The Grimes Family

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Our new ride!

We have a Nissan minivan here. Our drivers name is Ma. He is very nice but doesn't speak english at all.

Kenzie & Hannah love the van!

We left Michigan on Janurary 3, 2012. Our flight was supposed to leave at 3:35pm but we had a few delays after we boarded the plane first they had an issue with the computer...they fixed that and noticed we didn't have a thermal suit, since we were flying over the north pole they needed this suit in case they had to make an emergency landing so the person that had to go outside didn't get frostbite. They finally got the suits then the machine they use to push the plane back couldn't since it was a little icey so they had to wait to get a bigger tractor to push us back. But after a 2 hour delay we were finally in the air! The kids did really well on the flight Hannah and Ben slept most of the time and Kenzie kept busy with her leap pad and watching movies, she also slept for a little while. Gary slept a little and I did too! We got lots of compliments from the other passagengers and flight attendents for how well the kids did on the flight!

sleeping or pretending to!

We had some snacks!

played games

acted a little silly

Ready to get off the plane!
After we got off the plane the nice flight attendants helped us get to immegration, but collecting the bags seemed to prove quite difficult, we had 3 carts full of bags and only 2 of us to push them, we could not find anyone to help us, so Gary pushed 2 and I pushed 1 and Kenzie pulled 2 suitcases. Luckily Gary's boss Manish was waiting for us right outside of customs with his driver and ours so we had help as soon as we got out. We were glad once we were out of the airport. We then headed to a hotel to stay for the night, we arrived in Shanghai at 10:00pm January 4, 2012. The hotel was really nice but we were all wide awake at 4:00am since we had not adjusted to the time change. So we got ready and had breakfast in the hotel before we went to get our apartment. We went to get our apartment on January 5th. We were finally in our apartment at about 11:00am. We ventured out to the grocery store to get some stuff for the apartment and some food...it did not go well. It was a little confusing how they have it set up so we only ended up getting a few things that day. The next day we had an interpreter help show us around, she took us to get registered at the doctor's office, took me to get a China cellphone and a China bank account. We also went to Kenzie's school to get her uniforms and to see her classroom. We got to meet her assistant teacher.

New Years Eve/Day

We spend New Year's Eve at Kari & Kevin's house just hanging out and playing games. It was a nice a relaxing new year's eve!

On New Year's Day we had a little going away party at mom & dad's house to say good bye to everyone before we left for China.

Ben bringing in the new year!

Buzz making sure everyone was safe!

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Good bye house!

We offically moved out of our house on December 27, 2011.

The movers came on Tuesday December 27, 2011. They moved very quick they had most of the house packed up in one day.

It's crazy to see all your stuff packed up!

All our stuff rolling out! See ya in 3 years!! It is still kinda crazy to see our house completely empty.

Hanging with the Bernals

We went to Castaway Cafe in Howell on December 26, 2011 to hang out with the Bernals and Steakleys before we move to China. The kids (and dads) had fun climbing and sliding!