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.

Dufon Christmas

The pictures need to be updated to the Dufon Christmas.

We drove north on Christmas day so that we could see Bumpa on his birthday. Here we found snow! The kids had been wanting to play in snow ever since they arrived. There was plenty here to play in.

More to come when i see the pics to remind me

Roessler Christmas

Once again, we landed in Detroit and bombarded Aunt Chrystal and Uncle Kevin's house. There was no snow this year, so the kids spent quite a bit of time running around and terrorizing the house.

The photos start out with Christmas Eve mass. The kids were all dressed in their best and looked really cute. They were all good in church. After church, we came back home to have our "party". The party included snacks, drinks, and dinner. I'm not sure anyone made it to dessert.

The kids made cookies for Santa Claus and had fun watching Santa on the internet. They were very excited about him coming the next day and were trying to be on their best behavior.

No one was disappointed the next day when they came downstairs to see that Santa had come!

Polar Express Train Ride

Chrystal arranged for a ride on the Polar Express train ride. This was put on by the Clinton Township parks and recreation and they did an awesome job. We got cookies and hot cocoa when we boarded the train and saw our friends Frosty, Santa, and Rudolph.

Frosty read us the story of the Polar Express. Santa took time out of his busy schedule to come give the boys and girls bells. Rudolph came on and we all sang Christmas carols.

After the ride, we went to Kirk's favorite - Outback.

More posts coming....Kirk has to load the pictures :)

Shanghai Christmas Tree

Here is a picture of Elizabeth and Alex opening up presents from Xiao Ju in front of our "Charlie Brown" Christmas Tree. Each year it's getting prettier and prettier with all the decorations that the kids make to put on it. I LOVE this tree.

Concordia Christmas Parties

The kids also had Christmas parties. I was able to go and help at both. Lots of fun!

Concordia Christmas Programs

Elizabeth and Alex both had Christmas programs. Elizabeth played the kazoo in hers. Alex was not the most well behaved kid in his program - I'm sure all of you who know him are not surprised. Great memories here!

Farewell Party for Heather Pigott

Heather and Jim Pigott and their family - Emma, Ben, and Alex moved back to their home in Chicago area. Missy held a going away breakfast for Heather. They had been in Shanghai for three years and were ready to get back. They are a really nice family and will be sorely missed.

Stevens Christmas Party

Luke and Missy Stevens hosted a Christmas cocktail party to get us into the holiday spirit. We all had a lot of spirit and food!

Shanghai Visitors

I had a couple former co-workers in town. Rajesh Chawla is a friend of mine from Delhi who I worked with but has since left Delphi. We had some good Indian food for lunch.

I also met up with my friend Mike Lawrukovich, a guy I worked with when I first graduated from GMI. We went shopping in Tai Kang Lu and then took a tour of the Lupu Bridge area. We walked up on the bridge and viewed the Expo area. We finished with dinner in YuYuan area at Din Tai Fung and had great xiaolongbao.

Guilin & Yangshuo

Kirk had a work conference in Guilin the first weekend in December so the kids and I flew and met him for the weekend. Guilin is a city in the Guangxi province which is south and west of Shanghai.

We only spent one day in Guilin which is a city and then we took a car into Yangshou which is a town in the countryside. Wow, what a beautiful place. We stayed at the Yangshou Mountain Retreat which is kind of a bed and breakfast sitting along the Yalong River. You can see in the pictures and videos of the bamboo rafts floating by.

We took bicycles through the little countryside villages up to the Dragon bridge on Saturday. This was a lot of fun. At the bridge, we hopped on bamboo rafts and drifted back down the river. After two hours the kids got bored, so we pulled ashore and got back on our bikes back to the hotel.

At night, we went into the town of Yangshou and had dinner along the pedestrian shopping street. After dinner, we took a car over to this light show. The show was pretty neat but the kids were too tired to enjoy.

We had planned another day of biking and site seeing on Sunday but Elizabeth's earring back embedded itself into her ear and got infected so we caught an early flight back. This place is great for biking and rock climbing and we would like to come back to get away from the craziness of the city again.

Elizabeth & Alex Thanksgiving Lunch

The kids both had Thanksgiving celebrations at school.

Elizabeth Field Trip to Children's Palace

Many more posts coming.....
Elizabeth had a field trip to the Children's Palace in Shanghai. This is also called the Marble Mansion. History of this place is that it was built by a Sassoon (can't remember which one) who was a prominent Jewish business man in the 1900's. Please don't quote me on this at all....I need to take the Jewish walking tour of Shanghai. Anyway, this was his families house and now it is a an activity center for children in Shanghai. We were able to see an acrobat show and play on a great rope play structure. We had great weather for the day and the kids had fun.

Alex Brings Honey Home

Okay, caught up on the blog for a bit since we're in the US for Christmas now and don't have the censorship issues that we have in China.

Alex got to bring Honey the Honeybee home from his classroom. Here are some pictures of what Alex and Honey did together.

Santa Picture

Kids got to sit on Santa's lap at the Concordia Christmas bazaar. You can see Elizabeth holding Honey the Honeybee who was visiting us from Alex's classroom.

The kids liked seeing Santa. Elizabeth asked for a guitar and Alex asked for connectors. The one nice thing about living in Shanghai is that the kids aren't exposed to all the marketing of toys and such from advertising. They don't know to ask for much! I'm not complaining.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Shanghai Bus Tour Party

During the last Concordia Auction, Jim Pigott and Kirk decided to bid for the bus. This was in response to last year's party that G2 Forsberg hosted. I'm not sure how legal their bid was, I think they wrote down their name after the bell rang and upset another Concordia parent, but they were determined to win it.

So they won the bus, and were supposed to plan the trip, but it fell into the hands of Heather and I to plan. We decided to make it an International Tour of Shanghai.

We started at Declan's Irishman's Pub. Then we boarded the bus to head to Puxi and landed at Jenny's Bar. During the bus ride, we enjoyed beverages from Inbev (Budweiser) courtesy of Matt Rohm who traveled from the US, okay not just for the tour but timing was good.

After Jenny's (and the pregnant cat that Ken Holloway made friends with), we headed over to dinner at Cantina Agave for some tacos and Margaritas. Kirk didn't put names on pictures again, so I'll have to come back and do that.

After margaritas, we were ready to dance! We went back over to Pudong and landed at the World Financial Center. Up to the Top of the house we went to watch Carlton Smith and his band. Didn't get picture of the dancing but got video of Kirk singing on stage with Carlton, not sure why it's not posted!

HSBC Golf Tournament

We decided to take the kids to their first golf tournament. The HSBC tour is very popular in Shanghai but expensive in Chinese standards so it's not too crowded. The tournament is in Sheshan which is about an hour drive from our house.

All the big names were here. Tiger, Phil, Ernie.... BTW - this was before the Tiger scandal broke.

The kids had fun walking around the course, but Alex decided that the area to play in was much more fun. He played on the golf carts for about an hour.

We weren't allowed to take photos on the course so we didn't get pics of the big guys. But we saw them up close and personal.

Alex even got a signed glove from Jason Dufner. We were just standing watching the players practice and Jason walked across from the pitching green to the putting green and handed it to him. Alex was in awe, it was really nice of him to give it to us.

It was a beautiful day to watch golf.

Elizabeth's Cherub Choir

One of Elizabeth's after school activites was the Cherub Choir led by Ms Amy Camp. This is their end of semester concert. There were some really good singers. I think Elizabeth was nervous!