Dufon Christmas

On Christmas afternoon we drove back up the the farm to celebrate Christmas and Bumpa's birthday. Nicole, Dale, Olivia and Buddy were already there. The next day, the Thompson's drove back from Arkansas and the Dufon's made the trek from Minneapolis. We had a lot of fun playing with the Thompson's big Christmas gift, Guitar Hero. Even Gigi was jamming on the guitar.

We were able to watch Josh's hockey game, go bowling, go ice skating.....lots of fun. On Friday, while we were bowling, a huge snowstorm started and left over 10 inches of snow. That was fun for the kids to go snowmobiling and play in the snow again.

It's amazing how fast everyone grows and it was great to be able to spend a few days of quality time with everyone.

Roessler Christmas

Back to to Kevin and Chrystal's to celebrate Christmas with the Roesslers. Pop Pop and Sophie flew in from Florida after lots of trouble. PopPop made it first but his luggage and Sophie went to Chicago. Poor Sophie, but she made it to Kevin's the next day. Weather played tricks with all the travelers. Grammy had to make an unfortunate last minute visit to Wisconsin due to the death of her brother, Mike. Her plane was delayed into Detroit due to fog and snow, but she finally made it. The kids were all excited to see Grammy.

We celebrated by going to Christmas Eve mass and then having dinner at home afterwards. We of course, stuffed ourselves with great snacks and food. Kirk passed out and didn't even have his dessert. The kids left cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer.

On Christmas day, we woke up and sure enough Santa Claus had come to the house and left a ton of presents. Alex was enamored with Ethan's big gift - Crash up cars. The kids all got Leap Frogs and loved those as well.

Dufon Farm

On Tuesday, we left to drive up north to the farm. We stopped in Grand Blanc and met up with Sarah Wenstrom and her mom Cyndi. It was great to see them.

The kids napped on the way up and were excited to get to the farm. We didn't have a lot of snow last year, so this is the first year the Elizabeth and Alex got to enjoy riding on the snowmobiles. They loved it. And of course, Alex had to have at least 30 minutes a day outside on his favorite swing. Bumpa and Gigi had built a snowman outside of the door to their house. He was a great greeter!

The kids were able to play with Jake, Josh, Alli, and Anna. Elizabeth had fun with the girls.

Home to Michigan for the Holidays

Okay, we've finally put up Christmas photos only about a month late. We took a lot of pictures during the holidays and hopefully you'll enjoy. We flew into the US on Dec 15th and the next day there was a huge snowstorm. The kids were able to go outside at Kevin's and play in the snow, it was great. Kirk took them on sled rides and after he threw Alex off a few times, Alex was in fear of sleds for the remainder of our trip. The kids had fun playing with Ethan, Nolan, and Tyra.

Elizabeth's School Christmas Program

Elizabeth's Christmas program was on Thursday, Dec 13. They sang Christmas, Christmas, Mary Had a Baby, Willie Bring Your Little Drum, and Pasko. Pasko is a Phillipino Christmas song taught by Elizabeth's teacher, Miss Alforte, who is from the Phillipines.

They all were so cute. See the photos and the videos. They all sang their little hearts out.

After the show, when we arrived home, Santa Claus had left presents for Elizabeth and Alex. These were the presents that he couldn't bring to the US. He must have came in through the window and Elizabeth found some of his suit that must have ripped. They were both very excited and had fun opening presents.

On Friday, I didn't send Alex to school because he would not leave the car garage that he got. He didn't leave that toy all day!

Pamela - Elizabeth's Chinese Teacher

Pamela is Elizabeth's Chinese tutor. Elizabeth really wants to be able to speak Chinese because she has several Chinese friends and it frustrates her when she cannot communicate with them. Pamela was recommended to me by my friend Sophia. She is a university student and teaches through play.

She comes to our house once per week. When she is here, they just play different games and sometimes flashcards. This past week it was balloons. Elizabeth is not fluent by any means, but she is starting to use more.

Alex Haircut

It was time for Alex's haircut again. I try to avoid this painful experience, so Kirk takes him. The hair salon behind our house now has a race car that he can sit in. Still took three people to hold him down and it wasn't very good haircut! Now his bed head sticks up everywhere.

Murder High School Whodunit Party

We were invited to our first "Murder Mystery Party". It had a 1980's theme so since we both grew up during that time, we thought it would be fun. We were emailed our characters about 2 weeks before the party and we couldn't tell anyone who we were. Kirk ended up being a football player in highschool, and went on to the NFL. Kath was a cheerleeder. Since neither of us had experience being either of those things in highschool, we had to use our imagination.

Once again, when Kirk decides to do something, he goes all out. I think the mullet speaks for itself. The really sad thing about me was that I really used to wear my hair that way! Check out the pant rolls on Kirk and our friend John. The music was like really awesome and there was some totally rad dancing at the end.

Turned out, neither of us were the murderer or the victim, but we still had a lot of fun.

Kirk & Cronley in Hong Kong

Cronley was in China this week and finished off his trip in Hong Kong. He was free Friday so I took a day trip to spend the day with him. Cronley gets to live the good life when he travels, he gets to stay in the nicest hotels in town. I stayed with him at the Shangri-La Island Hotel which is a very nice and expensive hotel.

We first went to the electronics market to see if there was any new cool gadgets worth buying. Our next stop was the Peak that overlooks Hong Kong. It is a great place to view the city on a clear day, unfortunately it wasn't very clear when we visited. We decided to buy a ticket to the wax museum and the peak lookout to allow us to go to the front of the long line. You will see some nice pictures of Cronley and myself with the celebrities of the world.

In the evening we went out to Lan Kwai Fong which is an area where there are a lot of Bars and Restaurants. We went to a couple of bars including an Irish Pub his brother had been to a couple of years ago. We then went to an Italian restaurant for dinner. To finish off the evening we went to an African Bar where they had live music. We didn't disappoint the crowd with our dancing capabilities. I think that we got back to the hotel sometime past 2 in the morning so it was a short night of sleep since we both had early planes to catch.

All in all we had a good time, but Cronley did need to get home as his wife Suzanne is due with their second child in two weeks. Maybe they will have a Christmas baby???

Elizabeth's Picture with Santa

We finally got around to scanning the picture Elizabeth took with Santa.

Alex & Elizabeth on the Slopes

I couldn't resist when I saw this. Here are Alex and Elizabeth snowboarding and skiing.

The Roessler's as Santa's Elves

Please click on this link to experience the Roessler's as Elves

We miss you Mama!

Mama, we hope you have a safe business trip in India! We miss you! Please come home soon. We love you!

Yes, I'm back in India for a follow up visit to my visit in September. Since I never finished my post then, I figured I'll update you on that visit here.

In September I wrote:

I hope I can copy from word into the blog. I thought I should take a few minutes while I had it to write about my thoughts of India.

Vineeta and just about everyone else said that when I got off the plane, it would smell. Well I guess if you are coming from the US, this would be true. Coming from Shanghai, the stinky capital of the world, I could smell nothing out of the ordinary.

We worked a lot this week and didn’t get much time to tour. It would take an hour to get to work, and some days two hours to get back to the hotel. There is so much traffic here. The roads are not the best, so this makes for many traffic jams.

I have eaten some really good Indian food. They talk about food in two ways, veg or non veg. Many people here are vegetarian or they honor their favorite gods by fasting and not eating meat. They, of course, never eat beef since the cow is sacred. They also do not eat pork. Chicken and lamb are the only meat they eat.

They love music and dancing. In fact, one evening, I watched a wedding procession in front of the hotel. They had a lot of singing and dancing and bright lights. I didn’t know it was a wedding procession at the time, but the next day, one of my hosts Rajiv explained it to me.

The Indian culture is very big on building relationships. This is a different mindset than most Americans have. We met with suppliers and customers and they both were very generous in offering tea, coffee, soda, water, and other munchies. It would be seen as rude if you didn’t have a cup of something while you were talking. I always went with the tea or chai. Many times our business discussion would only take 15 minutes of the hour and the rest was spent in just socializing over tea. Most of the people I met were well traveled and experienced in business.

Thank goodness I talked to a few people before I went with regards to attire. Although it is very hot this time of year, the Indian women dress conservatively. Not that I don’t already dress conservative, but I left all the sleeveless shirts at home. It was a strategy that worked well for me as I think I would’ve been uncomfortable.

We finished all our work on Friday so that Saturday before my flight we could tour. My other host, Rajesh, took me around Delhi. I would’ve like to travel to the Taj Mahal, but that is at least a 3-4 hour drive and timing wouldn’t allow it. I will definitely have to come back to check that out.

Rajesh took me to the Lotus Temple. The Lotus Temple is relatively new and is a place for all religions to worship. It is surrounded by beautiful gardens. You cannot wear shoes into the temple, so you must check them before you walk in. It is a place for calm and peace. No cell phones or cameras allowed. The floors are cool marble, a nice break from the heat outside. We walked around the temple and then sat for a few minutes to pray.

The next place we went was to the Incon (I need to check on this name) temple. This is a Hindi temple which is dedicated mainly to the Hindi god, Krishna. Again we had to remove our shoes. It was much smaller than Lotus Temple and was decorated with many paintings as well as statues. Here, there were a group of men chanting.

It was starting to get hot now and really humid. I guess I didn’t realize it during the week because we were in the office with air conditioning.

The final temple we went to Akshardham Temple. It was by far the most beautiful place I have ever been to. This is a Hindi temple that was recently build and it was the vision of a Hindu person, kind of like a really holy guy. I have to look this one up on the internet. Here, we couldn’t even take our phones and cameras into the facility. When you walk in, first you pass through security, then you walk down a pathway that is outside. You pass through an area that is surrounded by structures with water falling down and when the wind is blowing, you feel an awesome cool breeze. You can see perfectly manicured lawns and shrubs. Then you walk through a building where at the entrance the pillars have hand sculptured statues of Hindi god servants going up and down the pillar. This building houses a gold statue of the person whose vision it was to build. There is also history of what makes up the temple and how it was built.

After you pass through this building, you go back outside (in the sweltering sun) and walk down a wide sidewalk toward the temple. One thing I noticed is the perfect symmetry as you look at the temple. The gardens, the pattern on the wide sidewalk, the temple itself is perfectly symmetric. I like symmetry, so I thought this was especially beautiful.

Once again, we have to stop and take our shoes off and check them. Oh – you also have to wash your hands before you enter. Now the pavement is reaaaalllly hot! They have carpets that will shield some of the heat, but still hot.

The inside of this temple was all marble. Marble sculptures, marble floors, marble ceilings, just beautiful. We walked around, and had to be quiet the whole time.

http://www.akshardham.com/

You can paste this link into your browser to see pictures. It was breath taking. After this temple, we stopped for a road beer and went to do some shopping. We went to the department store that Ghandi founded and bought some wraps. We also bought some spices there including saffron.

I flew back that night and was glad to be home.

That was the end of the September trip. This trip is a quicker trip since it is hard for Kirk and the kids when I am out of town.

Mal is in town, so I'll get to see her, but I not sure how much shopping I'll get to do.

I really would like to see Taj Mahal, but it is about a 4 hour car ride so you really need a whole day to devote to that. I love India. I think it is an amazing country whose people are gracious and respectful and hard working. You definitely see a lot of poor people and the roads and infrastructure aren't good, but they are working on it. I think it will be a good trip to bring the kids when they are a bit older.

BTW - I really miss the kids too!!!! I miss Elizabeth waking me up and I miss watching Alex run everywhere as he doesn't know how to walk!

Dinner at the Paulaner

This past weekend, the Paulaner restaurant in the French Concession sponsered an event called, Christkindlmarket. This is a traditional European market, I think mostly German, French, Swiss, that they have in Europe during Christmas. Vendor set up their wares in small wooden huts and people can walk up and down very narrow aisles with mulled wine and purchase Christmas gifts.

We planned to meet San, Sophia, Oia, Chloe, and Bella Eng there. By the time we got there at 6 pm, there were lots of Christmas lights and Christmas spirit, including a Chinese Santa Claus that gave out candy. They made it there before we did and made dinner reservations for us at Paulaner. There are a few different Paulaner locations in Shanghai. This is by far the nicest as far as the ambiance and was decorated very nicely for Christmas.

Paulaner is a German restaurant, so Kirk ordered family style for us. A bunch of meat! Pork knuckle, sausages of all kind with sauerkraut, beef and good wheat beer. The kids of course goofed off together during dinner, especially Elizabeth and Oia. After dinner, we walked around outside for a bit more and let the kids burn off some energy.

While we were leaving the restaurant, Kirk was helping Sophia by holding Bella while she got the kids stuff together. When Sophia went to take her back, Bella refused to leave Kirk. San tried to take her as well, but she was drawn to Kirk. She is a sweet, smart little girl. She just turned one and she is walking and speaking in sentences. It's so funny to hear someone so small say "Wo yao niu nai" (I want milk) perfectly.

The picture on the swing is my favorite. From the left is Chloe (1 month younger than Alex), Oia (1 month younger that Elizabeth), Elizabeth and Alex. They all had a really good time together and were disappointed when it was time to leave.

Bella finally left Kirk! He definitely liked the attention from her.

Shanghai Christmas Tree

For those of you who know Kirk, you know that he can be incredibly creative and that when he gets an idea in his mind, he can't get it out until the idea is accomplished. So was the case of the Christmas tree. I think this was his outlet for all the home improvement projects that we no longer have to do.

It doesn't make sense for us to get a real Christmas tree since we will be coming to the US on the 15th. We can buy a fake tree, but we have no place to store it. So the next best thing is......green construction paper on the window!! It actually looks really good too. This was a Saturday afternoon project that Elizabeth got to help with, Alex was asleep. They both had fun and now we have a little bit of Christmas spirit to the place.

Elizabeth on the Monkey Bars

After the Santa visit and some shopping, Elizabeth wanted to show us her new talent of making it over the monkey bars all by herself.

Visit to Santa

Concordia had a Christmas bazaar and Santa Claus came to take pictures with the kids. Elizabeth had a great time with Santa and was in awe of him. Not so much the case with Alex. He was a really good Santa too, with a jolly Ho Ho Ho. Kirk's former assistant, Angela, was the elf taking pictures (sponsored by Kodak).

After seeing Santa, they went outside to draw pictures and make lists for Santa. See Elizabeth's below. Alex got brave at the end and while we were outside the room that Santa was in, he waved to him and said "Bye Bye Santa"! He is such a sweet little boy!

Elizabeth's Letter to Santa:

Dear Santa,

Please may I have
Paper dollies
Lipstick
Doll clothes
Polly Pockets
Coloring Books
Cars for Alex

Love, Elizabeth

Thanksgiving

Holidays away from family are always difficult. Especially when you cannot get the kind of food that you are used to having that your family makes. I especially miss Gigi's bread stuffing!

However there are options in Shanghai and this year on Thanksgiving day, we had Thanksgiving with a group of friends. We went to Cafe du Monde which is in the Thumb Plaza near our house. The owner, Robin, grew up in New Orleans and he serves authentic New Orleans and American food. We made reservations there since we knew his food was good.

We weren't disappointed. He had a buffet set up with two seatings, 5 and 7 p.m. We ate at 5 with Kim, Jeff, Orla and Ciara Young. Missy, Lucy, Allie Stevens joined us too as Luke was flying back from the US that day. The kids had more fun playing than eating and didn't appreciate the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, turkey, etc! But we were glad that they had kids to play with and talk with so that we could enjoy our dinner. They even had pumpkin and pecan pies.

The kids in the picture together from the left are Alex, Ciara, Orla, Allie, Elizabeh, and Lucy. You can see they enjoyed each other!

Chinese Clothes from Mr. Liu

Our driver, Mr. Liu, wanted to buy the kids traditional Chinese outfits from the fabric market. One day, we all went with him to a tailor at the market and he negotiated "Qipaos" (chee-powz) for Elizabeth and I, a suit for Alex, and a jacket for Kirk.

The tailor did a really good job and Elizabeth's dress fits her like a glove and is high quality. Alex's turned out good too, he just needed to adjust the pants length. He didn't even measure Alex. Since his work was good, I'm having a few other pcs of clothing made. Maybe I've found a good tailor???? That would be nice.

Lauren's Birthday Party

Elizabeth's classmate Lauren had her birthday party at Kids Gallery. Lauren is the blond girl next to Elizabeth. This is where Elizabeth takes an art class after school on Thursdays. This was a really nice party. They prepared a guitar out of cardboard boxes, tubes and rubber bands and the kids decorated them. Afterwards, they had pizza, goldfish and Fritos. A kid's dream lunch, as well as mine!

The guitar was a hit when she got to bring it home. Alex and Elizabeth both love to play with it. Might have to be a Santa gift!

Tennis Masters Cup - Shanghai

A friend from work encouraged us to go to the Masters Cup Tennis Tournament to see Andy Roddick (#5 in the world from USA) vs. Roger Federer (#1 in the world from Switzerland). It was a really good time even though Federer won the match 6-4, 6-2 in about 1 hour. It actually took us longer than that to get to the stadium! It was still worth the trip. It is one of those events they don't ever have in Detroit, so it was nice to be able to go.

Roger Federer pretty much was in control of the match the entire night. The most excitement on Roddick's side was when he made a mistake he got upset and put his foot through his tennis racket. He really didn't have a chance to win as Federer was playing a great game.

After the match we went downtown and went to dinner at Trader Vics which is a Polynesian international chain restaurant. The food was very good and we shared a Scorpion Bowl (like the ones we had Jimmy Lum's when we were at GMI).

Elizabeth's School Trip to Century Park

Next field trip was Elizabeth's. This year again, we visited Century Park for the preschooler's fall walk. There were four classrooms who boarded big buses from Concordia to Century Park.

We had a scavenger hunt sheet which listed a number of things for us to find such as something green, something orange, something living, something brown, something with wheels.....etc... The kids were very keen on collecting leaves during the start of the trip.

Elizabeth and Crystal caught up with their buddy Jacob B and stuck with him until we got to the fountain. We sat down at the fountain and had our snack until the show started. The fountain show was fantastic and the kids loved watching it. There were some bigger kids running through it, but thankfully the preschoolers all restrained themselves (with help from parents!).

After the fountain show, we had a ride on one of the park's carts. We all packed into four carts and were able to see the remainder of the park that way. The carts dropped us off near the exit and we sat down to do some bark coloring until the buses were ready for us to go.

Everyone enjoyed themselves and no one got hurt or lost, thank goodness!

Alex's School Field Trip

Alex had his first field trip today. Yes, here even the 2 1/2 year olds go on field trips. And this was no small field trip! The preschoolers and their parents/ayis boarded four large busses and rode from Victoria Kindergarten in Pudong across the Nanpu Bridge into Puxi.

Alex loved the bus ride. He was so excited about it. They gave us a sack lunch for the kids and he started working on the lunch during the bus ride. We stopped on the Bund and walked to the Bund Tourist Tunnel. There were about a million of us! Alex could barely hold his excitement when he saw the Tunnel cars. He had a hard time waiting in line, so I had to hold him.

We took the tunnel under the river back to Pudong and played on the Pudong side of the Bund for a while. Alex had a tantrum because I wouldn't buy him one of the cheap plastic toys. Nice. After that we got back on the bus and rode to the Lujiazui Park for lunch. This is the park that Kirk took Alex to. He had a lot of fun running around after we ate lunch. This is a really nice park.

We had to board the bus one last time to go to the Aquarium. He again enjoyed his time here. He even pointed out the rainbow fish as we had just painted one together the night before. He was the only kid who basically ran through the aquarium. We had 2 hours to go through it, but we made it through in 1. Since I had no coins for the toy rides at the end, I called Liu and he picked us up. I did buy Alex popcorn though!

He took a really good nap that afternoon. I think he is a fan of field trips!

Beyonce Concert in Shanghai

Beyonce came to Shanghai so of course I wanted to go. I love to run to her music and the kids and I dance to her music also. When I first read that she was coming, I asked Kirk to take me. He said no. He doesn't like that kind of music. I politely reminded him of the painful experience of watching Roger Waters, who by the way should be in a nursing home.

I asked around and my friend Kim said that she and some of her friends were going and that she would see if there was an extra ticket. Kirk was happy about being let off the hook. Until she called and said that there wasn't one. It didn't matter to me. I told her that I would by my own ticket and just go there with her group. It's not like you are talking at a concert anyway, just dancing!

Kirk felt bad about me having to sit by myself so he went with me :). I think he really liked it since he got to watch a gorgeous girl shake it and sing her heart out. It was a great concert! She sang most of her songs from her B'day album and had an all girl band that rocked.

Birthday Party & Fun at the Park

Elizabeth went to her classmate's birthday party, so Alex and I went to the park. He fed the fishes and played on the slides. This is Alex's best kind of day!

Halloween

We have fond memories of last year's Halloween and hauling around Alex because he wasn't walking. This year, he completely understood the whole Halloween concept and trooped around the apartment complex from door to door.

Elizabeth wore her Indian wedding flower girl outfit and was an Indian Princess. Alex borrowed Ethan's firefighter costume. We got so many complements on his outfit.

The kids got a lot of candy, but it wasn't the good US stuff. Thankfully I brought back a few bags from the US in October and was able to steal from those instead of their bags!

Location of our Home in Shanghai

View Larger Map

This is the location of our home in Google maps. You can see Century Park right in front of it. I think it's the best place to live in Shanghai!

You can activate the map above and search the area. If you go Northwest you will see how close we are to the downtown area where the Pearl Tower is.

Bella's Birthday Party

Bella Eng turned 1 year old this month. Bella is Oia and Chloe's little sister. They moved from Building 7 into a penthouse in a different complex. The party was a lot of fun and the kids had fun.

Wow, is all I could keep saying about Sophia and San's new house. They are on the 26th floor and have this amazing rooftop garden. It reminded me of the rooftop garden you see if you are watching Food network and one of Bobby Flay's shows.

Unfortunately, there are no pictures of Bella! Bad photographer that I am!

Kirk's Visit to Chongqing

Recently I had to make several trips to Chongqing to visit our new joint venture company DuraMinth. They are currently making door frames for the Ford Focus that is sold in China. The picture above was taken at an overlook point of the downtown area of Chongqing. In the picture are myself and the CEO of Dura, Larry Denton along with a group of people from Minth.

Chongqing is a very interesting city as that is growing very fast. The metropolitan area is the largest in the world. There are 30 million people that live there. Most of the people live outside the city in Chongqing where in Shanghai most of the 18 million people live in the city. Also, Chongqing is still very Chinese where Shanghai has much more Western influence. Pretty soon you will be more familiar with this city like you are with Shanghai and Beijing.

Alex's New School Outfit

Alex is required to wear a uniform to his nursery school on Monday through Thursdays. This is a picture of his fall/winter uniform. He is going to hate us when he is 16 and we show his friends these pictures. He looks like he just flew in from 1950. I remember having a board game when we grew up. Something about who you would date. The nerdy guy was Poindexter. Yes, this is what Poindexter looked like in the board game.

I actually love him in this uniform, I think he looks soooo cute. It is actually much better than the summer white outfit with the girl collar!

Zhou Zhuang Water Town

I'll preface this entry with a couple statements:

1. Don't ever drive to a water town on a weekend in Shanghai.
2. If you've seen one water town, you've seen them all.

That's probably not a great spirit to have and I'm sure there are plenty of reasons to see all of the different local villages. We decided to take Mal to visit one of the local water towns that show traditional Chinese life. There are many small towns that sit on water and they are called the Chinese Venice's. One of them, not sure which, was used for filming Mission Impossible III.

We also invited a colleague of Kirk's to join us since he was still in town. Neil DeKoker joined us in our journey. So we took off from Shanghai around noon and reached the water town about 1.5 hours later. The kids were good in the car. That is where the "good kids" part ends.

We walked into the city and there are a lot of small alleyways leading to a where the water was. There were a lot of people today since the weather was nice. We walked over some bridges and walked along the water canal.

It was lunchtime and we decided that we should get something to eat. This is the season for Hairy Crabs so we looked for a restaurant that had them. Now there are many restaurants here, but they are basically the size of your dining room and you are not sure which one serves good food. You typically look for the busy ones. However, not one of them alone seemed that busy. We just picked one and hoped we'd get lucky. The food was okay. The kids were bad. They didn't want to sit still. Elizabeth had to go potty twice and it was a 10 minute walk to and from the nearest toilet. I had no control. Kind of embarrasing when a work colleague is with you. Thank goodness Neil has grandkids and understood. Or at least he didn't voice his opinion!!!

After lunch, we took a boat ride. This was really nice. The "captain" of the boat sang songs for us and gave us a good ride. It was short but good for us to see the canals and bridges.

After the ride, we shopped for a bit and then decided to head back. We got stuck in traffic in Shanghai on the way home. A 1.5 hour trip took 3 hours! Elizabeth had to go potty but there was no where to stop. As soon as we got into the city, Liu found an exit and we went to a hotel, she was relieved!

I think that is our last water town trip!

Mal Visit

Mal

When we returned from the wedding, Elizabeth's new BFF, Malini Goel, came to Shanghai and stayed with us for the weekend. Mal was here for the Shanghai Toy Fair which was at the convention center just behind our house. It was great have a visitor from the US and we had fun talking about the wedding we had just been to. Mal was one of Vineeta's bridesmaids and a very old friend of Vineeta.

You can see that Mal and Elizabeth had a lot of fun playing. We picked her up from school on Friday and Elizabeth was so surprised! Mal and I had fun catching up as well since it has been a long time since we'd seen each other. I think Elizabeth exhausted Mal!

Lunch with the Dufon Family at Frankenmuth

The last part of our visit to the States was a visit with my family. Nicole and Dale had already planned to be in Michigan that weekend for the MSU homecoming game. Since I didn't get to go to Frankenmuth, my favorite, during the summer and I knew we wouldn't have time to go at Christmas, we all met here. Dale, Nicole, Olivia, Dale's parents, my Mom and Dad, Suzanne, Collin, Jake, Alli, Anna Marie, (Josh was playing hockey), Collin's brother in law, Nick and he and Kandy's daugters - Makayla and Madison all came. WOW - what a huge crowd!

Elizabeth had a lot of fun with all her cousins. All the kids sat at one end of the table and all the adults at the other. Who knows what they ate because the girls made about 10 trips to the bathroom! Linda Lee, the accordian player, came to the table and played a round of songs for the kids to sing along and dance to. The food was great of course. Especially the ice cream at the end! Look how many the dude had to bring! I love that place and always have.

Elizabeth, Bumpa, and Gigi and I walked around the little mall afterwards to walk off a little of our food. Elizabeth passed out in the car on the way home!

Kirk & Alex Trip to Aquarium + Downtown Tour

While Kathryn and Elizabeth were in Michigan for Vineeta's wedding, Alex and I spent our Sunday together in Shanghai. We started our day off by taking the subway to the downtown area of Pudong. We went to lunch at Hooters. Isn't this what guys do when the girls are away?

We then went to the Shanghai Aquarium. It is a really nice aquarium. We took the stroller, but Alex wanted to be out to run around so he could see all of the sealife up close. Probably the most interesting things we saw were the jellyfish and the scubadivers feeding the sharks. They had a tube where you walked under the water. It was really cool. At the end of the aquarium tour they had an arcade where there were several car rides. Alex had to try all of them out. On our way out we bought some popcorn as Alex needed a snack.

We then went on a bus tour (with an open top) of the Pudong downtown area (called Luijiazui Area) so we could get a good view of all of the tall buildings. It was a very clear day so we were able to get some very good pictures of the Pearl Tower, Jin Mao Building and the New Financial Tower they are building. It was nice on the bus as they had a waitress that served you drinks and snacks during the tour.

After the tour we walked through the Lujiazui Park. It is a really nice park, but much smaller than Century Park across from our house. It was also a good place to take puctures of the tall buildings. Alex wanted to ride the golf carts that you could rent, but he was getting tired so we needed to get home. We can do that next time.

Vineeta's Wedding (Michigan)

The reason that Elizabeth and I went to Michigan in October was to attend our friend Vineeta's wedding. Vineeta has been my friend for about 17 years. We went to GMI together. She was a year ahead of me and was my big sister in the sorority. She has been a wonderful friend to all of us. I hold her responsible for my kids because she was instrumental in me seeing what a great guy Kirk was. She set us up on our first date and held both Elizabeth and Alex in the hospital on the day they were born!

When she sent me the email to let me know about the wedding, I knew that I couldn't miss it! What a happy occasion to be a part of! She asked Elizabeth to be a flower girl. I knew that Elizabeth would get a lot out if since it was going to be a traditional Indian Hindu wedding celebration.

Indians know how to have a good time! On Thursday, we went to the Henna ceremony. I'm sorry I forgot the Indian name. This was held at her parent's house in Troy. There was a lot of food, music and dancing all while Vineeta was getting her feet, calves, hands and forearms painted. You can see the beautiful detail in the pictures. We met so many wonderful friends of the family who traveled from near and far. We got to meet Rahul's (Vineeta's brother) son Sebastian and Maria. We got to meet Praveen, who is wonderful. Praveen's (Vineeta's fiance) father took a liking to Elizabeth, he is holding her in the pictures.

On Friday, we attended the Sangeet. This is like a bridal shower but everyone attends, men and women. It was just like another wedding reception with lots of food, music, and dancing. We met more people and caught up with Vineeta's friend Malini. Elizabeth loved Malini and always wanted to be around her. Elizabeth passed out in the car on the way home from all the dancing she did.

On Saturday, we attended the wedding. Elizabeth and Vineeta's cousin Diya were the flower girls and both did an outstanding job. You can see the video and how nice they walked down the aisle. Vineeta was stunning! The ceremony was very nice. We also caught up with Chris, Sherry, Maddie, and Olivia House. They are living in the Chicago area now. The girls all had a lot of fun dancing together.

I am so glad we were able to meet so many of Vineeta and Praveen's family and friends. They have a lot of friends who love them very much! Elizabeth and I both had a ball!

Cider Mill (Michigan)

Elizabeth and I made a quick trip to Michigan to attend a friend's wedding in Detroit. You'll see info about that in the next post. While we were there, we stayed with Kevin and Chrystal. Grammy flew in to see Elizabeth. We had the opportunity to go to Blake's Cider Mill.

Chrystal, Ethan, Nolan, Grammy, Elizabeth and I visited the cider mill on Saturday afternoon. It was a beautiful sunny day, a little brisk, enough to want to wear a hat. I forgot how much I love fall. The crisp smell of the air, the beautiful colored trees and listening to Michigan football on the radio. There were a lot of people at the cider mill too!

There were all kinds of activities to keep us busy. The kids played in a Pumpkin shaped bounce house. Then we walked to see the animals. Then we went to the barn where there was musical story telling by robotic animals, very cute. The corn field maze was next and we almost got lost a few times. Then the kids ran around on some of the toys, you can see the pictures. A train ride was next. This was a lot of fun going through the apple tree orchards and seeing all of the different kind of apples. The farm also had a u-pick area where people were picking the last harvest of all types of fresh vegetables. We also saw the raspberry bushes! Oh how we all miss walking into our backyard and picking fresh raspberries.

The kids started getting antsy and we knew it was time to move on. We made it to the last stop....fresh cider and donuts. We bought a gallon and a dozen cider donuts and went home to eat them. Wow! They tasted so good. You take for granted those things when you have them all the time. You really appreciate them when they are not accessible. I have never seen apple cider here in China.

We would have like to bought a pumpkin and brought it back to China to carve, but they don't let you do that! We can buy pumpkins here, but they are not bright orange, so it doesn't seem the same.

Great visit with family!

Fireworks Party

The day after we got home from Phuket, we had a party to watch the last fireworks display over Century Park. For those of you who remember, we arrived here this same week last year and there were a ton of fireworks. Same thing this year, only we wanted to share our awesome view with others. So our new friend's, the Steven's came overs as well. Rob, Stacy, and Roman Eckstein came and brought along John and Jenny Absmeier (John works for Delphi). Cindy and Fred also came so for those of you who have been to the apartment, you know this makes for a house full. We all had a lot of fun and the kids all had a ball playing together. I think we'll be able to even handle a few more people next time!

Phuket Thailand

The first week of October is the National Holiday. In 1949, the current government of China took control and this is the week they celebrate. Schools and offices are closed for the week and there are mass exodus' in and out of Shanghai.



We decided to go to Phuket, Thailand to spend the week at the beach. The travel agent failed to tell us that it was typical to have rain in Thailand in October! We had heavy rains for 3 days out of the 6 we spent there. It didn't really matter though, we all had fun still. We stayed at the Sheraton Grande Laguna. I wouldn't recommend it. The service was not that great and it was over priced. The pools were nice. It had a pool with a sandy shore that Alex loved to play in.

Every morning, we went to breakfast, and they had 2 elephants for all the kids to pet/ride. There was a mama elephant and a baby elephant. Our kids loved to feed them and pet them, but didn't want to ride them.

One day, we rented bikes and rode around the complex. There a few different resorts with many villa type houses. We stopped at the Banyan Tree resort. Too nice to take kids there! We stopped at a beach and jumped in waves. It was a lot of fun.

There was a strong undertow in the Andaman Sea at the beach where we were, so there was no swimming in the sea. There was a lot of wave jumping though. A couple times, Alex and Elizabeth were almost swept out to sea. Okay that is a little exageration, but they were big, strong waves.

Everywhere we walked around the resort, Elizabeth would see little girls with braids and beads in her hair. Soooo......introducing the next Bo Derek. It is almost one week later and she still has the braids in!

During the end of the trip, we made friends with a nice family who happen to live about 10 minutes from us and their oldest daughter is in kindergarten at Concordia. Luke, Missy, Lucy, and Allie Stevens are from Minnesota and just moved to Shanghai in July. Elizabeth had a ball playing with the girls and was sad that they had to leave one day before we did.

We didn't love Phuket, but I suppose the weather didn't help it. Probably if we went in February, we would have felt differently.

Enjoy the photos and videos!

Alex Singing

Mid Autumn Festival

Most Chinese festivals are wrapped in a combination of history and legend, and the Mid-Autumn Festival is no exception.



Chang O
The Mid-Autumn Festival is linked to the ancient fable of the beautiful Chang O, wife of the Divine Archer. The tale is told of how she took a magical pill from her husband and suddenly began floating into the air all the way to the moon! She remains there to this day, and on the full moon of the eighth lunar month, her beauty casts a silvery glow upon the earth!


Moon Cake
During the Mid-Autumn Festival people eat sweet tasting cakes called moon cakes made of ground lotus and sesame seed paste, egg yolk and other ingredients. Moon cakes symbolise the gathering of friends and family and are an indispensable part of the Mid-Autumn festivities. Moon cakes are also associated with the overthrow of the Mongol invaders in the 14th century. The story goes that Chinese revolutionaries planned to revolt against the government on the fifteenth day of the eighth month. This message was passed around hidden in moon cakes amongst the people who subsequently rose up and overthrew the oppressive tyrant.

We ate many mooncakes that day. We even had Ice cream mooncakes from Haagen Daaz. They were delicious!

Shanghai Insect Museum

We had a free Sunday afternoon, so we decided to visit a new tourist spot with the kids. We decided on the Shanghai Insect Museum. Not Mom's favorite place! It was a little creepy and not as nice as other museums we've been to. The kids were very entertained by snakes, bugs, and other vermin. I don't think we'll have a return visit anytime soon.

First Chinese Wedding (Angela's)

Kirk and I went to our first Chinese Wedding reception. It was for his old administrative assistant, Angela Feng. Angela helped us transistion from the US to China and always went out of her way to help us. She is a great lady.

She looked beautiful and her husband, Zhou (Joe) is very nice. She also had a crazy drunk uncle there. Isn't there always a crazy drunk uncle at weddings!

Typhoon Wipha

Okay, this is a late post! Work and schools shut down in anticipation of Typhoon Wipha on 9/19. However, this typhoon turned out to be just as hyped up as a Michigan blizzard. The wind blew a little and it rained, but nothing severe and nothing more than a normal spring or fall day.


Then on Sunday, Oct 8, Typhoon Krosa hit. This brought some serious wind and rain. Sheets of rain fell starting at night and continued until the next day. We all went to work and school. After school, the kids and I went to a friend's house to play. We had to hold hands to avoid being blown away! We laughed all the way there and back.

Word Financial Tower Structure Complete

Here is an article from the local English newspaper about the new Financial Tower that we can see from our apartment...

Mainland's tallest is topped off by -- HUNDREDS of people gathered on the ground yesterday morning in Pudong as a steel girder embedded with golden bolts hung 492 meters above them.

When the girder was swung into place it marked a major milestone in...

Here is the view of the building before the last piece was put in...

Here is how it compares to the other tallest buildings in the world...

Click above for a larger view

Day #6 on our own

We are in the home stretch. Kath comes home tomorrow. The last couple of days have been a little more difficult as I had to be at GM all day and into the evening Wed - Fri. Xiao Ju has been a big help over the week.

We kept Alex home from school on Friday as he had a temperature when he woke up. He was fine after we gave him some Tylenol. Both kids have had runny noses all week. Xiao Ju won't let them have cold drinks or ice cream or even have the air conditioning on as this will not let them get better.

Elizabeth had a day off from school. They both had fun with Xiao Ju. Xiao Ju taught Elizabeth how to write some Chinese Characters and they did art projects.

We are just hanging out today, it looks like it is going to rain so hopefully we can get outside.

1st day in India

Okay, I feel better knowing that Kirk is handling everything on his own. Elizabeth and I were pretty weepy when I left.

So now I'm staying in Delhi, India. The Delphi office is in a town called Gurgaon. It is a growing industrial area.

You cannot believe this place. It reminds me a lot of China, specifically Wuhan, 8 years ago. A lot of bikes and no separation between the bike lanes and car lanes. Traffic is crazy. Except in China there are no cows walking in the street. People told me this, but you cannot believe it until you see it.

We were busy today visiting with suppliers and meeting the India team. They are all very hospitable and proud of their organizations.

I'm excited to be here. The food is great. I had my favorite, chana masala, today and learned a lot about it's origin in Northern India.

Long days this week, but I'll try to write again.

Day #2 on our own

Here is a picture Elizabeth drew yesterday if we were a Mermaid family. You can tell Alex and have very nice Mer-man outfits. Surprisingly we are surviving without Kath. This morning was a challenge getting the kids ready for school. Once we got going it was no big deal.

I picked up Elizabeth from ballet this afternoon and she wasn't being the best ballerina. She was goofing off with Crystal and Ms. Li had to separate them. Once we returned home we all went to Century Park again and played soccer. Elizabeth scored a lot of goals on me and I could not score on her. Alex didn't get the concept of scoring goals. Maybe next time. We then walked through the wildflowers and came home and ate dinner. Xiao Ju helped get the kids baths and we were able to get them to bed on time. I have to be to work early tomorrow so we have to get an earlier start tomorrow.

Kirk & Kids Home Alone

Kath had to make a trip to India to meet with her team members there. This left Kirk alone with the kids for the week. We had an eventful first day. We went to Century Park for a picnic and to play. We had our picnic in the shade near one of the ponds. We then went to an open area to play soccer then we spent some time in the sand at the small beach they have. Alex didn't want to leave. He had sand all over him if you can believe it. We then played some more soccer and Alex and Elizabeth rolled down a hill. I cooled them off by pouring water on them. Lastly we went on the Bee Ride at the park and Elizabeth went on the Bounce House while Alex went down the slides.

We came back to the apartment and took naps. Then later we made dinner. Elizabeth helped make Chicken Noodle Soup. She had a craving for it. After dinner we had dessert then it was tubby time as the kids were dirty.

Elizabeth and Alex hope their Mom has safe travels and they want her to come home soon!

Big Explosion

The construction company blew up something in the basement of the building they are constructing behind our building. It was really loud! A bunch of smoke and dust was in the air for a while.

Alex's School Uniform

Alex must wear a school uniform to school every day. The golf shirt is the nice one. He also has a long shirt with a round collar. It doesn't look too manly. We will get a picture of that one when he has worn out this uniform.

Getting Blog up to Date

All of the Pictures and Videos are Loaded. Kath is currently working on writing the notes to go along with them. Keep checking back for updates.

Okay, Okay, I finally took some time to sit down and write. According to Kirk, I am not writing enough detail so I have to work on that. Whatever! You can see by the Simpson's picture what he does in his free time, nerd :)

Thank You Aunt Gretchen!

Pop Pop brought presents from Aunt Gretchen this summer. You can see the beautiful quilts she made for Alex and Elizbeth. Eliazabeth got a dancing quilt and Alex got a Thomas quilt. Alex asks for his every night now before he goes to bed.

Thank you!

Happy 40th Anniversary Mom & Dad (Roessler)

Grammy and Pop Pop celebrated their 40th anniversary in August. Elizabeth painted a picture of them. Congratulations.

Century Park & Downtown

We now have a yearly pass to enter Century Park. We have a card that will let us in at 5:00 am and we can enter into the gate by our house. It makes it so much more convenient to get into the park that we have gone about 4 times per week now. It's amazing, it doesn't smell of pollution in the park at all.

We also made a trip downtown to Elizabeth's favorite restaurant and a walk on the Bund. Camera guy went crazy again.

Roessler Family Simpsonized

Here is our family Simpsonized. You can do it yourself at www.simpsonizeme.com. You have to upload a picture of yourself and then you can make modifications if necessary. Elizabeth came out Yellow (like Lisa from the Simpsons) the first time so we made some modifications. She also insisted to have blond hair.

Alex's First Day of School

Alex has also started school. He is going to the Victoria Kindergarten just outside of our complex. Same school where we went to Bee Bee Playland, the parent tot class. The first two weeks, I went with him to help transition. He has two Chinese speaking teachers, Clare (Li Laoshi) and Sarah (Tian Jin Laoshi). He has one English speaking teacher, Judy, from New Zealand. Judy has 30 years experience teaching 2-6 year olds so I am happy about that! She'll be able to help get him out of the terrible twos!

He likes it......part of it....He likes the playing but doesn't like it when he has to sit still! The Chinese lessons usually take about 10 minutes to explain and then they get to do the activity which takes about 2 minutes!!!! Just a different style of teaching.

His friends, Ciara Young and Orla Surlis are in his class, so that helps him. I left him alone on Thursday and he did fine.

I am picking him up after lunch because he is disruptive in the nap room. In a few months, I think he will see all of his other friends sleeping and will join them. Until then, he is most comfortable coming home and sleeping in his own bed.

I am sure to have more stories about him and school in the future.

Mickey Mouse Magic Show

The Mickey Mouse Magic Show came to town to the Grand Theatre. We took the kids, Kirk thought Elizabeth would really enjoy it. True enough, she did. However, it was in Chinese. If you think Donald Duck's voice speaking in English is annoying, you should try listening to it in Chinese!!

Alex couldn't sit still so gladly I took him into the hallway so that he could walk around. He did like dancing to the music.

Afterwards, we found a new restaurant called the Naked Cow and had the best flank steak ever there. We ended our day at the new Coldstone Creamery in Raffles City. There were about a million people there. Turns out, it was the equivalent of Chinese Valentines Day. Kirk has vowed never to return to Puxi on the weekend!

Panorama Pictures from our Apartment

Back (View of Large Homes & Construction)

Front (View of Century Park & Shanghai Skyline)

Kirk found a program on the Internet that allows you to take multiple pictures and stitch them together. It worked really well for getting a panoramic view out the front and back of our apartment. You can click on the pictures above to make them larger.

Kirk had some free time on his hands and took some panoramic pictures. I truly think we live in the best place with the most awesome views of the city.

Elizabeth's 1st Day of School

Elizabeth was so excited to be going back to school. She is a Ladybug again in Mrs. Chiu's room. She has a new teacher as well since Mrs Round went back to the US. Miss Alforte was in the Frogs room last year. She is very nice and Elizabeth likes her as well.

http://concordia.ciss.com.cn/concordnet/


This link is to her school website. You can go to the Preschool area to see photos throughout the year.

The user name is ciss\parents and the password is children.

Back in Shanghai

We made it back home to Shanghai after a long flight through Minneapolis and Tokyo. It was a painful trip as Alex is such a terrible two year old now. The pain of the trip is still fresh enough in my mind not to want to come back for Christmas. Hopefully Alex will have matured, or I will have found a drug to knock him out with!

Here you can see the new Financial building that is being built. You can see the hole at the top is starting to develop.

Elizabeth got to see her buddy Oia again. Here they are getting ready for their weddings. They don't look that excited do they? They will both make beautiful brides when they grow up.

Crystal Mountain Trip

The next part of our trip was to Northern Michigan just south of Traverse City. We stayed at Crystal Mountain Resort. This is a golf resort in the summer and a ski resort in the winter. It is a family owned resort but is really growing. Kirk's co worker (and BFF) Dave has a place there and highly recommended it.

We rented a house that was on the 17th hole of the Betsie Valley course. It was a short drive to the pool area. The pool was great for small children, it had a small slide and water guns, and lily pads to go over. It was a zero depth pool on one side so it was perfect for our kids.

Kevin, Chrystal, Ethan, and Nolan and Grammy, Pop Pop, and Sophie came with us. We had a lot of fun just hanging out and swimming everyday. Ethan loved golfing. That guy has some serious natural athletic ability! Kirk and I took Elizabeth one night for a chairlift ride. She loved it. Too bad it didn't run everynight.

We drove to Bumpa and Gigi's on Saturday for the Fountain 125th birthday. There was a parade in town and Gigi drove her Cadillac and Bumpa drove his tractor. Elizabeth joined in the party in the Cadillac. It was actually a really big parade! After the parade we had a cook out at the farm and Alex got to go for another round of golf cart rides.

We ended our trip with a visit to Traverse City. I know it is commercialized now, but I love going there. We took pictures on the beach. Alex just wanted to play in the sand so it was difficult to get good pictures.

We will have to try it out during the winter time when the kids get older and have a try at the ski hills.

Mall of America

On our way back to the Minneapolis airport, we had a little time to kill. Kim suggested that the aquarium at the Mall of America would be fun. Indeed it was! We really enjoyed our time at the aquarium and even got to pet some baby stingrays. Okay........ that was a little gross.

When we were done walking through the aquarium, we went to the amusment park and Legoland. Alex loved building the cars out of Legos and racing them down the track. After lunch, the kids and Kirk went on some rides. They rode the Semi Truck ride and loved it. After that they went on the Carousel. The only thing that would've made the trip more complete was if we had the time to get Dippin Dots (I looove those!)

Natalie's Baptism/Trip to Dufon's in Minnesota

Our next blessed event was going to meet Natalie Grace Dufon and attending her baptism.

We flew to Minneapolis from Flint. The Slivinski's, Thompsons's, and Bumpa and Gigi also came. Instead of our yearly camping trip at the farm, we had it at Steve and Kim's.

They borrowed a bounce house from their friends for the whole weekend. Not only did the little kids like it, but the big kids and "bigger kids" did too. Even Bumpa and Gigi jumped on it! That was a blast!

On Saturday, we walked down the street and went into the river. We played in the water and then floated down in tubes to where Steve's house is. Elizabeth thought that was pretty cool. That night we had a great barbecue and we celebrated Anna Marie's 7th birthday with cake and ice cream. Saturday included lots of tennis games, jumping matches in the bounce house and card games.

Sunday was the baptism. It was a very nice ceremony during Mass. I was blessed to be Natalie's Godmother and Dale is her Godfather. You can see how sweet Natalie is from her pictures and how much her brother and sister love her.

After the baptism, we took some family pictures. You can see how big all the kids are getting.

It was a great weekend and a lot of fun to all be together. Thanks for hosting Dufon's!

Visit to the Park

We had to spend the morning at Dr. Politis' getting 4yr old and 2 yr old checkups. They are both on track. However, they both had to have shots! Fortunately to take their mind off of the pain, Aunt Chrystal invited us to picnic with them at Firefighter's Park in Troy.

This is a really nice park that Chrystal takes the boys to and meets Kevin for lunch sometimes. The only problem was that there was a considerable amount of dirt on the ground since there were a lot of trees and the grass in some spots couldn't grow.

Of course, Alex is naturally drawn to dirt. We think he will definitely be either a farmer or an archaeolgist when he grows up. You can see from the pictures, he was covered in dirt shortly after we arrived. He and Ethan also had much fun playing on the structure.

Wisconsin Visitors

A trip to the US wouldn't be complete without seeing the Wisconsin gang. Jill, Jan, Amy, and Kelly graciously made the drive to Michigan to spend the weekend with us. We had a lot of fun basically just goofing off!

Police Concert

The Police reunited for a tour and it just so happened that they made a stop in Detroit while we were in town. A few years ago, Kirk took me to see Sting in Detroit and we got lucky and got front row seats. Since we've seen him once in the front row, we had to do it again.

The concert was great! They played all of the great Police tunes. A lot of 40-50 something year old women were screaming!!! See the video attached.

Elizabeth's 1st Trip to the Dentist

Today Elizabeth went to the dentist for her first cleaning. She went with me last year to watch me get my teeth cleaned, but I don't think she remembered that. She was SOOOO good! I had an appointment too.

They took xrays on her teeth and then we went into the cleaning room. She listened to the hygienist talk about what was going to happen. My hygienist then came into the room and said that she was ready for me. I asked Elizabeth if she needed me with her for her cleaning and she said no. I was two cubicles away and heard everything. She did great and never cried once.

No cavities (for either of us!).

After the dentist, we visited our old neighborhood and our neighbors, the Bruett's. Elizabeth was curious about our old house, she remembered it.

Allison and Nicholas both grew a lot over the year. We had a great time visiting. Allison gave Elizabeth a manicure and pedicure and of course she loved it. Scott and Cindy were both there and it was good to catch up with them. Unfortunately, this is the only time we had to spend with them as our time got too busy.

We'll look forward to seeing them again next year!