Back and, well, maybe not better then ever

So I was really late in posting my stories from Tokyo and haven't really been posting as of late, so let me catch you all up on a couple of things:

• I am very excited for the Ravens making the AFC Championship game…they came a long way from this post
• My family and I were in the US for Christmas and really enjoyed our time with friends and family
• I finally found out that I passed a professional exam that I had been trying to take over the past couple of years, so that is definitely good news
• We got back to China and are in our final months so are starting to make plans for our return back to the US for good

Where Have I Been?

Okay, so I have not totally given up on this thing, I promise. I have been around, we have had people in town over the last month and it just makes it hard to put some entries into this thing. A quick update of the past month:

• So my last post had to do with getting up to watch football, well since then the Ravens won two in a row…and then lost 3 in a row. This team is still going to struggle to get to 6 wins even with 2 already under their belt.
• I had some meetings in Hong Kong and Southern China, and was able to do a short day trip to Macau. This was my first time there and I will share a little more with some pictures on a later post.
• We celebrated Maddie and Jacob's birthdays…3 months after the fact. Actually, most of their friends were gone when their birthdays happened in June, so it was a good time to have it in September. We had a clown that made balloon animals and a magician, which is something we could never afford in the US, but over here the price is insanely low.
• Our niece came to visit us from California. She was here for 10 days and both Renee and I had a chance to show her around. It was fun, she was willing to try new things like a motorcycle ride and some street food, so it was good to have a visitor who was open to trying different things (like most of our guests)
• We had a week long holiday the first week of October. We were taking care of a little baby during this week, so that is what kept us busy despite the fact that I had the week off.
• The baseball season is over, I was wrong with my prediction for the Orioles, they actually ended up winning 68 games, although they played the last month of the season the way I thought they would be playing the whole season. Oh well, at least they beat my prediction.
• We had some good friends from the US visit us this past week, even though I had to work, it was a lot of fun. Renee and them got to go to Beijing, this was Renee's first time and from what I heard they all had a great time. We had some great conversations with them and got some good hang out time.

All in all, this is one of the first weeks that Renee and I will be without a guest staying at our house, so while things have not been really busy, it will be a little more normal not having non-family members hanging around the house. There have been a lot of stories that I have missed out on putting into this blog, so I hope that I can remember them and add them in, otherwise I will keep you all up to date with the goings ons over here.

Update

You might have noticed that there were a couple of posts where I mentioned sleepless nights and a little guest that was staying with us. Well, I wanted to avoid coming out and giving exacts as it is not exactly the most legal process over here. But you probably figured out that we were taking care of a little baby that was in Shanghai recovering. I can tell you that we had a great time taking care of the little one, but not without the frustrations. Basically Sunday night was the first night since the 10th of July that I had gotten a full night's sleep, and even then I was woke up a few times just because my body was used to it. The baby was great to have around, our eyes were really opened up to what it is to take care of a recovering special needs baby along with what it would be like to be taking care of a third child. I really think the hardest part was trying to balance the lack of sleep with still trying to have high energy for Maddie and Jacob. Actually, now that the little one is gone, going back to taking care of 2 kids seems like a walk in the park I mean not having another little one screaming in the background really helps. Now I guess it is back to having sleep filled nights and riding bikes again.

#201

Okay, so I guess I completely missed my 200th post. It is most likely because I tend to post multiple posts at a time. Well it took me longer then I thought to get to 200, hopefully 300 will be right around the corner. Nonetheless, I give myself a pat on the back for at least updating this thing once a month.

Three Guests, Two Birthdays, One Sleepless Night

Yes this all happened over the past 3 days, so needless to say it was a pretty busy weekend. A big Happy Birthday to Maddie and Jacob (Maddie turned 4 on the 28th of June and Jacob turned 2 on the 29th of June). Here in Shanghai most of the expat families have begun the exodus back to their home countries, so we didn't have big parties for them, we will try to put something together at the end of the summer when all her friends come back to Shanghai.

On Saturday we began turtle watching...yes turtle watching...for our neighbors upstairs. We will be watching their two small pet turtles for the next week. They are really easy to take care of, basically we have too feed them once a day and just keep them out on our porch, basically these are the type of guests I wish would come and visit us more often.

The one sleepless night related to the third guest that has come to visit us. I am going to be very cryptic with this next paragraph of blogging, if any of you have questions, just get in contact with Renee or I (or leave me a comment and I can get back to you). I am being cryptic because there are people that don't need to know certain things, so I am not going to reveal anything too detailed. This third little guest might be the subject of some upcoming blogs, so I feel that I have to at least mention the guest. The guest led to a long sleepless night last night, but the guest has been really fun to have around thus far. Anyway, running on fumes this morning, but I think I can make it through the day.

I'm back and...well...just back

Sorry for the long hiatus from writing on this thing, but there were some things that were taking up my time and life, nothing overly serious, just time takers.

Luckily during my time off from writing only a couple of events blog worthy went on. As I mentioned in my last post, the NFL Draft, one of the most important events in sports happened, also I did a short trip to the Phillipines and had a short trip in the US. Right now I am waiting on my new computer from my US company to clear customs, so I want to wait to blog about the Phillipines until I can upload those pictures onto my new computer. So with that being said, see my next post for my discussion on the Draft.

Updates

We are now back down to a family of 4 as Renee's parents left the other day. This would mark the first time since the end of July that it was just the 4 of us in the house. We had a great time with all the guests, but it was good to have some silence last night as we ate dinner as a family of 4.

I feel bad because I never owned up to 2 things I mentioned regarding baseball way back at the beginning of the season:

1. I won the bet with my friend back in the States because the Orioles ended with an overall record that is 1 better then Pittsburgh Pirates, it was actually pretty cool because it came down to the last game of the season and the O's were able to pull it out for me.

2. On the same light of the Orioles, remember I made the whole prediction for how the Orioles were going to do. Just as a refresher I said they would finish 4th in the AL East (plus for me), with a record below .500 (another plus for me), but I did say they would have a record of 80-82, so a huge minus for me since they ended the season with only 69 wins, so yet another season down the toilet bowl.

Stick with baseball, I saw the Rockies play the Giants back in May and had no idea I was watching a team that would eventually make it into the World Series, I actually hope they win cause then I can say that the one game I made it to this season involved the new home run champ and the World Series Champions, although I do think the AL is much stronger then the NL so that may not happen (but take a note from above, my predicting skills are not that great.