Christchurch, New Zealand

Dunedin, New Zealand

Fiordland, New Zealand

Sea Days to New Zealand

Hobart (Tasmania), Australia

Melbourne, Australia

Sydney, Australia

Australia & New Zealand Vacation

The next several posts are pictures of our 2010 Christmas holiday. We decided to take a 2 week cruise around Australia and New Zealand. We went with two other families - the Tavernas and the Gaylords. This was an incredible experience for us. We cruised on the Diamond Princess and have really good memories from the trip.

Christmas in Shanghai

We celebrated an early "cyber" Christmas with many of our relatives. Thanks to all for sending packages and meeting up with us online.

Alex - Christmas Concert

Elizabeth - Christmas Concert

Christmas Cookies/Gingerbread House

We decorated cookies and Elizabeth made a gingerbread house with her friend Kaylee.

Christmas Picture

December weather was beautiful and we were able to get some great pictures of the kids.

Christmas Kindl - Paulandar

One of our Christmas traditions in Shanghai is to go to the Christkindl market at the Fengyang Paulaner for dinner and shopping. A big group joined us this year including the Hayes, Gaylords, Kellermans, Stevens, Morses, and Uhls. The kids have a great time playing together.

Elizabeth - Gymnastic Competition

Elizabeth participated in her first gymnastics competition. She did really well and had fun. She received a medal but didn't place at all. I was really proud of her and how she handled herself during and after the competition.

Thanksgiving Dinner

We celebrated Thanksgiving at Mark and Kim Gaylord's house. We also celebrated Rohin Hayes birthday that day. Several families were there, Rocketts, Tavernas, Kellermans, Kim's cousin and my friend TJ also came. These are our family away from family and we had a great time.

Tennis

Wow, love the action shots, right? They took up tennis this year. Not sure if we'll do it again in the spring but I think they had fun.

Alex - Organic Farm

Alex's class had a field trip to a local organic farm. Hey Gigi and Bumpa - you were waaayyy ahead of your time back then!!!

The big hit were the bunnies, the bug catcher and filling up the dirt pots. It was a really nice field trip, you can see that Alex got to pick his own vegetables.

Halloween

Halloween is becoming a big holiday in China. At least in our neighborhood in Shanghai anyway. We went to Vizcaya on Saturday night and Green Villas on Sunday night and the kids had a great time. I've figured out how to make comments on the pics, so it's self explanatory.

World Expo - OMD

We decided to take Elizabeth to the Expo since it was coming to an end and both Kirk and Elizabeth had not been yet. I visited it back in May when Jeri visited and I was less than impressed.

We saw in the city entertainment magazine that OMD was going to play a concert there on a Saturday night, so we decided to go that day. The weather was really nice, should be a good time. If you remember, OMD was a band from the 80's that played the song from Pretty in Pink called If You Leave.

Well that day turned out to be one of the most populated days at the Expo - 1,000,000 visitors that. Oh boy.

OMD was good, they only played about 4 songs, but we had fun!

Bali

Bali, once again, was a blast. The Tavernas and Gaylords joined us. We stayed at the same resort as we had in the past, but a different villa. This villa had a great outside upstairs room and we pretty much hung out here the whole time. Daily foot massages were on the menu. We also did venture out and went to a water park called Water Bom. Tons of fun.

Jin An & Jade Budha Temple

We had a day off of work while the kids still had school, so we took some time to explore places we had not yet seen. We took Martin and Charu Hayes with us since they just moved here. We started at breakfast at a place that was written up in City Weekend about for it's great pancakes. It was pretty good. Then we went to the JingAn temple and the Jade Buddha temple. I really liked the Jade Buddha temple, there was such a sense of calm. You can't see photos of her because we couldn't take photographs.

After, we walked across the way to the Marks and Spencer to pick up a birthday present and ended our day at the Krispy Kreme, yum.

Alex Learning to Ride a Two-Wheeler

Alex is officially riding a two wheeler on his own now. In true Alex form, he did not want to learn how to ride it, complained about having to go out and try the whole time, but quickly became a pro. He was bribed a bit by Kirk who told him that if he rode around our neighborhood four times by himself, he could get Battling Bugs. Now we have to find them!! He is confident enough now that he rides to school!

Pot-Luck Luck with Alex's Class

Pot luck day with Alex's class. He asked both Kirk and I to come. He asked me to make Cheese Quesadillas. He was so proud to show us around his classroom. His class's name is the Angel Bunnies.

Day at Century Park

A field trip to Century Park is always fun. This day, the kids didn't have school but the teachers did so Joe, Missy, and I and our ayi's took the kids and had a picnic and played a little football. Great fun.

Alex in school

I need to get back to blogging the way I originally meant it to be.....to share short stories about our adventures in China. Lately, it's just been catching up on posting pictures, which I'm not so good about.

But I have a good Alex story that needs to be documented.....

Keri Taverna is the teacher in the room next to Alex's and she has frequent interaction with him. She is my running partner (and a few other things) and she told me a story about him during one of our morning runs.

Alex was pushed by another student in class and this upset Alex. He got his feelings hurt. He was pushed by another boy because Alex was leaning over the boy to try and kiss a girl. Mrs Taverna talked to both boys and made them apologize to each other. Nice..... Keri wouldn't divulge names, she keeps school at school and home at home.

I asked Alex how his day was and if he got in any trouble. Of course, he told me. I told him that I heard he was trying to kiss a girl. He gave me his sweet little smile and said, "yesssss....". I asked him who the girl was and he told me it was Danah. Danah is a pretty little girl that was in his preschool class last year. Turns out he wants to marry her. But also Roshan (another boy in class) wants to marry her. But Alex thinks she is going to marry Lucas (another one of Alex's friends.

Really? 5 year olds?

But then I remembered Elizabeth's friend Ben Pigott and how he wanted to marry her. Must be a phase.

So now every morning, I give Alex a special kiss and tell him that he's not allowed to kiss girls "in school". :)

First Day of School

Back at school!

Roessler World Cup

Kirk bought all the kids World Cup soccer outfits and they had a match at a local soccer field. Not sure if we have any Pele, Messier, or Landon Donovans in our crowd.

Allie Roessler's Baptism

Kirk is a Godfather once again. Allie was baptized and she did really well in the ceremony.

Wisconsin Dells

After the wedding, we drove to the Wisconsin Dells and met up with Steve, Kim, Nate, Sarah and Natalie. We rented a big condo and had so much fun at the water parks. It was so good for us to all hang out! Hope we can do that one again.

Wisconsin - Mike & Jodi's Wedding

We finally visited the Wisconsin family after a long stretch. Kirk's cousin Mike got married.

The kids had so much fun dancing at the reception. Elizabeth had fun hanging out with Kirk's cousin Sara's daugther Maddie. So many of his cousins were at our wedding and they were about the same age as Elizabeth and Alex then, my how they've grown!

Ottawa, Canada (Sting Concert)

Kirk was finally coming into Michigan after a 7 week absence from the kids and me. He called me and told me that he would be coming in on Friday night, but would need to leave again for an overnight trip on Sunday. He sent me an email from his HR staff saying that he was invited to the CEO's vacation home in Canada for a business review and that spouses were invited. So we asked Kirk's mom to watch the kids and we flew to Ottawa.

When we arrived, I asked him if he knew where to go. He asked me to pull the info out of his backpack. I pulled out the envelope and saw that he pulled one off on me. He had gotten tickets for us to see Sting in Ottawa.

Since we missed him in Detroit, he bought the tickets and used miles for the flight and hotel, so it was a quick get away. Nice!

Ottawa is the capital of Canada and a really nice city, we enjoyed it. Thanks to Grammy and Aunt Chrystal and Uncle Kevin for watching the kids!

Cedar Point

Chrystal and I took the kids and met up with Nicole, Jake and her kids for a day of fun at Cedar Point. This was Elizabeth and ALex's first time there and they absolutely loved it. Alex's facial expression the first time he went on the frog drop was priceless....fear followed by the biggest smile ever, he loved it. I think they are adrenaline junkies!

Dufon Farm - Ludington Beach

I don't like summer because we are away from Kirk for so long and I have to work at night and have serious sleep deprivation, but I love summer for being able to play with our family and friends.

Our next stop of the summer was to the farm. It's a tradition to go the the 4th of July parade in Ludington. Once again, House of Flavors gave out small pints of ice cream to the crowd, the kids just love this parade.

Here is a list of our other activities:
Played on the farm with Olivia and Bumpa taking tractor rides
Played with Ali and Anna at Aunt Suzannes
Played with their cats
Played at the Fountain playground
Celebrated Gigi's birthday
Went to the library to do 4th of July crafts
Went to Ludington Beach
Went on a pontoon boat ride and watch fireworks on Gunn Lake
Watced Callie II catch chipmunks and mess with them before sending them to heaven
Elizabeth made a quilt
Played at the Marina playground
Visited with Deb Gunter in Traverse City
Visited Aunt Hotch's cows
Sunset swimming at Ludington Beach
Visited Sam and Janice's miniature horse farm

WOW! what a summer, it was so much fun, can't wait to do it again.

Harris 4th of July Party

After my work conference was done, I picked up the kids at the airport from Grammy and Aunt Gretchen who were flying on to London, then we picked up Olivia from Dale and drove to the Harris' for the weekend. They had their annual 4th of July party and it was a perfect weekend to spend on the lake. A lot of people came and there was a lot of catching up and kids playing together. Tons of activities like the bounce house, the bounce sprinkler slide, a mobile petting farm at a house down the road, and of course tubing. We had such a good time this weekend! It's been fun looking back at the pictures. Makes me realize how lucky we are to have good friends.

Cronley Visit to Shanghai

While the kids and I were gone, Cronley came through Shanghai and was able to keep Kirk company for a while. I think he just likes to visit us because he likes Xiao Zhu to do his laundry for him :).

Florida

Summer for the kids started in Florida. I flew them directly there and dropped them off for a little over a week while I had to attend a conference. They loved swimming with Max and Pop Pop. They did all sorts of fun stuff while recovering from jet lag. They even tried out their new bikes there.

Huangshan (Yellow Mountain)

This was another one of my very favorite weekends in Shanghai. Since Jeri was here, I wanted to go somewhere for a weekend with her that I wouldn't get a chance to go with my family. We chose Huangshan or Yellow Mountain (Huang=Yellow Shan=Mountain). Ronda Owen Uhl just moved to Shanghai from Korea so she also came. Another GMI reunion!

We flew from Shanghai to Huangshan on a Friday afternoon. When we arrived, we were met by our tour guide April. We drove to our hotel, dropped our stuff, and drove into the small town near the hotel. Here we walked along the small streets and did a little shopping. The town was cute and has not been overridden by tourist or fake bag sellers.

The next day, we drove to the base of the mountain. Here we could take a gondola to the top or climb. We opted to climb. We hiked about 6.5km that morning while April took our bags to the top via gondola car. We were advised to bring snacks and food since everything on the mountain is expensive. Everything comes up by men carrying it...food, laundry, you name it. What a sight to see.

We made it partially to the top where the gondola stops and met up with April to finish walking to the top. We saw some truly spectacular views. We also saw the locks that were on Amazing Race.

That night we stayed in a hotel at the top of the mountain. 4 star which in Chinese means 2 star to us Westerners. We at dinner (dismal chinese) and had a bottle of..yes...dismal wine and then like old ladies went to bed.

The reason we went to bed so early is that we planned to awake at 4am to see the 5:30am sunrise. You ask....why would you want to wake up so early? To beat the other 1000 tourists to the best spot. The weather was looking poor. We decided that if it was raining and cloudy, we would pass. Ronda was the guinea pig to get up at 4am to walk outside to see if it was okay. She came back and it looked positive so we woke up, bundled up in hotel provided parkas and started our trek up the mountain to get a good spot.

We had no idea where to go. It was pitch black and we had one small flashlight. We found one location where there was a big rock overlooking the canyon but there were already people there and they weren't so friendly. We kept walking and found a good spot. We sat down and spread out so that we could get some good photos. After all was said and done, we and at least 100 of our closest other Chinese tourist friends snapped some great photos. I think Jeri was going to knock one of them out at one point because she was inching into her space.

After this, we hit the breakfast buffet to fill up for our long hike down the canyon and then back up. This is China's version of the Grand Canyon, although with not so many safey precautions as there would be in the US. There were some points where my stomach dropped off as we were so close to the ledge and there were no railings. However, it was truly beautiful.

Our legs were very sore after that trek. We finished the trip with some shopping back in town and a tea ceremony and then flew back. Great weekend.

Jeri Visit to Shanghai - Visit to Expo

One of the first things we did when Jeri was here was to visit Expo. It was incredibly disappointing. The lines were long, the weather wasn't great, and we just didn't get the whole point of why Expo was supposed to be so great......Big waste of time, but still good to spend the whole day together!

GMI Reunion

Jeri Ward, Kath, John Cronley, and Ty McGinnis partying together at SWFC, great night! Shanghai.....just like college......

Field Day

Romanski's Going Away Party

Our dear friends Mike and Julie Romanski and their girls are moving to Sweden this summer (or actually have already moved since I'm writing this post in Nov :)). These pictures are from their going away party.

We started at the Rockett's house and presented a few gifts to them, one being a large photograph of Shanghai with all of us writing some notes on the back. After, we went to a local Teppanyaki restaurant. Then we vistited our favorite local bar, Carol's Cat Bar (now since closed) and finished with dancing at Malones.

We really miss them but have so many outstanding memories with them that are priceless!

Alex's 5th Birthday Party

Alex started talking about his 5th birthday in oh...must have been January. He was so excited about it. I think the plans changed a few times also.

I think he started talking about a Transformers party but then it quickly turned into a Super Mario Brothers party since he's become a Wii/DS addict.

All of his classmates have been having birthday parties where the whole class in invited. I asked him who he wanted to have come to his birthday party. His response...the whole class. Oh boy. I asked him if he wanted the party at the Lego place in Thumb plaza...you know....mess up someone's elses place. Nope, he wanted it at our house. Oh boy.

So who am I to disappoint a 5 year old? I can remember my 5th or 6th birthday. My mom had my class over in our basement. We sat at a big long table and I remember playing the drop the clothes pin in the jar. How fun was that?

Well, since I had to invite 15 kids plus his other buddies Joey, Matthew, and Gavyn, we decided it would be best to get a bounce house. I love those. Great entertainment and tires them out.

Now for the cake. Kirk and his brother have this unspoken competition on who can make the coolest cake. I'm pretty sure Kevin does the whole thing by himself. I stayed up well past 2am for 3 nights baking cakes and making frosting and fondant. Thank goodness Missy let me use her kitchenaid. So Kirk designed the cake layout and the night before the party we put it all together. And yes, we were up until 2 am.

The afternoon weather turned out okay, it rained just a bit but no big deal. All together, there were about 23 kids. Elizabeth's friends had to come also because they are all Super Mario freaks. Alex had a lot of fun.

Elizabeth's School Trip to the Shanghai Zoo

Elizabeth's class did a field trip to the Shanghai Zoo. I remember coming here when I first visited Shanghai 12 years ago. Not a spectacular zoo, the animals all look a little worse for the wear. We had fun watching a brown bear play in the water. The pandas were a little silly also.

Moganshan

I have to say that this trip was one of my favorite weekends in China. Julie and Denise organized a weekend road trip to Moganshan in the bamboo forest. It's about a 3.5 hour drive from Shanghai just past Hangzhou.

The Rocketts - Dave, Denise, Matthew, Adam and Renee; The Thompsons - Peter, Shirley, Ashley and Nicole; The Romanskis - Mike, Julie, Maddie and Allie along with us went. We rented House 23, and old English style cottage. It has 6 bedrooms and bathrooms to go along with it.

The kids all got along great as well as the adults. The big boys went mountain biking the first afternoon. Kirk fell off the bike (imagine that). We went hiking and exploring later in the day. The next day, more hiking and sitting around just lounging and talking.

There were tea plantations around and Mike, Julie, Shirley and I had lunch at one. Notice the chicken head. Julie also amazed me again with her shopping skills and managed to shop even when nothing was for sale. She convinced a tea farmer to sell her his basket.

Several bouts of laughter, several bottles of wine, lots of hiking, what a great time with great memories :)

Exploring Shanghai

The one thing the Romanskis are always good for is going exploring. We convinced Kirk (who is not such a fan) to go to this street in Puxi that we had heard about. It was a pedestrian street (kind of) with many old houses. Lots of photographic opportunities here and we saw a lot of other photographers.

Suzhou/Suzhou 1/2 Marathon

For some reason, I let Keri talk me into another 1/2 marathon. This one was in Suzhou around Jinshu Lake. Keri's friend Jen was in town and she and Julie came out to Suzhou with us to tour a little before and after the race.

Suzhou is a really pretty city. We had fun shopping the day before. The run...yeah, not so fun for me. Couldn't break 2 hours. In fact did it in 2:10. Effects of not training. Anyway, had good bonding with girls and many laughs.

Easter

Holidays are always hard when we are away from family. Luckily we have good friends here who are in the same boat. Our family had an egg hunt and after church, we went to Malone's for brunch with our friends. We are blessed.

Thompson Family Visit to China

Only 7 months later, I am posting blogs.......

Suzanne, Jake, Josh, and their exchange student Jacky (from Colombia) visited us in March during their spring break. During their visit, we went to Beijing and Xian and of course, toured Shanghai. Elizabeth and Alex made their 3rd trek to the Great Wall and of course loved it.

They arrived safe and sound and we got a chance that night to catch up. The next day we started touring. We started their visit with a trip to Din Tai Feng at the Super Brand Mall to try the famous Shanghai style dumpling - xiaolongbao. They are small dumplings with soup inside and are very good to eat.

The next day we went to the fake market for an initial walk through and to scope out potential purchase. After that, we visit YuYuan (Yu Garden). I always take people here, I love this place. Got some great pics of the kids here.

We flew to Beijing the next day. Our tour started with a Hutong Tour where we rode in rickshaws around an old Beijing neighborhood. We toured the Drum and Bell towers. After, we went back to the hotel for some rest before the next day.

The next day we toured Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City. We ate lunch at a hot pot restaurant and watch the waiter dance with noodles. After lunch we visited Summer Palace. I could be getting this all in the wrong order..... :)

We drove out the the Great Wall and it was truly amazing. I never tire of seeing this place. It is great. Our last Beijing stop was Temple of Heaven, another favorite spot of min.

After Beijing, we flew to Xian to see the Terra Cotta warriors. The weather wasn't so great, but the boys really enjoyed seeing the warriors.

Back to Shanghai. We visited the SWFC - Shanghai World Financial Center. Really tall building! We went to the top - the 100th floor. I think the boys and Jacky like this. We also went to the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum to see the model of the city.

Suzanne, Jacky, and I shopped at Taikang Lu and had Vietnamese food there. Our last stop during their visit was the Bund at night with about a milliion other people. They had to fly out the next day.

It was so good to have them here. Took so much homesickness away to have them around. Alex loved having Jake and Josh help him get to the next level in Super Mario and I loved having my sister and Jacky around to just hang out with. So thankful that they came! Love you guys.

Alex's New Bike

Romo's gave us their third wheel bike. This hitches on to the back of the adults bike and then they act in tandem. He loves it! We get a lot of looks everytime we use it. It helps us get around town a lot quicker.

Kirk's 40th Birthday

We had a party for Kirk to celebrate his 40th birthday. We had several friends join us for mexican food at Mi Tierra, pretty good food. After dinner, we headed to see Carol at the Cat Bar and did a little dancing. Can't find the picture now, but I had Romo and Roessler's freshman yearbook pictures as a game - guess who the 40yr old is. It was funny! Happy Birthday Kirk, you only get better with age!

Adventures with Grammy in Shanghai

Grammy made her annual trek to see us in Shanghai. We are always to grateful to have her come even though we know it's a tough trip to make.

This time she was a big help because I had to travel to India for work so she helped Kirk out during my absence.

These are some photos of their weekend without me. Kirk took Grammy to a water town - Qibao Ancient Town. I can't say much about this as I've never been here.

Looks like they also make a trip to the Barbie Store on HuaiHai Lu. Poor Alex, he's been here once and he's not a big fan. Although, I think he found some cars to admire. Elizabeth had fun looking around, but she is not a big barbie fan. In fact, I recall that she called me while I was in Jaipur crying because her Daddy wouldn't buy her the Barbie Skateboard :)

Thankful that Grammy visited us! Hope she makes the trek again, I have some new stops to show her.

Concordia Book Parade

I had to travel to India while Grammy was here so she helped me prepare the costumes for the kids book parade at Concordia. Alex was Squeak the Mouse from the book Scaredy Mouse. Kirk made the mask from a pattern I found online. So cute. Elizabeth was Junie B Jones. Her hair is Kirk's mullet. They trimmed it to make it look like Junie's hair. The mullet is no more.

Elizabeth's 7th Birthday Party

Hard to believe that the little peanut turned 7! Here are some pictures and video of her birthday party. She wanted to have an art party. We decided to make sock puppets and then have the girls decorate their own cakes.

Grammy was here and of course was a huge help. One day, we braved a serious downpour of rain and went to Puxi to the art street and bought lots of art supplies and goody bag items. Then we went to the hotel supply store and found small cake pans. I made a monster load of frosting and then we made tons of different colors for the girls to use to decorate.

She invited all the girls from her class and then her other best buddies. The only ones not here were Lucy and Allie and they were traveling and unable to attend.

It rained cats and dogs on the day of the party. The girls had fun making the socks and then put on the puppet show. They had more fun doing the cakes and used a lot of creativity.

Especially happy to be at the party was Alex!

Vietnam & Cambodia

For Chinese New Year, we went to Vietnam and Cambodia with our good friends Missy, Luke, Lucy, and Allie Stevens.

I started writing this blog while sitting in the hotel room in Saigon while Alex was under the weather.

Day 1 - Flight to Saigon

We flew from Pudong to Guangzhou and switched planes to fly to Saigon. We arrived into Saigon late. Here, we had to get our local visa. We had done the online registration so we thought that would help the process, but we still had to wait in a long, disorganized line when we got here. It took us about an hour and a half to get our visas and then we were able to leave.

We went to look for our transport to the hotel. When we walked out of the airport, it was just after midnight. It was Tet - Vietnamese Lunar New Year’s Eve. Fireworks were going off. Our driver had just arrived. We boarded a bus and drove into the city to get to the Sheraton.

We saw the largest amount of people on motorbikes that we’ve ever seen before. It reminded me of when I was in Shanghai in the 90’s and all the bicycles on the road. Makes me wonder if we’ll be living here in 10 years. So many people were on the street celebrating the new year. We passed the Notre Dame Cathedral. I’d like to go in and see it but not sure if I’ll get the chance. We drove down a street all lit up with lights and millions of people walking around.

We arrived to the hotel after a harrowing drive dodging motorbikes and pedestrians. One thing that sticks out in my head was watching families of four on a motorbike, usually two of the kids were sleeping. We got checked into the hotel and got to sleep pretty quickly because we knew we’d have a big day ahead.

Day 2

We woke up in the morning to the sound of drums of the Lion and Dragon dance. It was officially Tet. Elizabeth and I got up and went down to breakfast. While we were down there, we saw the Lions dancing and listened to the drum music. We met up with Luke, Missy, Lucy, and Allie. The girls went and watched some acrobats.

After breakfast, we walked around the area outside of our hotel. We walked to Nguyen Hue Blvd. This was turned into a pedestrian walk lined with amazing flowers. Again, so many people dressed in their best and taking lots of pictures. The weather was pretty hot already for the morning, the sun beating down.

I called Kirk and it turned out that Alex wasn’t feeling good and got sick during breakfast. He thought he was okay, so I walked back to the hotel to pick them up while the Steven’s took Elizabeth and found inexpensive manicures. I arrived back and Alex was laying down. He said he felt okay to get up and go, so Kirk, Alex, and I walked back to the flower street to find the others. Along the way, Alex didn’t look so good, so he and I went back to the hotel.

Once Kirk got back, we decided that Alex would need to stay in the hotel for the rest of the day, so we split up. Elizabeth and I joined the Steven’s for lunch and a tour of the city while Alex and Kirk rested.

We started out having lunch at the Lemongrass Café. There weren’t many restaurants open since it was Tet. We started with some shrimp chips and then ordered spring rolls as an appetizer. We ended up eating a mango beef salad, chicken in curry sauce, chicken pho while the kids had calamari, fried rice and rice vermicelli. Elizabeth didn’t eat much. Food was good but we had to run to catch our tour.

Missy arranged the tour through the hotel. We boarded a bus with 4 other families and started our city tour. Our first stop was to the Spring Flower Festival in Tao Dan Park. There were vendors here and many different kind of flowers, specifically a lot of orchids. We spent about 30 minutes going through this park, it was hot!

Our next stop was to a Taoist Temple. This temple was over 400 years old. It was very smoky from all of the incense burning. People were here worshiping their ancestors. We walked around a bit and bought the girls some incense to light. After this, we walked across the street to the next part of our tour.

Now we got on rick shaws to drive around the China town area. The rick shaws were bicycles with a seat up front for one person. Elizabeth sat on my lap. I took some video of this. It was a bit of a long ride in the hot blazing sun, but was really neat to be on the street with all the scooters. Didn’t see many cars, but the ones we saw were mostly Toyotas and VW’s .

After the rick shaw ride, we got back on the bus and stopped at a shopping area. Here they had overprices local artwork. Pretty much a rip off. $45 for a plastic coaster set. Good thing we are experienced Asia travelers who have some idea what things are worth. Then we went on to the next Temple. This was a Buddhist temple. Again, many people here praying as it was Tet and that is one of their traditions…to go say prayer at Temple. We had to remove our shoes and everything was quiet. This temple had monks and nuns praying here.

Our final stop was the highlight of the tour. We stopped at a local Vietnamese family’s house to see how they celebrate Tet. We weren’t sure what to expect. We walked into the house of many people and our tour guide explained that our host was Mr Mung. He was dressed in traditional Vietnamese clothes and hat. We sat down at round tables and were served tea by his two nieces.

Missy and I observed that these girls who looked to be the age of about 8 of 9 had breasts. We wondered if it was traditional to stuff your bra that early. Turns out these girls were small people and were 32 and 22. Later, Luke told us that their cousin said they were small people due to Agent Orange. Not sure if this is true or not. It turned out that they were fabulous singers and they sang a couple traditional songs for us accompanied by another relative who played the moon guitar. After they sang, two other singers got up and also sang.

Some observations about the house. Tile floor. Many antique objects (vases, furniture, grandfather clock, temple). Large flat screen TV with a Wii! So different, so alike.

Our tour guide told us we’d get back to the hotel by 6pm. At 6pm, the host told us that he would be serving us dinner. We moved to the temple as they lit incense to worship and then we went outside to the courtyard to have dinner. We did not expect this.

We were served traditional Vietnamese dishes and some were from an area in the middle of the country called Hua. We had steamed sticky rice, other different glutonous rice dishes, some pork and chicken, some steamed conch which was an expensive delicacy as well as some preserved vegetables (cabbage). During dinner, they brought out this large jug of wine. We were all to drink out of it as a way to bond. It didn’t taste very good! Mr Mung told us if we got drunk on that wine, we would be sick for three days.

Finally, Mr Mung and his family gave us hongbaos with two $2 bills in them. Our tour guide later told us that he had no idea that they would be so hospitable and that Mr Mung did over and above what the tour company compensated him for. We asked why he would do that. The tour guide said that Mr Mung was a weathly owner of a publishing company. His house was worth $5 million US. He wanted to share this tradition with others and felt that since he was wealthy, he wanted to do this in goodwill to give back to others.

We took pictures and said Chuc Man Nam Moi which is “Happy New Year” in Vietnamese (thanks to Thuy Marchal for giving me some quick SMS lessons!) and then got back on the bus to return to the hotel. Again, so many people out on the street. We had to exit the bus and walk about 5 min back to the hotel because the bus couldn’t get through. Great day.

Day 3
Alex is still a little under the weather so Kirk and Elizabeth are touring today. They are going to the tunnels. I’ll let Kirk talk about that.

Day 4
We loaded up in a van a drove about 3 hours to a beach in Phan Thiet. We stayed at the L'Anmian Resort. The resort itself was pretty new so the property was beautiful but the service only so/so. For the next two days we pretty much hung out at the beach and the pools. We had a pool at our villas so it was nice to come back in the afternoon and just hang out there. At night, we ate at open air restaurants and had some decent seafood. Missy and I discovered Vietnamese Coffee. This is really strong coffee with sweetened condensed milk. Sometimes we even added some Baileys. Okay, all the time we added Baileys. Really good stuff. We had excellent spring rolls pretty much everyday and loved most of the food, including the Pho.

Day something. I've now lost track. I guess fully relaxed by now. We have loaded back up into a van and drove back to Saigon to catch our flight to Siem Reap. We plan to try to see as many temples as the kids will stand.

We end up meeting up with Scott and Anne Richardson and their daughters Juliet and Lillie. Lillie is in Alex's class and she keeps him in line. She is a very adorable, smart, sweet girl who has been incredibly blessed by God. Everyone is happy to have more playmates.

The first day in Siem Reap, we to the Tuk Tuks to a few different temples. Can't remember the names now, only Angkor Wat. But the coolest one was the one with trees Ta Prohm. Alex wasn't a big fan at first but then he kind of got into the climbing. He really liked the Tuk Tuks.

Siem Reap has a lot of poverty. We took a boat tour out to a water village. Here was saw a lot of poverty and that was hard to take. However, sometimes I think if that's all they know, maybe it's not that bad for them.

The restaurants in Siem Riep were all really good and the tuk tuk took us everywhere. There is a night market that is nice. Missy, Ann and I went and had our feet eaten by fish. Not cool, didn't care for that at all.

Le Meridien was really nice hotel to stay at. Would definitely do this trip again.

Concordia Dragon Dance

Video from the Chinese New Year Celebration at the kids school.

Daddy Daughter Dance

Elizabeth and Kirk attended the Daddy Daughter Dance. This year's theme was a Hawaiian Luau. Elizabeth wore a pretty flowered sundress with a Lily clip in her hair. Kirk had a pink, floral vest underneath his nice black tuxedo. He had it made last minute. They looked lovely together though. Sounds like Elizabeth just ran around the dance floor all night chasing her friends, but they had fun.

Florida

After our Dufon Christmas, we flew to Florida for a little warm weather. Except there was no warm weather. It was Freezing!

The kids swam the first day we got there and that was the end of swimming! Can't believe it was so cold. We still had a lot of fun. One day we went to the Manatee Park to see the manatees. Although it was really cold and we didn't stay too long :).

We also got to catch up with family. We had dinner a couple times with Aunt Cathy and Uncle Tom Roessler and Aunt Gretchen Roessler. We played spoons one night which everyone except Aunt Kathy loved. She was a really funny sport about it though.

Another day, we had lunch with Aunt Chick, Uncle Jerry and Aunt Honey and Mary Ann. Wow, it was so good to see them. I wish we could have gotten together more, but our time was so short while we were in Florida.

The rest of our time was spent loading up on stuff. Someone has to keep Target and Costco in business since the rest of you Americans aren't spending money. Oh - how I miss those stores :).

We did have a chance to go to Naples and check out a sunset. Honestly, in our years going to Naples, this was one of the most beautiful sunsets we've ever seen. Wish we would've known more about how to use our new camera. We also hit the Cheesecake factory. I love that place and their fish tacos.

The weather never improved. Stayed cold the whole time so the kids didn't get their normal swim time in. It was okay, we still had fun.