Nothing Went Right--44 Weeks

It has been 44 weeks since arriving in TEDA.  It has been a wonderful ride.  It makes it even better when we have family here spending time with us.  So happy to have mom and Aunt Sharon in China.

We probably should have all just went back to bed this morning because nothing seemed to go right.  I took Cameron to school and than ran with Sharla.  I about died.  We ran/walked the loop than ran up 8 flights of stairs, back down, ran again.  We did this 4 times and the last time we ran the new car ramp instead of the stairs.  Great way to wake a body up.  

Got ready and went to Haibai Park.  Mr. Xue dropped us off at the museum.  I asked him to take us to the park entrance but he said he couldn't.  He asked the museum guards if we could get a taxi on the other side and they said yes.  He left to go to the factory.  It was 10:15.  He had to pick Todd up at 11:30 to take him and 3 others to Beijing.  He seemed worried like he didn't have enough time or something.  He left us.  We were looking at a ton of construction but it must be ok so we started walking towards the "zoo".  Big blue construction barricade and we couldn't go any further.  Turned around and went back to where we started.  We headed in the direction of the main entrance, walking through construction.  A guy told us we couldn't walk that way but I told him we needed to get to the other side.  Mind you, this is all in charades type talking not spoken words that either could understand.  He let us keep walking.  The entire park is tore up.  We finally got to the main gate and there was construction fence blocking the entrance.  We found another way out.  WOW, that was a fun park.  In a cab and headed back to walking street.

This is a park.  Can you tell?

This is nice Shelly.  Thanks for bringing us here.

Maybe it would be finished if they weren't sleeping on the job.

We went back to the shoe store to buy more flip flops.  As it turned out I bought 2 pairs for me and 2 pairs for Cameron.  They didn't have anymore in gigantic size for the other 2 in colors they wanted.  We then went to the I Love You store.  It is a huge store with mostly electronics but it has a ton of houseware type things too.  I bought 2 pairs of scissors.  Thrilling.

Washing the path on Walking Street.

The I Love You store.

Back in a cab.  We had him drop us off at Nick's Mart.  We were on a mission to find stuff to make stuffed peppers for dinner.  Nick's always has Spanish rice but not today.  We bought licorice, chips, and cheese.  Headed to Times.  Nothing for peppers either.  Bought pretzels and Tostitos.  We decided to scratch the stuffed peppers idea and go to lunch. 

We walked across the street to Jacky's.  We hadn't eaten there yet.  Sat down, ordered drinks, then ordered lunch.  I called the theater in Beijing to order acrobat tickets.  That was an interesting call.  When I was done I felt like it would work out.  I got a call back 2 minutes later.  She asked me what day I needed the tickets for.  I told her and realized we will be lucky to get our tickets Friday.  This is the second time in less than a week I have ordered tickets and not had a good feeling about it.  Hopefully we will have tickets and everything will work out.  Mom got her pizza about 15 minutes after we ordered.  My cheese bread came out about 30 minutes after we ordered, and Aunt Sharon's potato skins came out 45 minutes after we ordered.  Jacky's kitchen was not on their A game today.  Luckily we didn't have anywhere to be.  Aunt Sharon spilled her full beer.  Luckily she didn't lose too much of it.  Unlucky was it spilled on mom's purse and splashed a little on the man sitting behind my mom. 

We walked home and I decided to make cupcakes for Ileana's niece.  Her birthday is tomorrow.  Made them, put them in the oven, took them out, and tried to get them out of the pans after they cooled a bit.  Not one of them would come out.  Yes, I oiled the pans.  Mom cut around one pan full and I worked on the other.  We got 16 good enough to frost and take to her.  The rest lost most of their bottoms in the process.  It is the thought that counts right?

These aren't too bad.

All I can say is Betty Crocker was off her game today.

For the next 2 hours or so the girls read their books and I worked on the blog.  It was a quiet afternoon waiting for Cameron to get home.  He ran to Decathlon and the store with Carrasco's after school. 

We ran the cupcakes down to Carrasco's and their grandpa invited me to have a beer.  Of course I said yes.  I had Alfredo run up to tell mom and Aunt Sharon to go down.  Once they were at Ileana's I ran back up to make mom a Fuzzy Navel.  I left a note on the door telling Cameron where we were.  We ended up having two beers.  When Ileana got us our second beer she brought out two warm one's and asked me if she could trade them for cold.  She knows we always have cold beer.  I left the warm and took extra cold beer down in case FredyCarrasco's.  What a goofball.

My family and Ileana's family.  Fun times.

The notes.

Ate dinner and realized Cameron needed his fingernails cut.  We went into my bathroom.  He looked around and said "Man, how many toiletries do they need?  They even brought their own shelf."   He was amazed at how much stuff they need in the bathroom. 

Here are some.

More.

This is what he called the shelf.

We skyped with grandpa and then finished our game of Euchre.  Cameron was very lucky with cards tonight.  Him and Aunt Sharon beat us again. 

A strange day but still good.