Christmas 2008

2009-01-05T15:52:00.004-06:00

We had a wonderful holiday!! Santa was good. We spent Christmas eve day through Saturday the 27th in Tulsa seeing Darrell's family. Then we drove to Marlow, Sunday the 28th, to spend time with my family. We left the kids with my parents and then Darrell and I flew to San Diego on the 29th for the Holiday Bowl. We were home a total of 5 days during Christmas break. I am glad to be home and get back to a routine!! The big item for the year was a Wii. I have lost my children and husband to the TV!!! If only my house was big enough to sneak off somewhere and read while they engross themselves in Wii....

Disney World 2008

2008-10-28T21:19:00.006-05:00

We took the girls to Disney World the week of fall break. We went with the whole King/Thomas clan. There were 12 of us in all and we had a blast!! We visited all the parks except the water parks. However the weather was in the upper 80's and it was warm enough that we swam at the hotel several afternoons. The Magic Kingdom was my personal favorite. Kylie was a great age for this trip and she thought all the characters and princesses were real. As Sleeping Beauty was making her way to our table during the princess dinner, Kylie said, "I'm going to tell her I have a movie about her!!" And our 5-year-old nephew Adam asked Snow White if she knew Sleepy and if the forest animals were really her friends. They were too cute. Paige however was a great age for all the big roller coasters. Her cousin Audrey did well on these rides too. So several times we split into a big kid and little kid group so we could cover more of the parks. One night we went to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween party at the magic kingdom. The kids wore their costumes and they got to trick-or-treat throughout the park, watch the parade and fireworks show as well as ride all the coasters. It was a great vacation and I want to go back again when Kylie is old enough that we can all ride the roller coasters together!!

First Day of School

2008-09-11T22:14:00.006-05:00

We are now in full swing of another school year. Paige is now a 4th grader at Ralph Downs Elementary School. She is in the PEAK program for gifted kids (genetic trait from mom :-) ) and she just started playing the violin in the school orchestra. She loves RDE and we do too. I am the vice president of fundraising for the PTA and homeroom mom for her class. Mrs. Vaughan is her teacher and so far she loves school.

Kylie is in pre-k and comes to school with me at Central Elementary. She is in Mrs. Pellegrino's class. I have taught with Darla Pellegrino for 6 years and I taught her daughter Hannah several years ago. My how the time flies!! Darla and I teach everything the same and have the same daily schedule so I get to see Kylie on the playground every day and watch her interact with kids. She is a born leader (that's polite for bossy)!!

My China Trip

2008-08-01T19:49:00.035-05:00

I sent several emails home to some family and friends during my trip. So if you received those, you may want to skip the reading and just check out the photos. There are more photos at the very bottom. To enlarge the photos, just click on them.
Anyway, here are my adventures in China.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Well, we made it here safely. We got here around 2 pm on Tuesday (our Tuesday afternoon and your early Tuesday morning) We are 13 hours ahead of you. So far I have seen the Wilspec office. Wilspec has a driver here to take us around...thank God. You think NYC or Vegas is crazy. There are not only more cars than you can imagine, but bicycles, mopeds, and people.
We went out for dinner and I survived my first official Chinese meal. I was polite and tried most of the things but I will not be worrying about gaining weight on this trip. They eat family style in restaurants. Everyone just helps themselves and they double dip with their chopsticks. The serving dishes don't come with seperate spoons...people just take a little, eat it with their chopsticks and then go back in for more... kind of grossed me out a little.
We are now at the apartment. It is nice but small. Darrell goes to the plant tomorrow which is 3 hours away. He will be gone until Friday afternoon. So I am on my own with the help of one of the ladies in the office.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Well after a normal breakfast at Starbucks...which is right outside the apartment building, Darrell left for the plant. So I am here in the city alone. I went out on foot this morning. Crossing the street is scary. I walked all the way around a city block realizing that I would have to cross the street at some point if I wanted to get anywhere. You are on a sidewalk but so are bicycles and mopeds and they honk about 5 feet before hitting you. I haven't seen anyone laid out yet, but people don't even react when they are honked at and almost hit. I guess they are so used to it. Pedestrians do not have the right of way here!!!
So I wanted to check out McDonald's at lunch time and that required crossing a busy street. So I just got in with a crowd and went for it. They don't have diet coke here....Coke Light which is the same crap they had in Mexico. It is just not the same. Of course the worker at McD's didn't speak English but she had a picture menu for me to point at. I ordered fries which are the same as the US and a Sprite. However the burger pictures did not look at all like beef and I decided there would be no way to expain no cheese, tomato or dressings...so fries it was. And they had a picture on the menu with fried chicken, but they weren't chicken strips....and I was afraid they would be some fried chicken body part that Americans don't eat. I did bring some ganola bars and now I am wondering why I didn't bring a jar of peanut butter and other "Brandi" foods.
The apartment has a house keeper named Mary and she came today and speaks English. She is bringing me some groceries tomorrow. I asked for peanut butter, bread, cereal and bananas. That should get me through until Friday. Tomorrow Cathy from the Shanghai office is taking me shopping. That should be fun.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008 (PM)
Well, I was right about those hamburgers not being beef. I went out to eat my second interesting and authentic Chinese meal tonight with Cathy from the Shanghai office. I was telling her about my day and asked her if she ever ate western food. She said she liked hamburgers at McD's. I asked her if they were made from beef and she said they were chicken. I told her that is not called a hamburger, but a chicken sandwich.... and she looked at me like I was crazy. She said everything there is called a hamburger. We had a good time exchanging cultural differences. She wanted to know if it was true that all Americans have a car. It was hard trying to explain how OKC is a big city but not possible to get around on foot.
Then I had a rather interesting elevator experience with her at the mall. We got on a very crowded elevator that no American would have ever gotten on.... we know when to wait for the next one. Well, after we got on more people got on to the point I was completely squashed and needing my personal space. Then a buzzer started going off which took me a minute to realize that it was not going to stop or allow the doors to close because it was too full. So after what seemed an eternity a couple of the last people in got off and the buzzer stopped. Then we went up a floor and the doors opened again. Same thing...no American would even want to get on this elevator at this point but no no.... the saga continues and the alarm starts buzzing. Finally a normal sized man gets off (I say normal b/c I haven't seen an obese person here yet) and the buzzer stops. Then right before the door closes a skinny kid squeezes in and he must have been light enough because the doors closed and we were off to the next floor. Just to put it in perspective... I think the population for the entire state of OK is 3.4 million people and there are 18 million here in Shanghai.

Thursday, July 10, 2008
It is 1 am in the morning and I am still up. Darrell has this little code thing on his key chain that he accidentally left here at the apartment and it changes codes ever minute. Anyway he has to have whatever code is it on to wire money for different things. So as I sat on the phone with him for an hour giving him codes while he tried to get his Internet working, I got to hear about his and Hillary's day. And I thought my last 2 meals and days were interesting.....Hillary is the accountant in the OKC office and she came on the trip to understand all the accounting at the plant and meet all the people she talks to daily. Anyway... thank God I was not at dinner with them tonight. Hillary is about as adventuresome with food as me...so we have bonded and are now great friends. Anyway they asked her what she wanted and trying to be safe, she asked for chicken. I mean how can you go wrong with that..right? Well they were served a boiled chicken. The entire chicken had been boiled and was then cut up and served on a plate. The head was still there and the eyes still open. And to top it all off.... this delicacy is served cold. Of course Darrell ate his and for those that know him well... he is sometimes unexplainable. He said he was hungry. Hillary kindly cut hers up and moved it around on her plate. She said she couldn't quite handle seeing all the veins. So tomorrow they promised her KFC. I think I am playing it safe tomorrow and hitting Starbucks again for a muffin and then I will let you all know what Papa John's is like. Oh, here is another funny thing Cathy said at dinner when I asked her if she liked pizza. She said "No, not really. I just don't like it when they mix cheese and meat and sauce...." Are you kidding me?????

Thursday, July 10, 2008 (PM)
I promise I am not making this stuff up...or exaggerating. Cathy took me to Yu Garden to shop today. That is an area of the city that is older and I guess authentic. When you think of Chinese architecture, clothing, and hand made artifacts, this is where you would go. I was here to buy the girls some little Chinese dresses. I was not expecting to purchase any of the fake handbags and watches... there is another district for that which is on the agenda for the weekend when Darrell is here. However as we are shopping we are approached by some young men who pull out this laminated sheet full of pictures of bags, watches etc. And in their very broken English they start asking if we want to see Gucci, Coach, Rolex, etc. So Cathy nods that this is an ok thing and we start following them up these stairs in between 2 stores. They keep turning around to see if we are still following them and about half way up my "maybe this is not a good idea" radar kind of goes off. Once we are at the top we go in this room full of purses, watches, sunglasses and there are a few young women working and 1-2 other men. Once inside they shut the door and I started thinking...if I am attacked how will I even describe my attacker.... let's see... male, about 5'7", 140 pounds, dark brown hair, brown slanted eyes, yeah that's the guy!
The knockoffs are good but once you show interest in a bag they start rattling off prices in RMB. The exchage rate is 6.8 to our dollar so at this point I am stressing out, tying to divide by 7 to figure out the real price, thinking I could possibly die all in the name of a Coach bag, and feeling like Elaine did in the Seinfield episode where the Asian nail techs are making fun of her as I listen to Cathy speak Mandarin to these people. I bought a bag, got the heck out of there and will save the rest of the handbag shopping when I am with Darrell.
Then we had lunch and Cathy actually wanted KFC. I was releived and have now named french fries as the universal food!! You know how you just hate it when you can't find a seat at a fast food restaurant and your carrying your tray around? No you don't because we live in America and nothing in America is this crowded!!! I had the tray with our food and after a trip through the whole restaurant Cathy started asking people with 2 little tables together who had empty chairs if they would let us sit down. In America we would have pulled the 2 little tables apart, but not here. We sat with total strangers and ate lunch. I could tell I was the only one who though this was odd.
Darrell's day was not as interesting as yesterday. He didn't eat anything too crazy but drank corn juice with his dinner. He said is was good. I am going to just take his word on that one. But they are into different juices here. The first night we were here they served us watermelon juice with our dinner and last night I ordered kiwi juice and it was more like a smoothie. I liked it and got another one today.
Darrell comes back tomorrow and I am so glad.

Friday, July 11, 2008
Well well well.... this may be the best story of this trip yet. But first I have to start at the beginning of my Friday. I decided to go running in this park across the street. Darrell's boss told me it was a huge park and would be a great run. They don't observe daylight savings here, which means the sun is up at 4:45 AM. So I was at the park by 7. And even though the temperature is the same as OK, the humidity is more like Houston. So I am already sticky and sweaty at 7 am. I was hoping that I would feel safe when I got to this park and not be alone on some trail. Ha. You would not believe how many people were at this park at 7 am. There were probably 20 different groups of about 30 people (mostly older) scattered around the park doing their martial arts looking, yoga-ish exercising with their little boom boxes of music which all sounded like pipe flute music. So my run was like being on a never ending elevator ride. I will have to have my ipod next time. And I guess Larry (Darrell's boss) is not into wide open spaces. I might as well have been running the strip in Vegas in the afternoon. I did a lot of jogging in place waiting my turn to go around someone. I will go back again though because I have to take pictures of how many people are at this park... I know you think you understand b/c I thought all these times Darrell was telling me how crowded it was that I got it.... well you don't. Trust me.
Then my plan was to visit the Shanghai International School campus on this side of the city. I had a 1:30 appointment for a tour there and Cathy had written the address of the school in Chinese so I could give it to a taxi driver and get myself there. So I get a cab and give him my piece of paper and I don't know if he couldn't read or didn't know where it was but he shook his head and gave it back to me. So I got out and was going to try another cab when a moped taxi man motioned for my piece of paper. I showed it to him and he shook his head yes and patted the seat. At first I laughed and said no thanks but he kept motioning to get on. Cathy had told me it would be only about a 10 minute cab ride so I thought how bad can it be? HOLY #$%^&! For those of you who have ever been with me to a scary movie or seen how I react when a wasp flies by, you will have no problems envisioning what I must have looked like every time I thought he was going to hit someone. Now he never even acknowledged me and the people or bicyclist that he almost hit just calmly moved out of the way. But I reacted enough for all of us!! I was sweating buckets by the time we got there. I got off and asked him "How much RMB?" And he held up 2 fingers. Now what would you think.... 2 RMB right? Well that would only be cents in US dollars and I was thinking wow that is so cheap... maybe I will ride one of these again. So I get out 2 RMB from my wallet and he turns all angry Chinese man on me and say "NO NO" and shows me 2 fingers again. I had given him 2 RMB coins and thought well maybe he wants paper RMB. But he just kept getting frustrated with me. At this point a security guard from the school walks over and acts like he is going to help but of course he doesn't speak much English at all. So angry-Chinese-moped-man holds up 2 fingers once again and the guard says "twenty". Well that changes things a little. I get out 20 RMB which is like $2.95 US still very cheap and moped man still looked pissed at me. I wanted to say "Listen mister, if your going to use fingers your going to need 18 more of them. 2 means 2!!"
Well the school was amazing. It would be about like having your kids at Cassady. They have 42" TV screens in every room for things like United Streaming which we have in PC schools and to hook up to other media from the library. They keep class sizes to 18 and then will hire another teacher and split the class. They just built a 25 m pool and have swimming as part of the weekly PE curriculum and will hopefully be adding a swim team. They had an auditorium that seated 1000 and was nicer than the Civic Center in OKC. They will bus your kid to and from school and high school students all get laptops with their curriculum b/c the entire school is wireless. The best thing about the tour was having a conversation with another American!!!
Anyway after the tour I got in a cab!!!

Sunday, July13, 2008
It is Sunday morning and Darrell and I just got back from running in the park. Yesterday was great having him and Hillary back. We went shopping to the fake market which was quite the experience thanks to my entertaining husband. First of all this shopping market is indoors and the stores look just like little mall stores. You walk in and there are wooden bookcase displays with fake purses on them or watches, sunglasses, etc. Now the purses in the front section of the store even look fake. For example the fake Coach bags just have random "C's" all over so the fabric doesn't look genuine. So as you are entering stores young Chinese people are walking around trying to get you to come in. "Hey Lady, Lady, bags, watches, pens," was heard a thousand times. So once you go in they ask what you want and after I said Coach purses, they push on one of the bookcases and it slides open and you go into the back room. I felt like I was in an episode of Scooby Doo going in the trap door to solve a mystery. These back rooms are just more book cases of the "good" fakes that use the real designer fabric. Then the trading begins. Every time I stuck to my price and walked away, they would always come down to my price. So I really enjoyed it. But Darrell was the highlight of the day. It was just a big game to him and he would talk back to them in his "Chinese-sounding" voice saying things like... "No, no, not good quality. Too expensive. I no have money for food if I buy this. I no money for my family." Then at one point as he was buying some Mont Blanc pens and after listening to the Chinese woman tell him what good quality the pen was, he gets out a plastic Bic pen and tries to sell it to her saying "We trade pens. This very good quality. Good price for you." I was rolling. I was laughing so hard I had to just walk out of the store several times. Anyway it was fun.

Monday, July 14, 2008
I decided to go to the grocery store and see what it was like. The mall that I got my pedicure in is about 2 blocks from the apartment. There are 8 floors in this mall for the typical mall shopping like in the US. Many stores are brands you would know but none of them are very big. Then there are 2 more floors below ground that are what we would call the food court and a grocery store. I walked up and down each aisle just seeing what I could figure out. Many of the big brands: Kellogs, Hunts, Nestle, etc., you can tell exactly what you are getting and they are in English and Chinese. Then some things I couldn't really tell what it was. Anyway, I was doing pretty well until I got to the meat section. There were some meats especially beef that I recognized and would feel safe buying and they were packaged like in the US. Then there were chickens just hanging there (no heads and skinned) and whole fish laying on ice and some other little animal that I thought might have been a small lamb and its front and back legs where stretched out....anyway I had to fight back a dry heave!!
Then as I got to the register I realized all the women already had shopping bags to carry their stuff home in. I started to panic and then saw that you can buy them. It is actually refreshing that all these millions of people at least don't use plastic bags like we do. I didn't have many items but I then thought about how many times I have gone to Wal-Mart and my cart was so full I couldn't hardly push it around. You don't see that here. There is no SUV waiting in the parking lot. I guess everyone shops several times a week because you have to carry your groceries home. They do have a Wal-Mart here, but I don't know how far away it is from the apartment.
Oh, a few other things: the hamburgers at McDonald's are beef. We actually had an English-speaking worker who took my order. Of course she thought meat and bread only was confusing and asked me several times if that was really all I wanted.
Candy bars are recognizable but a little smaller in size than in the US and all the nutritional information is in Chinese only. I actually enjoyed not knowing how many calories I was eating.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Blame their communist government all you want, but I know the real reason these people only have one child. Darrell and Hillary had told me they saw this baby when they were at the plant that had a onesie on without a butt. Yes, it looked like a onesie in the front but the backside had been cut out....maybe to make changing a diaper easier but this baby didn't have a diaper on. Now I don't mean someone got the scissors and cut it out.. Darrell said it was made that way. Darrell said the economic differences in the classes are more noticeable than in the US and when you get out away from the city in more rural areas...like where the plant is, many people are poor and can't afford diapers. Well, yesterday on my run through the park I finally saw one of these onesies. So I had to stop running and sit on a park bench and watch. Sure enough, it was made without a butt and this baby had no diaper on. This baby was probably 6 months old. So I sat there hoping this baby would have to go soon so I could see how the mom would deal with it. The mom was just holding the baby and talking to it. Then another lady walked up with probably an 18 month old who had a regular looking jumper on but no diaper. Instead he had a hand towel rolled up and in his pants. She would move it around every once in a while like she was checking to see if it was wet. You could see both ends of the towel sticking out of his shorts. WOW! Yeah I have been peed and pooped on by both kids and even recently by Kylie!!! But I can't imagine holding a little time bomb out in public like that!!! After a short while both moms walked on so I never got to see any action. I bet Chinese kids potty train very early!!!

Thursday, July 17, 2008
Well, I am heading to the airport while you all sleep peacefully in your beds. I am ready to be home in mine. It has been a good experience and I actually have a few more stories to tell when I get home.
Darrell has worked very hard the whole time. You know how he kind of chuckles when he tells people he is the director of North American operations and then acts like it is a much fancier title that it is.... well I knew he was a hard worker, but he might as well be the director of Chinese operations as well. He pretty much runs this whole company for Larry. I never get to hear his conference calls at home becuase he goes into the office late at night to do them, but here I got to hear and see everything. Will we move here? I don't know. Basically Wilspec needs Darrell in OKC and in China. I think it would be a great experience for us all and a good financial decision.
Well I am off to my lovely 15 hour flight to Atlanta, 3 hour layover, and 2 hour flight to OKC. Can hardly wait to see the kids. I have had to go through the pictures on my camera several times and then I start getting all teary-eyed and have to turn it off. This is the longest I have ever been away from them. It will be late tonight when I get home. Since I am gaining time coming home... today will be about 35 hours long! Darrell will be coming home this Sunday.

I love you all,
Brandi

The view from the top of Pearl Tower.

I am at the Bund which is the old financial district in Shanghai.

The Bund is a busy tourist attraction.

At the very top of Pearl Tower we were 350 m high. The view was incredible.

Hillary and I are at the entrance to Pearl Tower and this blue gumbi guy

is the mascot for the World Expo which will be in Shanghai in 2010.

No matter which side of the tower you were on

you saw buildings as far as you could see.

This is the only picture of the 2 of us from the

entire trip. We had one weekend together and

a few week nights.

This was the largest exericse group at the park

each morning. It was a rather entertaining experience

as I ran each morning.

Zhong Shan Park

This was the actual trail that I ran through the park.

The park had amusement rides throughout.

This leaning tower building was right across the street

from our apartment. The is the view of it from Zhong

Shan Park.

Yu Garden. Click on the picture above to enlarge.

I thought is was great that everything you see

is in Chinese except Starbucks. There are 33 Starbucks

in Shanghai. FYI

Cathy and I shopping at Yu Garden.

Thomas Family Times

Christmas Pictures 2008

Christmas 2008

Family Pictures 2008

Family Pictures 2008

Disney World 2008

Disney World 2008

First Day of School

My China Trip