AUNTY Mary and AUNTY Jane visit us!!!!

Sorry for not getting this blog up earlier, but I have been waiting to write this email because I did not take as many pictures as I had wanted to when the ladies were hear. Jane took a ton for us!  So,  I will update with more pictures later. (Note to self, take more pictures when visitors come!)

I can hardly describe the feeling that we had as we were heading to Aunt Mary's hotel to see her!  We received a call a few days before they arrived in Shanghai, saying when they were going to be staying with us and what we might be doing!  A few times I would get that lump you get in your throat when you are trying to hold back tears, well that is what I had on the way to see them too!  I think it was because I was sooooo excited to see familiar faces and because it had been raining for nearly a month here!  They brought the sun! For the majority of the time that they were here, we saw blue sky almost every day, which is very rare for here! You know, lots of smog!

So at noon on Monday Reese, Cambry, and I hopped into a taxi and went to meet the group at the hotel that most of them were staying at!  Immediately Aunt Mary and I hugged and began crying!  Then she had to go and say that the next hug was from my mom, way to go mom, make me feel even worse!  No, I know you were just trying to be sweet!  We chatted about many things that they had already seen and done in Beijing!  Sounded like they had already had an AMAZING time! After a little group planning session on what their friends and Aunt Mary and Jane wanted to do, we decided to head for Yuyuan Gardens.  This is a very touristy type place to go. Must admit, I had not been there yet myself so it was very nice that they let us tag along!  In the mean time, Reese has not let go of Aunt Mary's hand.  She is sitting on her lap, hugging her, and just loving on her.  She can't stop talking to her about this and that!  Poor Aunt Mary, she didn't know what she was in for!  We went to a famous dumpling restaurant!  One of Jane's friends ordered for everyone, which meant that we would more than likely be safe eating what they prepared for us!  Some of it was good, some of it was not our favorites!  The place looked very Chinese, for example the buildings looked like the ones that you would see in movies, curves on the roof and such.  It was PACKED!  Why am I still surprised by the amount of people in this country?!?  After we ate Mary, Reese, Cambry, and I went to look around. We got to see tons of fish by the zigzag bridges, Coi of course.  They also had tons and tons of little shops selling mostly, um...junk, and souvenirs. It was funny, Mary and I saw what looked like an entrance to something but weren't really sure what it was and weren't going to stand in one place too long due to the crowds.  So we just walked around until we were going to meet up with the rest of our group.  Little did we know, that was the actual entrance to the Yuyuan Gardens!  Jane and her friends actually got to see the beautiful gardens!  Thinking back now, why didn't the two people who can't speak or read a lick of chinese STAY with the ones that clearly can?  Not sure, but we still had a good time just looking around!  (And, we got ice cream and they didn't!  C'mon, what is more important anyways!)  Afterwards we headed towards the Bund, which is along the Yuang Pu River and you can see both sides of the river with both the Puxi buildings and Pudong buildings!  The main spot to sight see in Shanghai!  We were then going to meet Eric for dinner on the Pudong side so we took a ride under the river to get to the other side.  It has a little light show as you go (nothing too spectacular) but Reese thought it was quite interesting!  After a very nice chinese dinner we decided to walk around on the Pudong side and see the city lights!  Like I have said in previous posts, the city is so beautiful at night!  They thought this as well!  All the while, Reese is now holding on to Aunt Mary and Aunt Janes hands just telling them the biggest stories ever!  She is just living it up!  We did hear her slip a few "grandmas" in there every now and then, but they said they didn't mind one bit!  I tell you, they may not be old enough to be grandmas, but take it as a compliment!  You must be special if she calls you grandma because she sure does love her GRANDMAS!!!

Mary stayed with us that night, so we got her settled in.  Reese tried her best saying that she needed to stay with Mary in her room but I decided that Aunt Mary needed a little "break". Whether it be from Reese or just to have a good nights sleep!  Either way, Reese slept in Cambry's room! I think we may have put on...I don't know how many miles from walking that day so everyone needed to sleep well that night.

On Tuesday I took Mary to the fake markets underneath the Science and Technology Museum.  You get right off the subway and you can enter the Market.  Yeah, we had a little too much fun there!  It was nice!  We got there at 10am and didn't return back home until around 3pm!  There are so many shops that I feel like we didn't see near all of them but we were able to find plenty!  Mary had quite fun buying purses!  She couldn't believe how much bartering you could do and how fun it was!  It is fun once you are used to doing it, but it took me awhile to get used to it. The girls did a great job of just shopping along so that was very helpful! At night Eric and I took Mary out to eat on the Hongmei Lu Pedestrian Street.  We ate a very American Restaurant and she seemed very happy to have some familiar food!  Talking to her, Eric and I were very impressed with all of the different types of foods that she has tried and eaten!  You'll have to ask her for a list of all of the crazy things that she has tried! (I think she has eaten more Chinese food than I have since my time being here. Too bad for her having to travel with people who actually like Chinese food, just kidding!  Some of it is very good!) After dinner, Jane met us back at our place for dessert!  We had a great time talking to both of them and wished we could have stayed up even later chatting about all the different cultural things in China.  I know Eric really appreciated talking to Jane about what she knew about China and her experiences seeing is he is the one that works so closely with the Chinese each day and is trying to learn more and more about their culture and its differences from us!

The next day Mary, the girls, and I decided to take a double-decker bus ride around the city!  It is great!  You can ride on these buses that take you around to all of the hot spots to show you around.  They have head phones for each seat and you have about 10 different languages to choose from. It was very hot!  Extremely hot! Reese thought me and her should sit in the very front top and pretend that we were driving!  She was the driver, I was the horn beeper! ( She has figured out by now that no car in the city drives 20 feet without beeping, so that was my job!)  At this point Mary decided to sit in the nice air condition with Cambry who was sleeping, but she said the she could hear Reese squealing with laughter!)  She was laughing, and waving at people, and beeping, having a high o' time!  She can't wait to do it again, We rode around for awhile and then met the rest of the group at the Shanghai Aquarium!  They all LOVED it! They were all as amazed as we were! Reese loved seeing it again and showing Mary all her favorite parts!  Later in the day we all met up at the metro station for them to ride to the airport and we rode to the stop near our apartment.  It was very, very, sad saying goodbye but we know we will be heading home for a visit in a few weeks!  Just glad that we got to spend some time with family since being away for a few months in a very culturally different country!

 I laugh because in the background is a McDonald's. Never are you too far away from one of those in Shanghai!

 Nanpu Bridge that we crossed

 Reese "driving" the bus!

 It had to literally be around 100 degrees at the front because it was all glass windows with none open and the sun was beating through it, but we HAD to drive the bus you know!  Just look at her face!

Well, we thought that they were on their flight and headed back to Beijing, until we got a call around 9:30pm that night saying that their plane got cancelled and that they weren't going to be flying out until the next morning!  So excited!  (me, not them) So all seven of them bunked at our place for the night!  A good old fashioned slumber party!  Our girls slept in our room, Jane and Mary took the two twin beds in Reese's room, another Jane and her son took the queen bed in Cambry's room, and the other three person family took the couch and a queen air mattress!  Everyone was comfy and happy! I LOVED having them stay with us!  Reese thought that Aunt Mary was just going to stay with us and not go back, sorry Reese, no such luck!  So the next morning they were up early and we walked them to the metro and they were off at 8:30am.  We prayed for their sakes that the plane would be able to take off this time and get them back to Beijing!  Later they called us to let us know that they had arrived so that was great news!

If anyone feels like they would like to come and check out China, please feel free to stay with us!  We love having visitors!  I may have to check your references ;) and also ask my husband(maybe I should do that first before opening my big mouth), no but really, feel free to come on over!

Thanks so much Aunt Mary and Jane for taking time out of your trip to come and see us and where we live!  We loved spending time with you and seeing your beautiful faces!  Hope you had a good time and we can't wait to see you again!  Thanks also for putting up with Reese, she just loves you two!