Settling in!

We have officially been in China for 1 week!  It has gone by SO quickly!  Thankfully Bethany had the whole week off work so we could get settled.  Finally all 11 - yes, ELEVEN - suitcases are unpacked.  Some of the bags were small, but many were large.  We checked 7 suitcases (and a guitar), carried on 2, Bethany brought one during her pre-visit and left it at work and a coworker even took a suitcase for us when he came to China last week!  This doesn't even include the boxes that we shipped from work with Ava's high chair, umbrella stroller, foam play mat and ABC Train Toy!  Needless to say, we brought a lot of stuff with us!

Our checked luggage, minus the guitar



Time to check in!

The very first thing we learned is that you cannot have a 2 lb jar of peanut butter in your carry-on bag!  Who knew?!  Luckily we arrived a little early (and flew out of a very small airport), so Ryan ran back to the counter and had them put it in one of our checked bags.  The guy even got on the plane to tell us that it was in the 5th bag (Bethany's mom had a brilliant idea that we should id each bag with a number so we knew we had them all)! 
We arrived in Detroit and thought we were doing great on time.  We leisurely walked to our terminal, grabbed a sandwich and latte and then found our gate.  That's when Ava started to get fussy ... and time just escaped us.  We barely took 2 sips from our coffee and could only make last minute calls to a few family members.  For those we told we would call and didn't, we are very sorry.  As Ava screamed, Ryan and I just looked at each other and wondered what we had gotten ourselves into for the next 15 hours! 

We were so grateful to be able to board first so we could get situated.  One of the flight attendants helped us with the car seat as we had no idea how to do it (driving to the airport was the first time we had even used it).  Then, miraculously, Ava fell asleep and slept for the first hour of the flight!  Of course there were a few moments on the plane that were rough, but overall, she did excellent!  We were so relieved - as I am sure everyone around us was as well! 

We arrived in Shanghai right on time and retrieved all of our luggage (thank goodness)!  A coworker met us at the airport with two vans!  One carried all of the luggage and we rode in the other one.  After a 2.5 hr drive in a downpour, we arrived at our new home exhausted.

Ava is still adjusting to the time change.  12 hours is quite a change for anyone, especially a 1 year old. Friday night she finally slept straight through the night.  But again last night she woke up at 3:30 am.  We got her to fall back asleep from 5-7, but needless to say, this past week has been a little rough on all of us.  We have been busy meeting new friends and exploring the neighborhood.  Turns out we live in a great spot where we can quickly walk to several restaurants (including Papa Johns, KFC, McDonald's and Subway), smaller markets and bakeries.  A large supermarket is only a 20 minute walk away.  We find that we are going through milk very quickly as 1L containers are much smaller than the 1 gallon jugs that we are used to at home.  Therefore, we are walking to the store often.

We have a lot more to post from this week, but we will save it for future posts to come soon!