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!