends ago and it was a lot of fun.  We wanted to do an American bbq (well as close as we could get) with pulled pork, coleslaw, mac and cheese, chips and salsa, veggies and dip, and other snacks and we thought it turned out great.  We had WAY too much food though so by the end of the week we were ready to see it all gone.  I really wish I had taken pictures that night.  A few of our friends are moving away and that was one of the last times we'll see them.  Jakob will miss his friends but he had so much fun with the adults too. He attached himself to a few and would not leave them be.  He was even taking food off other people's plates and feeding them to random people- never would eat it.  He is such a social butterfly that I had to chase him with food to get him to eat something.

^ Bedtime routine- not holding the bottle and playing with his hair.

We've had a few terribly hot days/nights which makes sleeping not good.  It's these few days a year when we ask ourselves why we have not bought a fan or SOMETHING.  A few more hot days are coming up and I really hope the nights stay cool.  Here's a picture of Jakob before his haircut and after a nap.  That huge puddle on his sheet is sweat.  gross.

Blowing kisses to daddy and harmonicas

The next weekend we had a few things we wanted to get done but Jakob and I went to the zoo with some friends Friday when it was really hot and I don't think that settled well with him.  He didn't have much of an appetite and vomited in the grocery store later.  Poor guy.  He had a fever all weekend so we missed a goodbye party and his first haircut- no worries we rescheduled!  And Father's day ended up being pretty low key but at least it got Paul out of having to shop for better outfits for China.  He did babysit Saturday afternoon though and I got in a few hours of shopping and I found some new favorite stores!  So happy I finally have a couple places to shop.  But after the fever he had a slight cold and gave me a massive dose of it.  I don't feel well at all and this is the worse I've felt in a LONG time and now Paul is gone in the states.  All I want to do is lay down and rest and Jakob is either getting into trouble or sitting on my head (literally) not to mention we HAVE to get out of the house and meals have to be made and dishes need to be cleaned.  Not a super fun time right now so it's probably a good thing Paul's not here to catch it!

He climbs right up and turns it on all by himself ^

^ What happens when you go to get dinner plates. Jakob on table->Cup of water everywhere

Anyway, Jakob got his first haircut!  His hair was all in his eyes and he was getting a rat tail.  I wanted him to look nice for our China trip and Adam's wedding so we decided to pay the 27chf (holy cow!) and get it done right.  They did an awesome job!  He watched some tv and sat in a car while the lady worked her magic.  It was so cute and sad and now I have a big boy.  They gave him a little certificate with some hair and a toy and he didn't really care the whole time even when she brought out the buzzer.  Paul wasn't able to be there so when he got home he was sad too to see a big boy.  We still think he looks cute as ever though!  And if we ever had any doubts who he looks like the most... this haircut has officially made him Paul's mini me.  :)

Before                                                               During

After! :)

Paul and his mini me                                           Before haircut morning bed head