Spring Festival in China is a time where everyone goes home to be with their families and Celebrate the New Year. This year, we got to do the same thing. Mark and I had a month off of school (similar to the winter break colleges take in the US) but Alex’s school only gave them one week off. So being the terribly responsible parents we are… we said nah bro, he’ll be back in three weeks. The Chinese parents were pretty upset about only getting one week off too and most of Alex’s classmates missed at least two weeks. It was our own private mutiny, and this upcoming year they’ve given us two weeks off on the calendar, so I think it was a successful mutiny.
I didn’t take any pictures of the beginning of our trip, and I’m so very sad about that because my grandmother came out from New Jersey to spend time with us. I didn’t get any pictures of Alex playing with his great grandma, but we did make lots of memories. When we arrived in Chicago, it was during the polar vortex, so we went from about 45F degrees to -40F. I had forgotten what it was like to have it be so cold it hurts to breathe, and Alex had never really been anywhere that cold.
We went shopping with my mom to the Premium Outlet Mall, which happens to be close to her house (but outside!) where she decked him out in a new warmer coat and waterproof hiking boots. She also went wild at target and bought him snowboots, and practically a whole new wardrobe. Newly armed for the snow that was too cold to play in, we went back to her house and decided to make snow.
I don’t know where Mark got the idea, but he was telling us about making snow by boiling water and throwing it into the air- and when it’s that cold outside the water will turn to snow before it hits the ground. So being a group of scientists, we had to experiment to see if it was true. And we had a blast doing it, we tried 3 times with more and more water each time, and every time, Mark made snow. It was fun to do, but Mark was also careful, 8 people in Chicago went to the hospital for burns trying the same thing. Good thing he’s a scientist.
The polar vortex affected every aspect of our trip to Chicago, Oma(my grandma) couldn’t take her nightly walks, we made polar vortex root beer floats. Let me back up, I love root beer- I’m even a bit of a root beer snob, but it is not a thing in China, or most of southeast Asia. I can get coke, sprite, fanta (yuck),pepsi, but I can’t get root beer. Ok, I can order it on Taobao, but it is over $10 for a 6 pack and that is a bit too steep for me. Thailand has root beer, although it tastes a bit different and so I mostly drink that and thai iced tea exclusively when we are there. My amazing husband, who knows me so well, went on a grocery run while we were at my mom’s and bought root beer and ice cream. This isn’t an altogether altruistic move on his part as he also loves root beer floats, but he gets all the credit for thinking of it!
But, we didn’t have every day root beer floats, we made them polar vortex style, which is to pour the root beer into the cups, and put them out on the porch to get almost frozen before bringing them back inside and adding the ice cream. It was a great idea, and we all enjoyed that!
Our second leg of the trip was to fly to Miami to see my Dad and stepMom, but it was so cold that our flight got delayed two days because it was too cold for the ground crews to get the planes ready. Oma’s flight got pushed back 4 or 5 days I think. When we finally got to head out, we went from -40F to 75F, it was delightful.
Miami is always fun, not just because it’s a great area, but the company is top notch! I think I got the order of events all out of whack, but the boy had immense amounts of fun, whatever order they came in. I’d also like to point out that the pool in Miami was cold, maybe 60F? and Alex still went in almost every day and stayed in until we made him get out for shivering or blue lips.
My dad comes up with some really neat ideas for Alex to do every time we go down there, the previous time it was renting a boat, going fishing on a big boat, snorkeling. This time, it was indoor skydiving and go-karting. Because we didn’t know you should get a reservation, only Alex got to try indoor skydiving, I think that Mark and my parents would have liked to do it too. While we were waiting for Alex’s time to fly, we ran over and had lunch at a cute little diner, it felt like it was trying to be a New Jersey diner, but it was the best patty melt I’ve had in ages, so I’m not complaining!
Alex gearing up for his flight. I have to say, this kid is nothing if not dedicated when he is interested in something. I think he was the only person in his group that actually listened to every word the instructor was saying. Laser focused.
He was so excited he was dancing around, I couldn’t get him to stand still for many pictures.
All geared up and ready to Fly! He has his suit, his ear plugs, his goggles, and his helmet. Check!
The grandparents and the fly boy. I think he’s a pretty lucky kid.
Alex was the youngest and smallest person in his group, but he watched every other person, he sat in the waiting area and studied what they were doing how they were moving, what the instructor did. He was so focused, I’ve only seen him get that way about legos before this.
Waiting for his 2nd turn to fly!
After he was done flying, Grandma and Grandpa took him go-karting. As an avid Mario Kart player, Alex was expecting this to be much easier to master than it was really.
This poor kid, you had to wear clothes toed shoes, but we only brought sandals and then the snow boots he had for when we got to Minnesota and back to Illinois. So it’s 75 or so degrees out and he’s wearing snowboots with no socks to drive go karts. Here we’re sitting with Grandpa Hof watching the group before us do motocross.
Alex is geared up and ready to go! He had a blast, although he had a hard time with some of the turns- he would break and gas at the same time. He loved it though and definitely wants to go again!
Alex had such a good time, that my dad and Mark wanted to give it a go.
Although it was a close race, Grandpa Hof won. I think the grownups would be happy to go again as well!
Another day we drove down to the Florida Keys, and when in the keys, you have to stop by the Giant Lobster! The lobster is in the parking lot of a collection of artsy stores, with all kinds of kitschy souvenirs and beach home decor.
Hopefully my parents can remind me the name of this restaurant, we went here for lunch and it was wonderful. We were right on the water, watching pelicans, and the food was excellent.
We stopped off to see the African Queen, it still runs and goes out on tours daily.
We have to show Alex the movie now, because he couldn’t understand why we thought seeing the boat was cool.
Out of our group, Alex was the only one willing to go in the water, it was just too cold. He eventually convinced Mark to walk into the water, but Mark never got more than his feet wet.
This bird was just strolling along the beach, relatively fearless.
After this it was back to the cold, we left warm, sunny Miami for polar vortex cold Minneapolis. We always enjoy our trips to Miami, and not just for the weather!
We got to Minneapolis, and stayed with Mark’s parents like we usually do. It wasn’t really as cold as it had been in Chicago, although it was still pretty cold. Alex got to play outside in the snow for a little bit, but he didn’t really care for being cold and wet.
We went to Mall of America, Target (I stocked up on a variety of things to bring back to China), and spent most of our time hanging out with the family. We got to see our niece Bergen, who was due with her little girl, and another niece Elaine, who recently got engaged.
We also got to have lunch with the Wisconsin side of the family, Joe who came to China to visit with Mark’s parents in October, and his wife Becky. We also got to see and love on our Great Nephew Vince, who is the sweetest little boy, and so calm. I got to hold him, and even Alex held him. I wish I had gotten a picture of Alex holding Vince, because I have a really nice picture of Vince’s dad Jim holding Alex when he was a little baby.
We had planned to make a side trip back to Urbana before heading back to Chicago, but the weather was so bad on our trip down, that we had to stop. It was snowing, and the highway shut down, which took us onto little country side roads. It’s normally a 4ish hour drive, but it took us over 8 hours to get to Madison Wisconsin, so we had to stop. So we missed out on seeing our friends in Urbana, and missed a get together dinner that our friend Liz had organized for us. The good news is that we will be heading to Urbana this summer for most of August, so we will be able to catch up and see friends then.
It was a whirlwind trip to the US, three cities, three families in three weeks. We had a good but tiring trip, we’re looking forward to going back in August.
After I posted this, I found the pictures I was looking for on my phone, so I am adding them here at the bottom with captions!
Traveling Expat Family 