Jason's Photography

Here are a few photos of from Jason's photography work we thought you might enjoy.

At 2 months, just before her world tour...

But she wasn't always as cooperative as we'd like!

...and at 4.5 months

Abi's Rocking Crane-Horse

I had the find of the century a week or so ago. My friend and I were walking along the road when I saw a lady walk by with a cart piled high with wicker. On the back were hanging what looked like a rocking horse. So we ran down the street and waved her over (she was walking pulling a giant cart so it sounds more impressive than it was!).


After much negotiation (my mandarin numbers are getting much better and almost useful now), we walked away carrying a bamboo rocking horse.

On getting it home, Jason swears it looks a lot like a 'rocking crane' so it's now the horse-crane. Whatever...she's going to LOVE it!

Family Outing at Red Town

Last Sunday we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and had a family outing to 'Red Town'. It's actually an old steel factory complex that has been turned into a group of galleries, a new contemporary art museum, and the Shanghai Sculpture Park.

The Minsheng Contemporary Art Museum has just opened with a great exhibition. There's a nice collection including a few of the same artists we saw at the Saatchi Gallery in London and really liked.

Abi did great. It was he first outing with her newly oriented stroller (pushchair to you brits). She hated having to ride lying down so we set up her chair so she's sitting up and facing forward and she just loves it. Unfortunately so does everyone else so anytime we're out with her everyone and their brother are staring and talking to her. At least now we can hide her under a mosquito net which is definitely required at this point anyway. We even have one on her bed...but i'll have to post a pic of that later. For now, here are a few pictures from our day out.

In Leaps and Bounds

Abigail has had a very busy week.

First, she learned how to roll over in a limited capacity last weekend, which means that she can roll in a single direction and only from back to front. It actually took awhile to confirm this since she only seemed to do it when we were out of the room, but the fact that she was on her back when I walked into the kitchen and on her front when I got back seems to point to the obvious.

She has actually rolled from back to front at least once that I know of, but she doesn't seem inclined to repeat the performance. Instead, she prefers to roll over (very quickly and with skill) and just let us know when she's ready to get back over (loudly!). We're looking forward to her working the rest of that little trick out.

In the meantime, instead of perfecting that little maneuvre, she has instead moved on and found her feet. As of this afternoon, she officially has feet which she loves to wave around in the air and grab onto with a very smug look on her face.

If that wasn't enough, she also made a new friend named 'Snooshy'. She didn't actually name him of course, but that's what her little 'hand-combed Tibetan yak-down' friend is called for the moment. Complete with shorts and a hat and very edible feet, I suspect he will feature among her favourites for awhile.

BBQ on the 22nd Floor

Abi enjoyed her first 'American'-style BBQ cook-out last week. We joined friends at a colleague's newly renovated 22nd floor apartment. Sounds ridiculous, I'm know but I assure you that it works. So not only did we BBQ, but we did it on a small classic Weber charcoal grill recently 'imported' as checked baggage from the States.

Greg, our host, grilled a meat-tastic meal complete with pork ribs, rib-eye steak, chicken wings, legs and roast peppers. We thoroughly enjoyed ALL of it, especially the amazing view of the sun setting over the city of Shanghai behind us.

Fashionista in the Making

Abigail certainly has displayed a love of accessories. She can't quite stand the bright sunlight yet so we've started investing in 'shades' for her. And she is loving it.

For the record, the pink cat is not part of the ensemble (and it isn't eating her!)...that's just 'jelly cat', one of her current favourites.

Moganshan Lu

We took Abigail for her first real 'cultural' experience. We had a family outing to the arts district on Moganshan Lu along Suzhou Creek.

Basically, they've renovated a cluster of old warehouses and created artist studios and galleries. There are a lot of very good professional exhibitions alongside young artists selling their wares. As you would expect, there is some beautiful artwork and there are some real duds.

Regardless, Abigail seems to have enjoyed it and was a bit of an exhibition herself. She was a major draw along the way, making lots of new friends. Below is a perfect example of a time when I finally got Abigail to settle down and go to sleep, and some complete strangers wandered up and started playing with her. At least she's always entertained when we're out.

And she always enjoys bouncing along strapped to Daddy.

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