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.