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

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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!