Thomas's new bike

It's only my great love for my son that would have taken me to Walmart on the Saturday before a holiday with the goal of buying a bicycle and transporting it by taxi back to campus. Last weekend Michael and I got bicycles -- haven't gotten photos of them yet, and Michael is the one with the exciting story of the journey to acquire them at the used bike market. As soon as I take some photos we'll have a bike themed post. Anyway, with seats for the girls on the back of ours, we need Thomas to have his own if we want to be a mobile family. While there is some traffic on the campus it is flat and generally a pretty low stress place to ride, so we had promised Thomas a bike (Helen will get one, too eventually, but she will mostly be confined to the courtyard). After long consultation in my broken Chinese and the salesman's slightly better English, we settled on an unusual bike which is all the rage here. It has smaller tires than expected, but an adjustable seat and handle bars for any height person. Most amazingly of all it actually folds in two and fits in the trunk of a car. It is a wonder. We attracted the attentions of the security guard and some construction workers getting it all adjusted, and they talked price with us a bit, through signs and the few words I know in Chinese. Everyone is pretty satisfied. The other Fulbright kid in the building got one, too. At $50 it was a bit steep, but since it adjusts into an adult bike, we can always give it as a gift to a student when we leave (unless it folds small enough to fit in the duffel bag...hmm its possible. After the Great Bicycle Event in the courtyard, Sophia finally rewarded her "favorite" security guard -- who has been courting her with peek a boo and smiles for weeks-- with a hug and sat on his lap ! We are growing fond of the staff, who are patient with us. This morning we ran out of propane for the stove. when 2 dictionaries did not have the Chinese word for propane...I finally went down to the maids and showed them a picture I had drawn of the tank and a hose to a little flame. They understood right away -- but it won't arrive until tomorrow, so we had McDonald's for lunch and our favorite vegetarian restaurant (affiliated with the Buddhist temple) for dinner. At dinner we were joined by an American named Roger who has just moved into the guesthouse -- he is newly retired and will be teaching English here at Xiada for a year. Considering the day began before 7 with Tai chi, which I am trying to stick with -- this was really a full day.