Chinese New Year School Festivities

Elizabeth's class had many different activities to celebrate the Chinese New Year. One day they got to dress in their Chinese clothes. Another day, they had a professor come in and demonstrate the art of Chinese Calligraphy. They also had musicians come in and play traditional Chinese instruments. One of the high school students demonstrated Kung Fu and there was a lady who taught Chinese dancing. The kids all loved it.

Playing in the Shanghai Snow

The big news lately that I'm certain that many of you Stateside have seen in the news is the weather in China. Specifically snow! This is the most snow that Shanghai has seen in over 3 decades. You can see the picture of Century Park from our apartment. It's a much different view than we are used to.

This has caused such a problem with the transportation. Especially since this is the heaviest travel season and all of the migrant workers are trying to travel home for their annual leave. This is the only time of the year that many people get home to see their spouses and children. Kirk followed up with all of his employees that were traveling and they did make it home after much delays at bus stations, train stations and airports.

The kids loved it. And not expecting this, I left their snow stuff in Michigan!! Not very smart. You can see from the pictures that both kids had a ball. Elizabeth actually had a snow day. Kirk took her out and they built 2 snowmen. When I came home from work, I took her and Alex down to the playground to see them, but someone had knocked them over. She was so upset, you all know how dramatic she can be. I explained to her that probably whoever did it had never seen snow before and didn't know what they were and wanted to play with them. That didn't seem to help that much!

It is still cold here and there are traces of snow left.

Dura Chinese New Year Dinner

Kirk and his co-worker Rob took their employees out to dinner to celebrate the Chinese New Year. This holiday is equivalent to our Christmas so there are usually many celebrations. The kids and I went as well as Rob's wife Stacy and their son Roman. The kids and Kirk wore their outfits that Mr. Liu, our driver, had bought for them.

We went to a Japanese restaurant that was in Puxi and it was really good. All of the employees seemed to enjoy themselves. Rob gave a speech about how much he appreciated his employees, especially Mr. Gu, his driver. Kirk also gave a speech and toasted to his employees.

The kids had a great time running around with Roman. Elizabeth also had a lot of fun with Kirk's secretary, Joyce. Joyce bought the kids Mickey and Minnie mugs. Elizabeth accidently dropped hers and it broke and Joyce took her to buy new ones.

Snowing in Shanghai

Along with cold weather came snow today. It's been snowing for the last few days but nothing that sticks. Yesterday it snowed huge snowflakes and last night when it was colder it stuck. This morning Elizabeth looked out the window and was so excited. It didn't stay much past 10 am. And we didn't go out and play in it because I left all the snow pants in Michigan!

Super Brand Mall Playground

It has been soooo cold here since we got back. It has been in the low 30s everyday which is not usual for Shanghai. I don't think we've seen sunshine either. So in order to get the kids some exercise, we went to the Superbrand mall play area. I surprised the kids and picked up Lucy and Allie Stevens on the way back fromm work and they went with us. They all had a blast playing and of course didn't want to leave. We'll be doing a bit of that over the next couple weeks because it's supposed to stay cold.

Good-Bye Claire W.

One of Elizabeth's closest friends in preschool, Claire Wang (better known as Claire W.) is moving back to California. This picture of Elizabeth, Claire and Crystal was taken on her last day of school. She will miss her and Kath will miss her mom Terri as well.

Packer Fan

In support of Grammy and her favorite team, Alex donned his Brett Favre jersay on game day. He wore it to school as well. Unfortunately they lost, but we were cheering.

Alex's New Bed

Before we left for the US for the holidays, we ordered a bed for Alex. They delivered it when we got back. It turned out really nice. He really likes it and has had no problem transitioning to the bed. Elizabeth loves it too. She loves to sleep on the top bunk. We only let her sleep in there on the weekends because the two of them goof off too much when they are sleeping in the same room.

Trip to Florida

After the snow filled wonderland, we packed up and migrated to sunny Florida. Except it wasn't so sunny and warm when we arrived. I specifically packed separate Florida and Michigan suitcases due to the warm weather/cold weather thing. That didn't work out so well as we had to go to Target to buy warm clothes because it was cold!!

The kids really wanted to swim but we found other activities. One of the best was going to see Enchanted. Elizabeth, Kath, and Grammy really enjoyed that. Alex and Kirk were going to go see Alvin and the Chipmunks but Alex fell asleep in the car on the way.

The other fun activity was to go to a park in Estero where they had a playground for kids and a separate one for dogs so Sophie could join us. The kids had so much fun the first day there that we packed a picnic and went back the next day too.

By the next day, it was sunny enough to go swim at the community pool and the kids had a ball doing that. Both of them were fishes who did not want to get out. Alex is getting even more comfortable in the water which makes us have to be more careful.

We were able to visit with Aunt Gretchen one night. Kirk and I were able to get out together by ourselves a couple times and that was nice. Except every trip out included a stop at whichever Best Buy we were closest to to try to find Guitar Hero for our Wii. No luck :(

And of course no trip to Florida would be complete without a stop at Naples Beach followed by Cheeburger Cheeburger. Yummy! And yes, Alex still eats sand.

This was a fun and relaxing trip and next was our flight home.

New Year's @ Harris's

We counted and I think this is the 12th year we've spent New Year's with Chesna and the Harris'. We hung out at the Harris' house with Beth and Chesna and some of Pelton's friends. I think Pelton, Harris, and I were the only ones awake at midnight and weren't awake 5 minutes after that. Yes, we live a very exciting life now!