Playing Catch-up Again

It's been quite a while since I last posted anything here. It's not from lack of having things to write about. It's just been a little chaotic here lately. Kristi has started taking some online classes. She is also started substitute teaching occasionally at Emily's school and she teaches English a couple hours a week at a migrant school near our neighborhood (See the bottom of this post for more on this). As for me, work is crazy-busy right now as we wrap up the design phase of this project and move towards construction. Sometime after the first of the year, part of my job will move from Shanghai to the plant site. I'll spend 2-3 days a week there and 2-3 days in Shanghai.

Mom and Dad came for a visit in late-October and stayed for about four weeks. We had a great time hanging out with them and it was a blast watching them deal with the culture shock. It made us stop and think about the things that we have become so accustomed to that we don't even notice them now. While they were here, we revisited some of the old sights and took in some new ones. Kristi and I even skipped town for a weekend and went back to the States to visit Kate at Ball State.

I have pictures of all this and will get them posted over the next couple of weeks so bear with us, be patient, and keep checking back here.

(Just a quick side note here - many of the construction workers in Shanghai are from other parts of China. Most leave their families back home and get to see them only a couple of times a year but some of these migrant workers choose to bring their families with them. Unfortunately, the public schools in Shanghai are reserved for those who were born here so the migrant children aren't allowed to attend. They have to attend these separate schools that have practically no resources. About 50 kids per class. No heat, no library, no notebooks or paper.)