Tobin was out in the yard and our neighbors gave him this Santa doll to play with.
This girl is 5 but looks 3 years old. Her parents are really nice and we are getting to know them a bit. they also have a first floor and a dog and the start of a garden. When we start our garden, I am recruiting her help!
Take this Santa! Tobin wallups him to the ground. He showed him what our family thinks of Santa Clause (kidding! Though we don't celebrate with Santa). I am just glad he didn't do this to the girl, he is almost as big as her.
And speaking of neighbors. One day the we saw a guard running with a bucket of water and heard some commotion. David went to check things out. They mentioned a fire. We thought some kids had started a fire somewhere. Then the commotion got a little more intense. Fire trucks were called. David took the girls on our little scooter down the neighborhood to check it out.
Indeed a townhouse was on fire in our housing complex (not same building). I knew instantly what had started it: a cigarette. It was later confirmed. This house was not being lived in yet, it was almost done with the finishing touches on the inside. But bars were on the windows already (this is everywhere in China). Although they knew no one was inside, it still took the firemen too long to get in. David said they used in Ax to hack at the bars to get in, it took about 3 minutes. 'THREE MINUTES!' I said, that is a long time. David said: "Lorraine, it took them a total of over 10 minutes to figure out what they were going to do, not to mention actually getting inside". David watched the whole seen and was quite amazed. He said he could've gotten in a lot faster.
We relayed this story to another Foreign family that lives here and he was with us on 'you think they would have a really good strategy for getting in houses with bars on the windows' and then he came up with at least three that sounded good to me. I told him that if we have a fire we are calling him, NOT the fire department.
Seriously though, at least these are all cement block houses, or else that fire would have spread. It did destroy the inside of that house because the guy was doing all the work himself (which meant he had no insurance), and he had just installed all wood floors, which burned real good when he put his own cigarette out on them! Hmm.....
Oh yeah, and what was that lady with the bucket going to do? Smoke was already pouring out of the windows. Interesting.
