Hossacks Three

Last night at 9:00 our emergency phone tree was activated.  A typhoon was expected in Shanghai and all the schools would be closed.

We called all our staff members and students and then went to bed and wondered what the following day would be like.  We are much closer to the sea in our new house, I often run along the sea wall, and storms may be bigger here.

We woke up nice and early to…. blue skies and sunshine.  HOORAY!

We play, play, played all morning and I brought the camera.  I took one million photos, here are just a few.

Hi, you great big cutie!

Chilling at the top of the slide.

He’s a swinging fool!

Ribbons.

Balancing in Daddy’s gym.

Back outside for more swinging.

Jump! Jump! Jump!

More ribbons!

“My bat, my bat, my bat!”

Run, kid, run!

So fun!  This is one of my favorite shots of the day.

Still more ribbons.  They sure are fun!

Scooting on the scooter board.  Look at the sun stream in the windows!  An amazing, amazing day.

Life is good at the Links and we have so much outdoor time which we all love.  Swimming, riding bikes, stomp rocketing, kicking and throwing, running, running, running! But sometimes it’s good to be inside and take a break from the heat.  Inside activities Blake enjoys these days are trains, books, puzzles, bouncing on the bed, the Backyardigans, running, running, running and painting.  Yesterday when Ben was over we cracked out the fingerpaints for a change.  It was goopy and gooey and completely excellent.  You can’t see it, but Lyns is hiding a 5 month pregnant belly behind Benji.

We went to a friends birthday party yesterday and brought Scott’s blue camera.  While we were busy talking and socializing with the adults, Blake documented the event with the camera.  Unfortunately most of the pictures have a big old finger right in the middle of them.

As you can clearly see, a good time was had by all.

We had such a crazy Canadian morning today.

We visited a nearby mall with a Toys R Us to buy a third birthday present for sweet Bauer.  And we found ourselves shopping in a ROOTS store!  When I saw the sign I thought maybe it would be mostly leather products, but no, it was all clothes and they all said Roots Canada in big, huge letters.   There were maple leaves everywhere!  I even bought a Christmas present for Sharon and Tony – I totally was going to make my mom drive down to Roots and send me something, but there’s no need for that anymore!

Later, after the madness of Toys R Us we settled into a cab for the ride home and showed the taxi driver a card for our school, Shanghai American School.  In Chinese he asked me if we were Americans.  I told him no, we were Canadians and he went absolutely bananas!  He was soooo happy to be driving three Canadians home in Shanghai.  He told me he loved Canada very much because Canada has good beer, good banks and good health.  I am about 98% sure that those were the three things he likes about Canada, my Chinese is dodgy at best.  Scott and I were talking later and while there are many, many things we love about our country, the beer, the banks and the health care system are three things we can be pretty damn proud of.

This boy of mine LOVES to play in the kitchen.

During the summer Auntie Peggy, Grandma and Aunt Beth shelled out some big money to kit out our kitchen with some awesome fake food and kitchen paraphernalia.  We have all sorts of fruits and veggies that are all velcroed together and can be cut up by a kniiii – which is what we call a knife around these parts.  We have some groovy pots and pans and even a plastic can of tuna that opens and closes.  I even like playing with it all.

I always thought I’d be a mom with the very minimum amount of toys in the house – here kid play with this box – but there are somethings that are just too great to resist buying or ask loving relatives to buy for us.

We’re back in Shanghai.

The whole family is jet lagging pretty hard, but it helps to remember that it’s only short term.

We love our new home and it’s wonderful location and facilities.  We’ve been in the outdoor kiddies pool every day.  It’s big and warm and perfect for Blake to play in.  He’s even experimenting with going right under the water.  It’s by accident of course, but he doesn’t cry – just looks kind of shocked when he stands himself up.  He also does his bit to lower the water levels in the pool by drinking a good bit of water.

We’ve begun to catch up with old friends, that will continue today because when we head into school for the first day.  We are missing our family and friends in Canada.  Wouldn’t it be nice to live in summer vacation mode all year land?

We are feeling the love on the blog.  Each day we receive about 40 comments.  98% of them are from my good friends at Viagara and Prozac.  I want to make the commenting process as simple as possible for family and friends, and for know that means spam.  Ugh!

It’s really, really hot here, so I have been avoiding exercise outside, but today we were up at five so I went for a run before it got too hot.  It was okay.  There’s this freaky hot wind that has been blowing all the time, and it wasn’t too warm yet.

Scott has a brand new office specially built for him and his coworkers and it looks great and is much closer to where he actually spends his day.

Today is our first day at work, which means our first day away from Blake.  I’m not looking forward to that at all, we have had such a wonderful summer together – one of the best of my life – but I rest a lot easier knowing that he is cared for by such a kind, loving woman.

I have no new photos to post, because the cameras have not even come out of their suitcase from the journey.  Instead, here are two photos from the summer that didn’t make it into the blog yet.

Our last full day in Canada was another scorcher.  We have had such amazing weather this summer!!  We headed to a local indoor amusement park for a little bit of choo choo riding and other fun!

Boppa, Scott, Blake and I piled into the van and went for a ride to a local mall.

Blake and my dad jumped right onto this little train for a ride.  It did, however, take some coaxing to have dad’s knee join him in the car.

The bumper boats were a big hit with Blake and this was his very first ride EVER going on his own!  Brave kiddo!  I am so bummed that this photo is a bit blurry.

Finally Blake and I climbed onto the Ferris Wheel to take a turn.  Sadly, Mr Shortypants can’t see over the edge of the bucket to fully enjoy the ride.

Summer is all about swimming and sunning and being outside.  But we are Canadians and we are spending our summer in Canada so naturally we spent a little bit of time on the ice as well.

Blake’s Grandpa bought Blake some of the smallest skates I’ve ever seen.

Yesterday we took Blake to the rink to try them on and let him walk around on the rubber floor in the foyer.

Today we went back and put that boy on the ice!  He lasted about ten minutes then he came to the gate and said, “Next” which is his way of telling us he’s done.

How proud is this daddy??

Blake has some pretty wonderful cousins. The three girls are very horsey and keep their horses at a farm in the country outside St Marys. We went for a visit the other day and it was so much fun. As per usual, Blake was ultra cautious and took a while to warm up to Little Bear, a miniature pony who was just exactly the right size for the big gunner. First we brushed him, then we walked him, and after a good long time we rode him. Erin taught Blake to give a little kick when he wanted Little Bear to walk and then say “Whoa” when he wanted him to stop. Every four or five steps Blake said, “Whoa” and stopped the horse and then 30 seconds later got him going again. Very fun, very cute. We had a wonderful day. I had way too many photos to post so I put them in a Photo Peach.
A Day at the Farm on PhotoPeach

We are loving having Auntie Peggy in Ontario.  She stayed with us in St Marys for a couple of days and it was great!  We visited a playground in Stratford and Blake went for a big slide.  So did Auntie Peggy.

Later we fed the ducks: