My SUV

Look at my happy Asa! He is getting so big- and he turns two next week!!! This is my SUV (Shanghai Utility Vehicle) and I am so thankful for it. The kids' preschools are almost too close to take a taxi so this handy bike is great! And who needs a gym membership when you have to bike these guys around?

Last night was a LONG night. It started off with the best intentions too. Joab tried his best to be home by 6:30 so I could go to a local expat community center for a "welcome to Shanghai" event. I met Joab and he got me into a cab and told the guy where to go. Well, long story short the guy got lost and then we ended up telling him the wrong place to go! I started to get a bit concerned that Joab (via cell phone and map at home with kids who were tired and needed to go to bed) and I and the driver had NO idea where we were going. So Joab had the guy (after about 45 minutes) just drive me back home.

So, I get home to totally wound up kiddos who needed bed ASAP. They needed a good nights sleep as today (Thursday) would be their first day all day at Chinese preschool. We needed them all day at school as Joab and I needed to go set up our residence papers (think kind of like a green card for China) and it would take all morning. We finally get the kids to bed and then realize I do not have enough passport pictures to attach to all our papers for tomorrow. So I have to go out again (8:45 PM by now) and get pictures taken! The place to do it was not far away and thankfully most places here are open to 10 PM. I get home and just want to go to bed.

I get home to Joab on the phone with our bank....and long story short someone (not at all related to China) was trying to use our ATM card (they made their own, did not steal ours. I guess they just use random bank account numbers until they work). So they froze Joab's account. This is a major problem as all our money is still in the USA. Thankfully they did not take any money out of our accounts. They were just trying to see if the card worked at an ATM. So we try to work with all the different departments in the bank to tell them to send the new card by DHL to us in China. But they can not do that....so even longer story short it finally got resolved but it the midst of all of this Joab is trying to do some work from home (left laptop) while looking at our bank account (right computer) and talk to the bank (headset).

SO after all of that we went to bed! The residence permit went well today and we should get our passports back soon! And in a few hours I will go pick up the kiddos.

(PS- Joab's bday is Sunday!)