Wandering Browns

He grew up too fast! I cannot believe that I have a three-year-old son. It seems like not very long ago I was holding him as a tiny infant, wondering what he was going to be like. Today, we took a taxi to a museum and he was tired on the way back. He put his head in my lap, and stretched out his legs across the seat and filled the whole back of the taxi. I remember when he was 4-6 months old and we were on airplane rides where I was worried that he was stretched out to the next airplane seat when he was feeding. He's grown so much- it all went by so fast! Anyway, Landon is quite the talker these days so I decided that instead of giving just my take on his favorite things, and how he is doing as a brand new three-year-old, he could do it in his own words. So I interviewed him. Here are his responses: 1. Favorite color? Red 2. Favorite number? 10 3. Favorite shape? triangle 4. Favorite letter? A 5. Favorite animal: The African animals at the zoo that mommy doesn&

The Birthday BOY! This weekend, we celebrated the birth of a special little boy. I would say toddler, but he's definitely over that stage. He is full-on little boy! I had him pick out a birthday activity, birthday dinner, and birthday cake/dessert beforehand so we could do his favorite things. There is only so much you can do when you are living across the world from all friends and family, so we tried to make it as special as we could. Main pool of the outdoor pool place For his birthday activity, we visited an outdoor temporary water park/pool place that is relatively close to our hotel. We can see it from our window every day, but it is a little pricey, so we have only gone one other time this summer. There are four pools with various large, inflatable slides and obstacles that he loves the play on. There is a shallow pool with a soccer field and an area with a swing! He loves the swing because we have not found a park with a swing during our time here in Ningbo, and

I am happy to report that I feel much better this week about life in China. A few things have transpired to help me along the way, and I began reading a book that was just recently translated into English from Chinese about a Chinese factory worker that has helped me see a little better what all these people around me are thinking. First of all, I had my birthday this week. I ordered my dream baby carrier (here's to hoping it's as great as I think it will be, I bought it online sight unseen) for my birthday, and Austin took me out to a great Italian dinner. I had gnocchi with a delicious tomato sauce, and we shared gelato for dessert. There was cheese involved, in our appetizer, on my gnocchi, and I was a happy camper. The gelato was homemade and also awesome. The next day, I ordered a cake from a little shop down the street named Black Magic. It is a chocolate shop and cafe, but they also do a limited selection of cakes. You basically have a choice of chocolate, dark chocol

After playing around with formatting on wordpress, I like the visual presentation of our travels over there better. If you would like to continue to follow along with our travels, our blog is at:   https://wanderingbrowns.wordpress.com/ The drop down menu on the right has an option for following by email, so you never have to miss another post! I will continue to post family updates, personal reflections, and faith-building experiences on this blog. I just can't let go of it completely!

More than any place we have lived, I am having a hard time with the people and culture of China. I'm not sure if it's my pregnancy hormones, or Landon's constant inability to listen and his boundless energy, or the setting of our assignment where we are in the middle of a fairly large city, but nevertheless it has been a hard adjustment. Coming off assignments in western countries, and before that very friendly Asian countries in Korea and Indonesia, I guess my expectations for behavior are a little different. What makes it more difficult for me is this is the most cushy assignment we have been on! The hotel is great- Landon has his own room with doors! Breakfast and dinner are provided, and we have more space than we have ever had! It really is the best assignment for us right now and most comfortable for me as I get more pregnant. This is how far Landon is ahead of me... almost always unless we're near a busy road To me, it seems that while the Chinese people w

View of Nanjing road from the river/Bund Mid- Nanjing road with the crowds There are only a few options for crossing the river at the Bund. You can take a water taxi, the Bund sightseeing tunnel (for too much money) or metro line 2. We opted for the metro as we had day passes that were significantly cheaper than the sightseeing tunnel. That meant to return to our hotel, we visited Nanjing road at night. Much like the buildings along the river, Nanjing road was lit up with all sorts of multi-colored lights, and it had cooled off making it a slightly more enjoyable walk. The crowds and late hour deterred us from walking around more, but as the central street of downtown, it was worth the few minutes we spent enjoying it.  Nanjing road with the Brown boys After a long day of walking, lines and crowds, Austin and I limped back to our hotel room. We discovered that me in my pregnant state and we both in our older state with a toddler could not do as much trekking around and

Late afternoon view of Lujiazui area with the Pearl Since we were only in Shanghai for 30 hours or so, we opted for activities that would give us an overall impression of downtown Shanghai. Since Landon loves boats, we decided to go for a little river cruise down the Huangpu river, which runs through downtown Shanghai and divides the Bund and Nanjing Rd from the Oriental Pearl tower, Lujiazui and Pudong- our hotel area. Tickets were 160 rmb for adults, and Landon was free. We opted to go with the Shanghai Huangpu River Cruise company- they operate many of the river cruises from the southern end of the Bund. Since it was a busy Saturday afternoon, there were cruises leaving every 15 minutes and we had no problem getting tickets. After hiking all the way down the Bund river walk, I discovered that there are ticket booths for this river cruise company all along the river! We aimed for 7:00 pm- late enough that the buildings would be lit up, but early enough for Landon to be awake an

Tower from the pedestrian walkway Pearl close-up Austin had two days off in a row, so we took a quick trip to Shanghai for the weekend to see what we could see and attend church in real-life (vs. via phone). We took the high speed train from Ningbo and it took about two hours. It was nice to see the Chinese countryside in between the cities, and to visit a different part of China. We were NOT prepared for how crowded Shanghai was on the weekend. WOW. I don't think I have been around so many people in my entire life! PEOPLE EVERYWHERE! We chose to visit the Oriental Pearl tower first because it is a major landmark of Shanghai, and it had many different activities involved that I thought would be fun for everyone. Plus, it was 95 degrees outside with high humidity and I knew we did not want to be walking around too much outside until later on in the day. We stayed at the Grand Hyatt very close to the Pearl, so it was a sweltering but easy walk o