I've got to start off by saying that my kids, once again, rose to the occasion of a somewhat challenging event for them. We spent a full 50 minutes in the car on the way to our friend's party, as we had to drive through Tianjin traffic to pick up a blind couple Kevin has gotten to be friends with. Karis entertained us for most of the drive by singing Taylor Swift songs (without the music of the CD in the background, but rather the back-up singing that her 3 younger brothers provided from the back seat). Our friends loved it! We arrived to join a group of about 20-30 (depending on the ebb and flow of the guests) at a relatively small apartment. We had a really fun time playing "get to know you" games (which all centered around being able to remember people's names after they had introduced themselves). This alone was hilarious, as I, between trying to keep the kids seated and quiet and STILL not having Chinese names be easy to recollect for me, did not remember ONE single name of the 20+ people who were introduced! Luckily, Kevin came through big time for us, and when either of us were called on in the game to answer, he was able to make a joke out of it (usually by naming either a really famous Chinese person or using an incredibly common name--like Wang--to get a laugh out of the whole group). We also played some fun group games, like you can see in the picture of passing a pretzel from one straw to another that was being held in the mouths of the competitors. Our friends loved it!
After the games, we had a time of singing praise songs, then watched a video, and had several performances by those in attendance. The video part was humorous (to me, but not to those watching it). My kids endured the entire 30 min of terminally-ill patients talking in Chinese about their beliefs and the hope they had, sporadically coming in to where I was helping prepare food in the kitchen to check in with me. The kitchen was incredibly small, with literally only enough room for myself and the hostess to be in there at once, and then only if we were willing to be bumping rear ends the entire time as we faced opposing counter-tops to chop and wash the food. So whenever one of my kids came in, the sweet hostess, a single western gal about my age, got visible flustered at their presence! At one point, she was encouraging Noah to return to the movie, at which he replied honestly that he was bored watching the movie. She responded to him with, "That's okay! Just go in and you can pray for them." Great thought, but I couldn't help but try to hide my raised eyebrows and chuckle as I thought of my 3 year old sitting quietly for 30 min watching a video in a language he doesn't really understand, all the while praying for the hearts of those who were listening! I figured this sweet girl was either deceived about the spiritual maturity of my kids, was out of touch with a typical 3-year old's attention span, or was more flustered than I could tell by her hostessing duties!
One of the highlights of the evening was Kevin and the kids telling a baseball story. They all dressed up in their matching Cardinal uniforms and stood with Kevin while he told, using repeating hand gestures and active motion, the story of his baseball career (at least an abbreviated version that takes about 1 minute). He has the kids go through the part of the story that talks about how many hours he practiced, lifted weights, how much he traveled, etc., before he finally made it to the Major Leagues. The kids sit down after the interactive part, then Kevin shares a brief portion about how on his Major League debut, he was waiting in the bullpen for the call to go into the game and pitch when a sunflower seed got caught in his throat. As he was still trying to dislodge the seed, he got the call to come into the game! He shares how as he was standing on the mound at the climax of his baseball career, after working so many years to accomplish his dream, all he could think of was that he was going to puke all over himself just because of this small seed that he couldn't get rid of. He then goes on to share about how easy it is for things of this world to be shaken by something as small as a sunflower seed, and thus the importance for our foundation to be on something that cannot be shaken. Both the story he shared with this group of athletes (those who were at the party) and the performance by the kids went over seemingly well with all who were there, and the kids love being involved in that kind of thing (and they were rewarded with the promise of getting to set off fireworks later tonight!).
We made it about 3 hours before the tight quarters and lack of a nap for Noah started to make my boys get close to the "explode" stage. (Not sure if any of you with high-energy little ones can relate to this; when the tension is building and you are just buying time before something gets broken or one of the kids implodes???) I made a polite exit with the 3 boys and Kevin stayed on to enjoy the rest of the party with Karis (he needed to drive our blind friends home). Noah, Hud, and Eli accompanied me to a late dinner at Papa John's (which has recently opened up near us; funny though, they won't deliver to our apartment as it is too far away; they only deliver within a one mile radius of the store, and our apartment is about 2 1/2; we find it pretty humorous that our area is so densely populated that a business can have more business than they can handle by limiting their delivery distance so much!). The boys got out their extra energy by racing up and down 2 flights of stairs that were lighted outside the restaurant as we waited for our pizza. After we ate, Eli suggested we see how far we could walk rather than taking a taxi home. I was ill-prepared for this, as none of the boys had their hats or gloves, but we stuck our hands in our pockets and managed to make the 2+ mile walk home (it took us an hour!). They had fun running in the grass as we passed by Trash Mountain and hiding in the "jungles" we discovered on the way (shown in the pics).
Meanwhile, Kevin and Karis enjoyed the craziness at the party! Kevin came home to tell me of one of the more awkward moments--a sort of pole-dance (minus the pole) by one of the girls in attendance! It is pretty normal at these parties for each of the guests to take a turn on center stage, performing something they are good at. So we heard different musicians, vocal choruses, and then a dance. This young woman turned on a song from someone's phone and gyrated for several minutes in a way Kevin described as "Even though I've never been to one, it's what I would have imagined goes on at a strip club, only with clothes on!" I asked how Karis and the others responded. Apparently there were some high kicks and other gymnastic type displays that Karis was impressed by, and the majority of the young men spent the time focusing on the young woman's wriggling rear end, but Kevin says he was too busy averting his eyes and feeling embarrassed to notice much more! Wish I could have been there to more fully appreciate the unexpected....China parties. You gotta love 'em!
These final 2 pics are of the kids and their impromptu performance when we had guests the other night. Once again, a Taylor Swift song performed as Karis informed Eli that they were "never, ever getting back together!"
