The Olympics...

I just had to post a little blip because I have gotten so many emails asking how it has been getting to watch the Olympics in China! The funniest thing is - we are having a hard time finding what channel coverage is going to be on. We did get to see Michael Phelps and the 3 other guys beat the French in whatever race that was which was very exciting. It was on at about 9:00pm and because our girls are night owls they were still awake. It was really cute because all 5 of us were in the living room standing up and yelling and screaming for the USA to win. I'm sure all of our neighbors in this apartment building heard us and thought "those crazy Americans." But it was very exciting to see and even more fun to see all three of our girls jumping up and down saying, "go, go, go" at the TV.

But the reality of watching the Olympics in China is actually not great. For one, the best coverage we get of the Olympics is on a Korean channel - go figure. And even when we do watch coverage on CCTV we obviously can't understand any of the interviews. Well, that's not true - I now know all my numbers in Chinese so when they say someone's age or uniform number I can understand that! :) I'm not complaining, really, because it is fun to watch what we watch knowing that it is live...but then again I don't know - maybe y'all are seeing it live in the US too? We get a lot of the badminton, ping pong, archery and swimming. We've yet to see any gymnastics which is a disappointment because I know the girls would love to see it. There is no schedule that we can read that tells us when events are happening. Maybe I should Google it!

Speaking of reality - life is getting into a normal swing now. John had his first trip to the joint venture company this week. He left on Tuesday and is on his way home now. He took the train as the company is in a small (by Chinese standards) city about 4 hours (by train) from Shanghai. He said it is going to be very cool to be involved with this project. It did feel a little weird at first when John left since all the other times I've been in China we've always been together. We have survived without any problems though.

We celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary on Wed. with him in Xuzhou and me in Shanghai but that's OK. He bought me a really great gift that I had seen in a market not too far from our house. Here's a picture so you can see them. Well, the quality of the picture is not very good because I took it with my phone but you can get the idea of what they look like.I just love them! They are very quirky looking but for some reason I just like them. In the background you can see my great purchase - a beautiful black and white painting of Old Shanghai. It is huge and will look great above our mantel in the living room.
And one of cute Kate on her new mattress in her new room. (Again - phone camera quality) Next week we should have more furniture delivered and are definitely looking forward to that!
Happy Olympics watching to all of you...who knew, I would ever miss NBC sports commentary so much! :)