Halloween and 72 Weeks

Well, it has been 72 weeks since moving to China.  It seems like yesterday.  Looking forward to more adventures.

Today is Halloween. Cameron had a haunted maze he went through at school.  He said it was cool but it wasn't scary.  For dinner we walked over to the new mall that is just down the street.  It just opened and we are so excited because there is a Papa John's.  We met Carrasco's over there for dinner.

Cameron ordered an all meat pizza and I ordered a BBQ chicken pizza.  We wanted to try each.  They were both delicious.  It will be awesome having Papa John's so close to our apartment.  And even better...they deliver.  Yay!

The boys are enjoying their pizza.

Alejandro had to be silly, of course.

After dinner we walked back home.  It was a beautiful night, even though the Carrasco's said it was cold. 

Random Pictures

Mom and I were walking and noticed this cab driver.
He was "washing" his car at the stop light.

Here is a crazy worker.  No work boots.
Not tied off.

Mom finally found a cool sweatshirt.

Garfield made a visit outside of school one day.

Mom, Dad, and I were walking and noticed this guy.
Could he have anymore on his cart?

Up close look at the scaffolding near school.

More scaffolding.

Ayi

Thank goodness for my ayi, Xiao Li.  When she arrived today I showed her the group photo from the party and tried my best to explain we had a party and the house was a mess.  When she saw the picture she shivered and said "Oh".  She is easily frightened I think. 

The apartment itself didn't really look like there had been a party but when she went out on the porch she could definitely tell.  The cooler leaked water and then people were walking through it.  So needless to say there was dirt and scum all over.  She spent 35 minutes cleaning the porch.  I looked out once and there was nothing but soap suds all over.  She was giving it a thorough cleaning.

Once inside she spent 2 1/2 hours cleaning.  She did some serious scrubbing.  Maybe I should tell her we have parties more often so we get a deep cleaning.  I gave her a bag of candy when she left and she was super excited.  She is very easily entertained as well. 

My Birthday

Up at 8:00.  I know, I was shocked too since I didn't go to bed until around 3:00 a.m.  Todd had everything cleaned up and thrown away.  What a great guy.  All I had to do was the few dishes in the sink. 

Cameron came home at 9:30 and we left at 10 to go to Tianjin.  I swear Mr. Xue took the world's longest way to Metro. After an hour and 15 minutes in the car we were by Aqua City so we decided to stop there.  It is a grocery store.  We found a few things we needed then hit McDonald's for a quick snack in the car.

Someone left their head at our house.

Finally got to Metro.  We walked around there picking up some groceries that we needed.  We were waiting in line to check out when a Chinese man tried to put his things on the belt.  Todd moved them back and put our stuff on.  We were waiting in line but this guy just didn't want to wait I guess.  Luckily he was nice about it and Todd was.  We loaded up the van and headed home.  Again, Mr. Xue took the longest way home. 

This was weird.

Once back at home Cameron vacuumed the apartment and then mopped the spots that were super sticky.  It is amazing how gross a floor gets during a party.  Cameron went out to play with the boys for about 30 minutes.  Came back in to help Todd cook some giant steaks for my birthday.


We ate, cleaned up, and got ready for Trick or Treating.  Dinner was so delicious.  I was stuffed but we still had a lot to do.  Cameron had to open his Halloween gift early because he needed to use his bag to trick or treat.  Grandma and Grandpa brought a few surprises when from America. At 5:30 we walked over to building A to meet up with everyone else.  There was quite a crowd.  Lots of little kids all dressed up.  Around 5:45 Jessica made the announcement that it was go time. 

These steaks look so good.

My birthday dinner.

We gave Cameron a 3D DS game.

He got a Ripley's Believe It Or Not book from
Grandma and Grandpa.

Cameron, Alfredo, and Andreus with matching masks.

Alejandro had a matching mask too.

I went back to the apartment to pass out candy and Todd walked around with they boys.  He had Cameron, Alfredo, Manuel, Andreus, Eric, Rojan, Nadeem, and another Dad.  One group came to our apartment right at the beginning.  Then it got boring.  I finally got a chair to sit in the hall so I could close the door so bugs didn't go in the apartment.  I turned some music on and sat and waited and waited and waited.  Todd stopped by while the kids went up to the upper floors and I told him there hasn't been many kids.  He was surprised because he said there were a ton of kids walking around.  We aren't sure if they just didn't come all the way down to our building or what.  By the time it was over I'd say we had 50 kids that stopped by.  The boys had a great time and got a lot of candy.

Our friends from Bangjing wan brought their vans over and had trunk or treating out of them.  That was pretty funny.  Cameron said when they went by though no one was at their vans so they didn't get to get anything from them.  Overall it was a great night for trick or treating.

Happy birthday to me.  Off to bed. 

Side note:
When I was doing dishes I noticed our TsingTao bottle opener was missing off the fridge.  Todd said he saw it somewhere.  I looked around but couldn't find it.  When we got to the fountain for trick or treating one of our party-goers came up to me and said"I was going through my knapsack when we got home and I noticed this in it".  He handed me our bottle opener.  He said he doesn't know if it fell in or what but he wanted to return it.Yay, our bottle opener found its way back to us.  That was very nice of him to return it to us.

Parties

My morning started off with coloring my hair.  This is the 3rd time I have done it now and I still am not very good at it.  At least this time I used more than I ever had.  Not near as much left over.  I was happy with it when it was finished.  Definitely darker than when I started but the gray is gone at least.

At 11:15 Cameron and I walked with the Carrasco family over to Mette's.  She was having a 40th birthday party.  We got to her building and saw the huge red balloons like we see at Chinese places.  The streamers on them said "Mette 40 Years".  No idea where she got those but that was pretty cool. 

Big Chinese Balloons.

Cameron, Alfredo, and Herman enjoy lunch together.

At 12:30 I sent Cameron and Alfedo back to our house because Todd was home from work.  There was a lot of little kids but nothing really for the big boys to do.  Ashanti's catered the food so it was yummy.  Then Rachel made the cake.  It was super delicious.  Very, very rich and chocolaty. 

At 2:00 Ileana and I went back to our apartments.  Todd had grilled some food for the week for Cameron and I.  Ryley, Tobias, Alfedo, and Cameron were playing Risk.  They then had a Nerf war by shutting the lights off and using the glow in the dark darts.  They were just throwing them at each other.  They were laughing and squealing.  Love the sound of kids playing.

Ileana and I did some last minute preparations for the party.  Todd and I walked over to Ashanti's to pick up our huge steaks we bought from him to cook on Sunday for my birthday.  We also got some ice from them.  Back home.

Ready for party-goers.

Spooky.

The decorations outside our door.

One of our pumpkins wasn't feeling very well.
It puked.  Gross.

Super Wiper.  Designed by Cameron.

Cameron is a great desinger.

At 7:15 we sent Cameron down to Carrasco's because guests were going to start arriving.  We lit the candles in the pumpkins after the two alien creatures arrived.  Ileana and Fredy were so funny.  Their costumes were awesome.  We took a few pictures and then the first guests arrived.  Natalia and Peter were first.   By 8:15 we had an apartment FULL of the greatest people from all over the world. 

The Carrasco's and Wallace's.

The aliens with the throw up pumpkin.

Alien mom and Super Wiper.

Mr. and Mrs. Beer Pong.

The OLD super hero's.

Some Ninja came to save the world.

Mr. Incredible, Mr. TsingTao, and Mr. Clean.
No peeing please.

Megan was HH...Hooter Hider. 
That is what these blankets are called.  She's nursing still.

Manuel and Cecilia made a great Bat team.

Our Danish friends made these shots.
 Think Vicks Formula 44D.  Blah.

The Americans had to teach the game of Beer Pong and Flippy Cups.  I must admit I had never heard of Flippy Cups.  There were so many laughs.  The Danish did not want to be left out so they taught us how to play a relay game they play.  The bad part about this one is we had to turn 5 circles then run to the other end to tag a team mate.  Luckily we ha guards so no one fell off the patio.  It sounds dangerous but it wasn't at all.

Mr. Incredible (Troy) had a hard time with his gloves.

A big game of beer pong.
Not sure what the alien fingers are doing.

Megan and Erica are trying to tell us the rules of
Flippy Cups.

We were learning the rules for Flippy Cups.

Girls vs. boys.  It came down to Ileana and Jose.
Obviously we can tell who won.

Fredy caught me.

I was surprised with a birthday spider cake.

This cake was so cute.  Thank to Ileana for making it.

Jakob, Trine, and Beau busting out in a Danish song.  Pounding on table too.
Then the Mexicans sang, then Denmark again.  Denmark definitely won the singing battle.
USA was not even in the running with our one birthday song.

Ileana tried and now Nadia tried to smash my face.
It didn't work.

Ileana, Me, Cecilia, Rachel, and Trine.

Super Wiper and Mr. Boring.  That's what I named his
lack of costume.  Still love him.

Oct. 28 is special to all these people. 
My birthday.
Erica and Josh's 6th Anniversary.
Cecilia and Manuel's 12th Anniversary.

We did group photos which were not easy.  We first tried to get all the girls.  There was a lot of us and we had to get close.  Then we had girls trying to take pictures of all the guys with cameras taking pictures of us.  It was funny.  We swapped places and it was the guys turn to get photos taken.  We then did a whole group photo.  So many people and it turned out great.

All the Super Hero Chicks.

Some of the guys taking pictures.

The Super Hero Guys.

The Whole Gang keeping TEDA safe.
 

The Mexicans and Me and Trine. 

People started leaving around midnight.  At 12:45ish Me, Trine, Ileana, Peter, Crista, Hector, Nadia, and Susan went to Soho.  Ileana and I were not standing by each other when the next thing happened.  When I was asked to go to Soho I said I would go if Ileana went (thinking she would say no).  When she was asked she said she would go if I went (completely thinking I would say no).  So unfortunately, we had to go.

We jumped in cabs.  We walked in and it was packed and smokey.  We sang and danced with the band for about an hour and a half.  It actually was a lot of fun.  Around 2:15 we jumped back in cabs and we headed back to Warner and off to bed after a shower.  The smoke is the number 1 reason I don't like Soho.  WHAT A GREAT NIGHT!!

Crista, Trine, Ileana, and Me at Soho.
We had to send it to Mette because she said she was too
old to go to Soho.  She just turned 40.