Tonight I got a skype message from Michael. He was in the Architecture Studio on campus working on a project and getting to know some other students. As he was conversing with a 3rd-year upperclassman, he discovered something very exciting! This student had worked this summer for a NYC architecture firm which has offices in Shanghai. Now you might be asking, “What’s so exciting about that?” Well, it just so happened to be the very same firm which designed the interiors of our new school building which we will move into in January 2012. (With much prayer and petition, last spring our school secured a lease on an already built facility shell, which must now be finished on the inside.) Please pray for a quick completion, no construction roadblocks, and smooth on-time move in next January.

Here’s Megan and friends standing outside the front entrance to our new campus.

This past weekend marked a new season for Michael. Sean and I traveled with him to Hong Kong to get him moved onto the Hong Kong University campus. The weekend went pretty smoothly with Michael showing lots of excitement and me shedding many tears. On Saturday we arrived midday and helped Michael unpack and put things away in his dorm room, which is not too bad and beyond the sight of some older apartment buildings he even has a view of Victoria Harbor! On Sunday we attended church, then spent some time shopping for some groceries and clothing needs for him. Then Monday Sean and I departed. Michael will start classes in HKU’s Architecture School on September 1st.

Sean has been hinting to me over the past year that he wants Megan to attend Chinese preschool, in order to give her the gift of language immersion. It was a very hard decision for me, but God paved the way by placing some special friends in my path to give encouragement. First, a Chinese neighbor who is also a language teacher at our school. Her daughter is also five years old and attends a local preschool. This friend inquired for us about sending Megan to her daughter’s class. The school was very opened to the idea and welcomed Megan for the month of July. Second, my older kids have been so inspiring to me. They all whole-heartedly agreed that Megan should attend Chinese preschool; and to show her support, Rachel even asked if she could volunteer in the school during the time that Megan attended. Rachel had a goal of language immersion for herself this summer, and this opportunity fit right into God’s plan for her. With such a positive experience this summer, we have decided to continue to send Megan this fall. She may have ups and downs with the decision, since there is a big barrier to her understanding, but I pray that she will learn quickly the vocabulary she needs to enjoy learning and making new friends. Here she is sitting on her little naptime bed. The students have naptime in the afternoon for 2 hours, and school does not end until 5pm.

The big girls started back to school this week on Thursday.  Rachel is excited about her Senior year, and Maddie at the top of the Middle School is in 8th grade.  Jessie is happy to reunite with her 10th grade classmates.  She and Rachel are taking Sean’s AP Computer Science class this year; that ought to be fun.  We made a decision to send Megan to Chinese Kindergarten this fall.  

This year the taxi prices in China rose 1¥ (6 cents).  Though this may not seem like a lot to most of you, it was enough for my mom to decide that it was “high time” we had bus cards.  So each of us got a bus card and began to use the bus a lot more often (especially to our favorite shopping place, Emart).  The price difference is significant (to us at least); most of the time you can take a bus for 2¥ (about 30cents) or take a taxi for 10¥ ($1.30).  Anyway, after taking a bus for awhile I noticed something.  Usually when you swipe your bus card you can see, on a small screen, the price of the ride as well as your balance, however for some people both the price and balance had zeros.  Well it didn’t take long to notice that all those people were senior citizens; so I concluded that some buses allow free rides for old people.  Furthermore, when you swipe your card the machine beeps to notify the customer that it has scanned the bus card.  However for the senior citizens, when their cards are swiped, the machine will either say 老人卡，meaning “Old person’s card”, or it will say 您好, “(respectful) hello”.  The longer I live here the more I understand the special culture China has that treasures the elders of their community.

I have blogged quite a few times about my "hobby", henna (though I don't know if I do it often enough to be called a "hobby"), but now I'd like to talk about Rachel's hobby.  This past year she has become very interested in styling hair.  Not only does she replicate styles that she sees online, she also creates new ones; and I think she does it beautifully!  During the summer she has found hair styles she likes in blogs or other pictures.  Some times she tries these styles on her self, but other times she needs a model… guess who gets to be her model?  Yes, I get to wear the beautiful hairdos when Rachel is willing to try them on me.  Once, Rachel and I were flipping through magazines and she saw a hair style she particularity liked.  Rachel wanted to replicate the style and I was eager to have it.  Despite the fact that the magazine picture didn't even have a view of the back of the hair, Rachel completed the look elegantly!  ( I'll never have to go to a hair salon before banquet again! ) I think that she has a wonderful talent with hair and I am blessed to have a sister that is so good at (and willing to do) hair styles!

I have blogged quite a few times about my "hobby", henna (though I don't know if I do it often enough to be called a "hobby"), but now I'd like to talk about Rachel's hobby.  This past year she has become very interested in styling hair.  Not only does she replicate styles that she sees online, she also creates new ones; and I think she does it beautifully!  During the summer she has found hair styles she likes in blogs or other pictures.  Some times she tries these styles on her self, but other times she needs a model… guess who gets to be her model?  Yes, I get to wear the beautiful hairdos when Rachel is willing to try them on me.  Once, Rachel and I were flipping through magazines and she saw a hair style she particularity liked.  Rachel wanted to replicate the style and I was eager to have it.  Despite the fact that the magazine picture didn't even have a view of the back of the hair, Rachel completed the look elegantly!  ( I'll never have to go to a hair salon before banquet again! ) I think that she has a wonderful talent with hair and I am blessed to have a sister that is so good at (and willing to do) hair styles!

We were out of milk, and with two very regular milk drinkers in our house, I was encouraged to go grocery shopping at 5pm. Since I didn’t have a dinner plan prepared, we decided to couple our shopping trip with a quick bite to eat at the E-Mart shopping center. While waiting for Michael to finish his tutoring job so he could meet us, we spent some time walking around the newly remodeled area and found lots of outdoor seating. One particular area has many tables staged in front of a large jumbo-tron tv screen. You can find these jumbo-trons around Tianjin usually playing advertising. However, to our surprise this evening, we discovered the World Swimming Championship Competitions which are currently being hosted in Shanghai. I was surprised to notice Michael watching intently and saying, “I miss swimming.”

With no outdoor pools around in Tianjin, and in the hot days of late summer one has to find interesting things to do indoors to avoid the heat and unhealthy pollution.   The kids and I discovered a lovely way to pass the afternoon.   The newly remodeled historic Astor Hotel in downtown Tianjin offers high tea each afternoon from 2 – 5pm.  If you want to read more…here’s a short summary of The Astor’s history (taken from their website):

This year for Rachel's birthday Maddie and I (Michael was in Shanghai) wanted to do some really special decorations.  So we spent a while looking at blogs and finally came to one about party decor, among other things.  Something that really stood out to me as a classy/elegant party snack were cake pops.  If you are not familiar with this little "sweet tooth delight" then you may think of it just like it's name; it is a cross between a cake and a lolly pop.  Any ways, Maddie and I felt that these were a necessary treat for this special event so we went to work making them.  Let me tell you it looks and sounds easier than it is!  First we made a cake, cooled and then crumbled it up.  To the cake we added frosting.  This created a thick and sticky blob of cake (more delicious than it sounds!).  Then we formed balls and put them on wooden chopsticks (for the cake pop handle).  Now, here's the difficult part: the chocolate coating.  It definitely takes a learning curve to do this step.  Our first 5 cake pop were too big and the chocolate to thick that they all broke and did not stay on the stick.  This became very frustrating, as you can imagine.  So, Maddie and I added milk to the chocolate and made the cake balls smaller.  Both highly improved our results.  The cake pops finally stayed on the sticks, and though they were not as beautiful as the recipe picture (when is it ever as pretty as the picture?), they still tasted amazing!  The next day we made bright pink icing and drizzled it on top of the chocolate cake pops to complete the finished look.  Though after making the first five cake pops I was ready to totally give up, I am glad I kept trying and finally produced delicious, and not altogether ugly, cake pops for one of Rachel's birthday surprises!

Tips for those of you who would like to try making Cake Pops:
1. White chocolate is probably better than melted milk chocolate chips
2. You may add paraffin wax to the chocolate to beautify the end product
3. Thin your chocolate
4. Make smaller cake balls
5. Put your cake pops on sturdy sticks