And now, to return to your regular blogging schedule.

As you can tell, I'm in favour of taking regular blogging hiatuses. But now, the weather is miserable, the heat is brutal and the humidity unbearable -- thus begins the regular summer hibernating. Actually, it wouldn't be so bad if the jolly sun came out once in a while. But since China likes to dabble in a little weather gambling (Shanghai, let me guess -- your forecast is perfect weather till the day the World Expo ends, isn't it. That was rhetorical question.), my washing continues to pile in a corner and I continue on in a funk. I need some sun. And perhaps, a little less humidity (really 90% is kind of over doing it, don't you think?).

But its not like we're sitting around doing nothing. Oh no siree. We're either really busy or really not. Here's the check in/check out of the last 2 weeks:

Dragon Boat Festival: I've been looking forward to this for weeks. Three days off school to see the Internationals compete in our own town! Well...at least they did last year...and for the eight years before. But not this year. What the heck? How can you have one of the nations most popular Dragon Boat Races eight years in a row and suddenly not have it anymore? And no one in the entire city knows if it was relocated or just canceled. Plus it rained most of the three days. Not happy, Jan.

Party like we're leaving soon: So we've had two "parties" now (including Jason's) and will have one tomorrow night. I'm not taking pictures now because our living room looks the same from every angle and even though I can tell the difference between everyone, I know you can't. And for security reasons, I don't like to have too many photos of our friends up here. The last party we had, I only made it till 10pm before I had to sleep so tomorrow's gathering is much smaller.

Baby: can be summed up in one word -- MOVES. And instant coffee isn't a good idea, if I want to sleep. I could sleep just fine, but 2/3 a cup of that stuff was enough to keep the baby awake all.night.long. Just like its father. It's very responsive and if Jason's been gone for a long period of time, like to school for example, the baby will wake up as soon as he's home. Its not a regular time of the day thing either, because sometimes Jason comes home for lunch, sometimes not till 3 or later and when he's gone in the evening and doesn't come home till late, the baby will wake up as soon as he starts talking. Its very interactive and responds to being poked. Even Jason is over the initial "I don't think you should poke it in case you hurt it" because its so much fun!

The orphanage: is using me a case study for the younger kids because I'm the first 'Auntie' that they've ever seen pregnant and, including the older kids, the first foreigner for all of them. The four year olds are enamoured with my growing belly and last week, one of the teachers told them that maybe the baby moves by now and they might be able to feel it. This is making having English with one focus a little difficult because every 5 minutes someone is asking if the baby is moving yet and can they feel it? Of course, the baby picked Saturday morning to sleep the whole time so they were all a little disappointed. I'm really happy though because the older kids can't stand not knowing what the baby's sex is -- they want to know if they 'will have a new younger sister or brother or twins?' Our baby has siblings already!

Countdown: Tomorrow, it's three weeks till we get on a plane! Australia, here we come! So this will be a travel blog once again.

I realise there seems to be a narrowing of the focus of this blog but its just a new season. Summer was like this last year too, only early this time because the weather is so screwed up with the rain. Everyone, Chinese and foreigners alike, in our city, hibernates during the Summer because its much to hot to do anything outside especially between the hours of noon and 7pm. We've been trying to get to the pool on days where I don't have school in the afternoon (and its not raining), trying to tidy up loose ends and eat with people before we leave. We were going to attempt an English Corner for our not-so-close friends before we leave but most of our 'group' has gone out of town (either for the Summer or for a few weeks) and I don't think I can do 12 Chinese to one foreigner right now. Not after last weeks party where I zonked out in the middle of it. But I think a change of scenery will be good for the both of us. In the meantime, I might write a bit less often, I might try and paint you a picture of our 'virtual house' on here to satisfy my nesting urges, I might talk about some of our future plans...we'll see.