We had a change in plans and won't be returning to California before going to Beijing so when we first tried to change our tickets, we were horrified at the change fees and additional costs involved: something like 97,000 additional miles, + $450 for our tickets, and another $900 for Annette's tickets. Fortunately, an angel by the name of Angela Rose from United's ticket office in Detroit finally got us squared away for just $300, but we just have to make some tight 1hr connections from Boston-->Denver-->SFO--Beijing.
Sometimes it's nice to have a wife who has "command" as one of her strengths, per Strengthfinders. She manged to lobby MIT to pay for our entire move to LA, which comes out to just over $17k! Thanks Annette, I'm going to make a donation to your clothing budget!
Joshua is starting up his tutoring sessions in Mandarin, transitioning to learning Simplifed Chinese characters using this book series. I am starting to step up my Chinese studying as well. The tools available for learning Chinese now are incredible: Pleco OCR, ChineseWriter
We've given up on buying a home in LA right now. The housing market is going through the roof.
Annette called one listing and just after a few days, they had already 15 offers, made 10 counter offers, and advised her to only make an offer 100-200k above asking price, and also, to come with cash. Right.
Annette is headed out to Beijing this week to look for an apartment and to see if she can get our boys signed up for school at the primary school.
55 days to go until Beijing.
