I'm back online!!!! You may have heard my...WHA-WHOOOOO all the way in the US. I find it very therapeutic to write about our experiences in Shanghai and it's free!!!! Think of all the money we are saving on counseling fees... ha ha.

Our weekend was consumed by volleyball again. Abi's team was in another tournament....this one the last of the season with kids from all over China and Mongolia. The tournament started Thursday evening. Abi's game was delayed by four hours because the team they were supposed to play late because of fog conditions in GuangZhou. Abi's team lost one game but held the number one seat going into the final game. They played against the other Shanghai school for 1st place. These two teams are evenly matched so it was a very exciting final match.

Photos from the weekend...

Abi and team at the opening ceremonies....Lauren (team captain) on the right

Abi's team....starters ready for the game

The "other" Abby (AKA "Puckett") ready to serve. With two Abigales on the team there was a little bit of confussion....So.......One is "Puckett" and our Abi is "A-B-I". A-B-I is playing middle.

A-B-I and Puckett give each other 5 after a great set and score

Some times is hard to sit on the bench....but A-B-I is the best bench sitter EVER!!!

Banquet for the players after the championship game .... have to love the Asian fingers!

Ah....it is nice to sit down after a very busy weekend....

Tim and I took a break from volleyball on Saturday to join his work team on an "outing". Our plan was to go on the outing and be back to Shanghai to watch Abi's final game. It is crab season at a lake near Kunshan and apparently these are very famous crab. We met part of Tim's team at his office....took a bus to Puxi.....picked up the rest of the group and headed out of town. The drive to Kunshan should take about 1.5 hours......it took 3 hours because of traffic. AAAHHHHH!!!! We met some more people at a restaurant when we arrived at Kunshan. We had a full Chinese banquet and then the crabs were served. The crabs were very small and did not have much meat on them.....

Meet my crab....Hairy. This is the "before" picture

This is the after picture....

According to Chinese tradition....we Westerners waste a lot of the "good parts" of the crab. I could not bring myself to eat the "yellow" stuff. It took me a long time to crack this thing open and it was a lot of work to get the very small amount of meat out of the legs.

More food

Tim's work team

This was the table with all the very cute babies......I wanted to sit at this table.

More of the team.....

I got a glimpse into Tim's world.....I can see why he feels isolated. We spent three hours on a bus and about another 1.5 hours at lunch. Most of the time everyone spoke Mandarin.....I understood very little of the conversation and after a while it became very weird because they can all speak English too. I had been looking forward to meeting and getting to know the group. As it turned out ....I felt very much like an outsider. Tim and I might as well have been in the restaurant by ourselves because we were not included in the majority of the conversation. I would have to say it was very disappointing and frustrating.

After lunch we "raced" back to Shanghai and walked into the gym at exactly 5:00. Tim's work driver, Mr Pan, got us back to the school just in time for the game. I do not know how he did it because I had my eyes closed most of the way.........some times it's good to just "be in the dark".