Unpacking

The boys worked super hard today unpacking their room. There was an incentive of course--they couldn't open up their new Lego toys until they had finished!

Propaganda

All over town the Communist Party puts up posters encouraging loyalty to the 党 (the Party).
This translates to: "Sing folk songs to the Party"

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Coming home

10 months have gone by so fast, and we feel so fortunate to have had this experience together as a family. We say goodbye to Beijing and its smog, unsafe food, the Great Firewall, and pervasive sewer smells, but also to its wonderful citizens, great schools, the amazing public transport system of subways and buslines, jianbing and jiaozi, popsicles on every street corner, the Great Wall and Summer Palaces.

It's been an amazing time of learning, making new friends, seeing wondrous sites and eating new spicy and also not so spicy foods.

Thank you China and we hope you find a way forward to care for your people, respect their voices, and make their dreams your Chinese dream.

the plane taking us home

the impressive Beijing Capital Airport

Yes Joshua, we're not in economy today

12 pieces of luggage 

homecoming meal at In & Out

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Sample Joshua's 1st grade class

This is the poem Joshua is learning today:

蜻蜓半空展翅飞，蝴蝶花间捉迷藏。

蚯蚓土里造宫殿，蚂蚁地上运食粮。

蝌蚪池中游得欢，蜘蛛房前结网忙。

Out of the 42 characters, 25 of them are new to him.

He's expected to learn this in 1 day.  (He only needs to be able to write 6 of them, but should be able to recognize the others and write the pinyin for them).

It's hard. I've been trying to learn it all morning, and I'm getting a headache.

I add words to a flashcard app to study for his tests. Over these past 7 months, we've already added over 1000!

Crazy Chinese school.  The great thing is Joshua loves school.

It would drive me crazy.  

After an exam, the teacher takes a picture of the students who got 100, and posts it on Wechat, and says that the "other students" should copy their example.  Yish.

Smog Out

As the smog in Beijing was off the charts this week, and the WHO warned everyone to stay inside, we kept the boys home from school.  Here are some photos are what it looked like from our street, and then the day after the smog finally cleared.

When we are stuck indoors, the boys enjoy just being around each other, whether it's reading, playing with legos, or pillow fights on the bed.

Sometimes, Joshua will run laps around our living room coffee table while listening to his ipod.

Merry Christmas

Christmas is just another regular work/school in China,  but Annette managed to buy this floor sample Christmas tree from Ikea, we had the boys play hooky from school, and we found a cafe that served turkey and ham for our Christmas feast.

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Bumper cars with guns

The boys had a wonderful time discovering a local park that had a bunch of amusement rides, all with guns on them--even the bumper cars! #onlyinchina