Bing Qiu

Late last week Nicholas talked to Nanny on Skype and she showed him a book that she bought and will bring with her when she comes to China in a few weeks.  It was a Cars 2 book that showed the characters from the movie and in the back actually has twelve little cars and a play mat with race tracks on it.  He was pretty excited about it and even asked Nanny to take the cars out and play with them for her.  She did and he watched intently.  I find that amusing since several people have said that they are living vicariously through us with our adventure to China.  Nicholas is living through his Nanny.  

For the next four days he went on and on about the books, cars and mat and this morning we were back on Skype.  Bumpy answered and was immediately asked where Nanny was and could she come to the computer with the Cars 2 book.  She obliged and both Nicholas and Ryan were beyond excited.  I had the video on the television.

Again she took the cars out and played with them on the mat.  Nicholas was ready to jump out of his skin and even tried to talk Nanny into coming today since it was daytime here.  If I didn't know better I might think that he is more excited about the toys than seeing her.  But I do know better.  Last night when we sat down for supper he said that he misses eating with Nanny and Bumpy every night.  And, yesterday Ryan said, "I want to go home, Mommy.  Not this home, the other one".  I hope when we go back for a visit I can get them to leave with me again.

Rachel, my Chinese teacher, showed up just as I was getting off Skype with Mom.  The boys were still flying high and Ryan, who usually just says "Hi Rachel", wouldn't leave her alone.  I put on the Cars movie for them and he kept grabbing her hand and dragging her to the couch and saying, "I want to show you what happens".  Then the two of them started spewing out all kinds of information about the characters and what was going on and the poor girl was lost.  Her English is good but she had trouble understanding them.  Although to be honest, so did I.  They were just too wound up.   

We sat and watched with them for a few minutes then I had to threaten to send them to their rooms if they didn't leave us alone for my lesson.  It was okay for a bit until they started playing with their dinkies and hollering and I couldn't hear anything so I moved them to my room to watch their movie and play.  For the next hour and a half everything was peachy and I was learning a lot.  The only problem with Rachel and I is that we get side tracked from the lesson and start learning other things such as bingqiu (bing chee o) or ice hockey.  Really this isn't a bad thing except that it takes us forever to get a lesson completed.  After two hours we still hadn't finished but I had to cut her off since it was getting close to lunch and the kids were really loco. 

Once she left we had some lunch and I managed to get Ryan to have a little nap.  When he got up we got ready and went to Happy City to expend some of that energy and excitement.  There was a little girl who spoke English there today and she ended up playing with Nicholas for quite a long time.  When we left we were waiting outside for Tim and Tian Ye to pick us up and Nick said that he had fun playing with her "but she's not going to be my girlfriend".  I didn't have a chance to find out why before our drive arrived.

So that was our busy day today.  Unfortunately Lena is ill and had to cancel my massage today.  Boo for me. I hope she is feeling better soon.  I forgot to mention that on Sunday 'Jan's Barbershop' was opened for business for the second time and I had two customers.  Nicholas was first and since I didn't use the clippers this time, just the scissors, the cut turned out much better than the first one.  I did the same thing for Tim and didn't scalp him although we need to do a little more trimming sometime soon.  It's still a bit long on the sides.  Best of all I only nicked Nick's ear once and cut my finger only slightly.  Not too shabby.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from the weekend that I forgot about.  Enjoy!