Our new home

We are slowly getting settled in our new home here at Green Court, which is a part of Green City.  The community, which is 4sq km, is 90% expat families like us, and was designed with that in mind.  From our front door I can cross the street to the Carrefour, which has restaurants and shops beneath it and even more next door, including Pines grocery, which has a lot of imported things that Carrefour does not carry.  Below our apartment on the ground floor are more shops and restaurants, including a French bakery, a beauty salon, and an English bookstore! Across the street on the other corner is a China Post, where I can send packages, or more likely have Ayi send them for me. 

 I've been going from room to room trying to get everything put away and organized.  I've focused on the kitchen and the kids toys, leaving our room and the guest room/office for last.  One of the things that drew me to this apartment aside from the great location was the huge family room.  It is large enough to be split in two so that the kids have there own space to play in, and we still have plenty of room for the living area.  So glad I splurged on having the apartment painted. It was so worth it, not having to look at white walls for the next two years.

The kitchen is huge by Chinese standards and I am thrilled to have such a large kitchen.  I do still have to keep our dishes in the dining room sideboard to allow for more space for food since I don't have a kitchen pantry.  I do however, have a large storage closet with shelves in the hall that I'm using to store some of my larger and less frequently used kitchen things along with any food I can't fit in the cubbards.  I still have a long way to go before it's home but it is a good start.  I'm looking forward to getting rugs and curtains.  I am not a fan of the drab beige ones the apartment came with.

We had a quiet weekend since I wanted to spend as much time as possible working on the apartment. We tried the French bakery, very yummy, and registered at the gym where I will probably spend a lot of time this summer since they have a huge indoor play gym for kids and a kiddie pool.  Lucas took Charlie for a long over due haircut at the beauty salon below us.  They only charged 30RMB, or about $5.  Can't complain about that!  I'm planning on going back to IKEA tomorrow to look for some shelves for the closets and a shoe rack for the kids closets.  Love having IKEA so close!