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.