Halloween in the Development Zone

Halloween is definitely something that is very different in Wuhan compared to Indiana.  I'm sure the reasons are mostly obvious.  Aloha Diner has a Halloween party, and there is opportunity for the kids to dress up one day at school.

Sunday evening was the party at Aloha.  The kids were excited, and it turned out to be a pretty good time.

First, the costumes.  Ema was Hermione Granger from Harry Potter....

Isabella was Rapunzel....

Lorren was Anakin Skywalker....

Many thanks to Grandma Tuttle for the costumes -- they are wonderful.  The kids love them, and everyone was very impressed at the party.

The Aloha party included food, candy corn, carmel apples, candy, and games.  A lot of the kids' friends were there, and everyone had a good time.  There were plenty of adult friends there also to talk to while the kids were having a good time.

The first photo is Sheridan wrapping Luke up like a mummy with toilet paper.  Sheridan is in the fourth grade and a good friend of Ema's.  Luke is in K-5.  The second photo is Ema playing a bowling game with others looking on including Sheridan and Bella.  The background is French Street just outside the Aloha.

Paco and Esme were at Aloha at the beginning of the party after finishing a late lunch.  I have a much better photo of them here than when we were at their home last weekend.

Chessie made arrangements with four different houses in our neighborhood for trick-r-treating Monday evening.  The kids will also be able to don their costumes at school on Tuesday.  Overall, I think they'll get the right amount of Halloween action to last another 366 days.

How real were the costumes.  Well, I didn't float away when Ema did this, but they were real enough for everyone to have a great time.



> Clayton

Mexican Fiesta

Sorry I ignored the blog for so long.  Now back to the show....

Last Saturday night was a special treat.  We were invited to a friend's house for some authentic Mexican food.  Francisco (aka Paco) works with me at Fuel Systems.  He's from Juarez, Mexico.  He and his wife, Esmerelda (aka Esme), invited us over to their new home.

Paco and Esme moved to Wuhan just over one year ago -- so they have about four months experience on us.  They lived in Hankou their first year.  (More on that later.... that sounds like another good post.)  For our purposes here, that means they lived in the downtown Wuhan area.  Paco had a 45-60 minutes commute each way to/from work.  (My commute is less than 10 minutes in contrast.)  While enjoying many aspects of Hankou, they decided it was best to move closer to Cummins.  They moved to the Development Zone in mid October.

Back to the fiesta.... they invited us and some others to their new home as a little house warming party.  The main attraction, of course, was the food.  Paco and Esme made quite a feast.  They made guacamole, salsa, and pico de gallo.  There was bread topped with beans and cheese as well as theses delicious breaded cheese balls.  The main course was fajitas.  They had beef, shrimp, and mushrooms for the fajitas.  There was also quesadillas for the kids.  The fajitas were spectacular -- both the beef and shrimp!  The beef and shrimp were even great together -- we learned that's called campechana.  You can't exactly get authentic tortillas in Wuhan.  We felt extra special because they broke into their stash of tortillas from home.  Everyone went through quite a few tortillas.

Their new home was nice too.  It's a two story apartment with an incredible amount of space.  It has three or four bedrooms downstairs and then a bunch of odd shaped rooms upstairs.  Here's a photo from the night.  This is an area next to the dining table.  We couldn't eat at the table because it was full of food.  From left to right.... Chessie's back, Sarah, Tracy, Esme, and Tony.



Tracy works at Cummins with me and Paco.  He and Sarah live next door to us.  Tony is the relocation guy that helped all three of our families find our homes here in Wuhan.  He also helped Paco and Esme move to this new home in the Development Zone.

Sorry there's not more photos.  As you can see I remembered the camera.  Right after I took this first photo, the battery died.

All of us were still talking about the food all day Sunday.  That should be your takeaway from this post.

> Clayton

It's Bella's Turn to Blog

I have lost my tooth and the tooth fairy has gave me money and gave me 15 and I have lost  six teeth and I have   Ema and Lorren and Mom and Dad and me Isabella. I love dogs and cats and boys and girls and I see people that don't do things that I see in America because they are Chinese. And I live in China. I ride my bike. I am almost off my training wheels and on two wheels like Ema. And I do roller blading on French Street sometimes and I do making Lincoln Log houses with a roof and back yard. I know that 1 x 1 is 1. And I have five people in my family. And I don't really have a favorite color. And my dad has big ears. And Ema has glasses now. I want to see Cars 2 and Harry Potter movies.  I want to read a really big book.  Ema is reading really big books like Order of the Phoenix.

Bella

She's lost two teeth in the past week.  Here's a photo of her new mouth.  (We call her Jack -- like jack-o-lantern, but she doesn't like it.)

How We Got to Know Mr. Huang

Huang Jianxin 黄建新 has been our driver in China ever since we arrived in Wuhan.  Mr. Huang -- as we call him -- is about 40 years old, he has a son that is high school aged, and has had many differnt jobs as a driver including driving taxis, trucks, and wedding cars.

The story of choosing Mr. Huang is funny.... He had been driving for us for just under a week and was the third driver we had in those first 10 days or so.  The company secretary, Wendy, had never been clear with us about getting a permanent driver.  Out of the blue one day, she told me it was time to interview drivers.  We went downstairs and sat down with Mr. Huang first.  I wasn't sure what to ask, so Wendy suggested I ask if he has a family.  Family men are safer and much more reliable she said.  Then we hopped in the car for a 10-15 minute driving test which felt pretty silly since he had been driving my family around the past five days or so.

There was one other guy to interview.  I thought to myself, "What is the purpose of this?  How can me asking questions through Wendy and going on a 15 minute drive differentiate these two men?"  I was sure I would pick Mr. Huang just because he had been driving us already.  We got in the car with the second guy.  First, he smelled bad.  Then he took off out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell.  He didn't wear a seat belt.  When Wendy told him to put the seat belt on, he looked around for it like he had no idea where a seat belt would be located.  While he looked for the belt, the car was swerving all over the road.  Let's just say the decision was easy.

Mr. Huang has been very good to us and we hope he will continue to drive us for a long time.  I thought you might enjoy a small taste of drving around in Wuhan.  On Mon, Wed, and Fri, Mr. Huang picks us all up at 7:40.  He drops off Chessie and the kids at school, then we head to Cummins.  I recorded our Monday morning drive.  (It's in two parts.)  It gives you a taste of what our mornings are like and some geography of our community.

> Clayton

Getting Around in Wuhan

I thought I would try to give you a little getting around in Wuhan.  Mr. Huang is our driver.  (They'll be a little more about him in a couple of days.)

We have a Honda Odyssey -- funny since we just sold an Odyssey in Indiana just before leaving.  See the photo below along with one of Mr. Huang strapping Lorren in his car seat.

Mr. Huang takes us wherever we need to go around Wuhan whenever we need to go somewhere.  He takes me to and from work every day.  On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays all of us go to school and work at the same time.  He drops everyone off at school and then we head to Cummins.  He also takes Chessie and Lorren home at lunch time on those days.  (The girls ride the bus other times.)

He takes Chessie to the store which allows her to buy groceries in a similar way to how she was used to in Indiana -- one or two weeks worth at a time.  Most people have to carry home their goceries walking or on the bus, so loading up the car and bring it home is quite a luxury here.  He waits for her at the checkout line and help bag and take the items to the car.

My most frequent business trip is to Xiangyang about 300 km northwest of Wuhan.  This is convenient, because I would much rather drive than have to fly.  When I need to go to Xiangyang, we just get in the car and go.  Mr. Huang stays there with me until it's time to go home.  This, of course, requires us to plan if he won't be in Wuhan to drive Chessie and the kids.  But we've always been able to work around it just fine.

One last item.... Wednesday was Ema's birthday.  Here's a photo of her with her requested strawberry Jell-o poke cake -- homemade, of course.

> Clayton

Now Starring.... Ema!

I have noticed that Chinese people really like music. Especially when I started to learn the recorder! Of course I had no idea what the notes were, but there's always time to learn. I first learned to play the B note (the first note in "Mary had a little lamb"). Then I learned to play the A note (the second note in "Mary had a little lamb"). Then I learned to play a korean song called "Dragonflies". Imagine that! Me playing an actual song! It was really fun! Then I learned to play the G note ( the third note in " Mary had a little lamb"). Finaly I learned how to play a song I knew! Mary had a little lamb!

Yikes! There's a moth in the office! This reminds me about something that happened over  the summer....

It was a wenesday evening.  Dad was on a business trip so Mom had to take care of us. Then Mom told us to be quiet. I asked why and she just pointed at the bakers rack. I looked over there and saw what Mom was talking about. Bella shivered. There right in front of the bakers rack was a giant spider! I was terrified! Mom got out the vacum cleaner to suck up the spider. It was really funny! First Mom lunged at the spider, but the spider ran away. On about the forth lunge, Mom got the spider to get in the vacum cleaner. Anyway the moths dead so thats it.

Ema

The Force wil be with you, Lorren.... always.

One of the forseeable consequences of moving to China was Lorren would miss regular preschool.  The international school has a preschool, but it's insanely expensive.  My company will only pay for school beginning at age 5.  So we planned to be without.  Theresa made us a preschool activity box that Chessie could use with Lorren to start the learning process, and we would just work a little harder to make the appropriate social connections.

Chessie and I considered putting him in a Chinese preschool we could afford.  Then an opportunity arose.  Chessie was asked to volunteer as the nurse at the international school.  In exchange, Lorren gets to attend the K-3 class on Mon, Wed, and Fri mornings.  He was so excited about starting school.  Here is a photo of Lorren with his teacher, Miss Xiong (pronounced SHONG).  He gave her a flower for National Teacher Day.

Lorren is a Star Wars nut.  He's constantly playing with his action figures, turning ordinary objects into lightsabers, and asking to watch any movie episode you're willing to turn on.  He's going to be a Jedi when he grows up -- unlike his father who grew up to be a 'dad'.  I asked him in early August how he was going to become a Jedi.  He said he was going to learn how to use the Force from Miss Xiong!  Strangely, Miss Xiong knows all about the Force and is going to teach what she can!

Lorren may not be learning much about how to use the Force, but he is learning other things.  He loves telling us all about them.  Two weeks ago he learned that he has bones.  He was constantly poking himself and showing his bones and then poking others and showing them their own bones.

Watch the video for him to impart some knowledge about shapes.

> Clayton