This weekend we've been hosting our first visitors here in China! The Pate family came over from Dallas to visit on their way to go spend a month working in Cambodia, and we've had a full house and lots of adventures the last several days. We have been so impressed by the Pate's resilience in the face of jet lag, and their willingness to try and see lots of new things here in China.
All four of the Pate kids (between the ages of 8 and 2) have been sleeping either in sleeping bags or a pack n play in our playroom. Kris and Julie have been experiencing the luxury of our Ikea sleeper sofa! :) They've gotten to try some of our ayi's favorite Chinese dishes for dinner, as well as a crock pot meal or two. We took them to the Tianjin Zoo on Friday (where they showed their wisdom by opting out of visiting, or rather becoming part of, the monkey exhibit), had birthday cake and crazy Chinese candle to celebrate David's 6th b-day on Friday night, went to Ancient Culture Street to do some more tourist-y shopping on Saturday, and explored our local markets.
One of our favorite p
arts (ha, ha) took place today after our time shopping on Ancient Culture Street. We went into a "regular" mall that was close by to warm up, and discoverd that it had a great kids' play area. So Julie and I left the dads with 7 of the 8 kids to play, and the two of us (along with Noah in the stroller) went to look for some gloves to replace a few that had been lost by the Pate family over the weekend. I got a rather panicky sounding phone call from Kevin about 45 minutes later, requesting our immediate return! When we got back to the guys and the kids, it turns out that one of the other kids in the play area had a vomiting prob
lem while in the play area. The situation was handled by one of the workers kind of wiping up the mess with a rag, and then sending the kid off to continue playing! Kevin and Kris both looked a little shaken up by the whole thing, and we all decided it would be wise to double hand-sanitize, then have a competition amongst our group of kids to see who could rub it in all over the best. After we got back from our shopping/play area outing, we decided to take the Pate kids on a three-wheeler ride to one of our favorite local markets. We showed them where we buy beef and rotisserie chickens, and then made a fun new discovery--popcorn! We had been told about a place that made kettle corn type popcorn there on the street, with lots of different flavors to choose from. We ended up with two bags--one chocolate and the other ice cream! They were a huge hit. Orville Redinbocker ain't got a thing on our Chinese kettle corn! Fun new find to end our day!!
