We can finally blog from China again now that we have a proxy! Sadie is growing like an okra. She is crawling all over and even up the stairs. Her two top teeth finally busted through and she is sleeping through the night again. Thank God!!! It is finally getting cold here too. After a sweltering fall we're really ready to get out the sweaters and slippers. Sadie had her first Halloween. We borrowed a duckie costume that she wore (sort of) and I borrowed a wig and a clown hat and John had a scream mask. It was all a little too overwhelming for Sadie. She hated being a duck. The scream mask made her cry and I was unrecognizable to her in my wig and hat and she didn't want me to hold her. So we were mostly not in costume at our Halloween party.

The Chinese man holding her is Lao He, our school handy man and Sadie's nannies husband. He is baby crazy and Sadie is now comfortable enough with other people to let him hold her. The sleeping man in the last picture was in a park by our house, completely fast asleep on his rock. We feel just like that alot these days, but haven't found such comfortable rocks around yet.

More Thailand

Thai people love babies even more than Chinese people. Everywhere we go people are stopping us to talk to Sadie. She is getting used to it quickly. She is always looking over our shoulders for someone to talk to and flirt with. Sometimes she just assumes someone is back there waiting for her and she'll start flirting even if no one is around! On the beach today a storm blew in really fast. We were far from our hotel and couldn't get to the taxi stand in time. We took refuge under the beach umbrella bar where they make smoothies. We were hiding in there with the owners and an older couple from Russia. The rain just kept getting harder and we were all soaked. Sadie slept through most of it while everyone made a little ring around her and donated plastic bags and scarves to keep her dry and warm. When she woke up she completely charmed everyone by smiling and reaching out to touch faces. It was very sweet.
When we go out to eat there is always someone waiting to hold her for us while we eat. If they are smart and walk away from the table and offer distractions she is usually fine with them for the whole meal. If they hang around the table she wants to come back. It's great built in babysitting! The picture of us in the sand is right around the time that I realized she might be too young for sand. Before I knew it she had it all over her body, in her mouth and hair and it was getting in her eyes. It was really sticky sand too. Three days and two baths later I'm not sure we have it all cleaned off yet.

Thailand

The best part of our trip so far was getting off this elephant at the end of the ride! As soon as we were loaded on and headed up the trail I realized that I don't like riding elephants, especially holding a baby. This guy was sitting with his toes behind the elephants ear and that was basically his steering plan. Toes against an elephants will. Well there was the little poker stick too. His only go plan was poking with his toes or stick and no stop plan as far as we could tell. Our elephant mostly wanted to rummage around in the bushes on the side of the trail and scratch her butt on logs. It was a white knuckle (slow white knuckle) ride the whole way. Towards the end we came across another elephant tied to a tree. Our elephant must have been the dominant one because the other one hid behind a tree. Really effective disguise as you can see. We were just wandering around in what looked like someones backyard because our elephant was to stubborn to make it to the top of the hill. Our guy was trying to get us our full hour but it started to rain and I had been wanting off the elephant since I got on so we asked to go back. When we got back it was kind of like "I don't know what's wrong they wanted to come back!" Then of course we were supposed to buy elephant food and elephant statues, but we didn't. Poor elephants.

Sadie in Hong Kong

We started our October Holiday with two nights in Hong Kong. We stayed at a hotel on Lantau Island. The picture of Nina on the boat was her almost getting stuck on the ferry. She was in the bathroom and the boat started to leave.
We arrived on Oct 1 and left the subway so we could take the ferry across to Hong Kong island and Central Pier (where we needed to catch the ferry to Lantau Island). Well because of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PRC, there was a big fireworks show downtown. They closed the ferry before the fireworks show and we missed it by ten minutes. So we walked back to the subway, and rode that to Hong Kong Island. We reached Central Pier about the time the fireworks started and ten minutes after the last ferry to Lantau Island had left. We had to watch the fireworks and then wait another hour for the next ferry. We finally arrived at our hotel at 10 pm, thirteen hours after leaving out apartment in Hangzhou.