Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all following our Blog. Timing didn't work out so well for me to send out Christmas cards, I apologize to all for that. This year, Christmas creeped up on me pretty fast.

After we returned home from summer in the US in September, I really didn't want to deal with the 14 hour flight and jetlag again at Christmas, so I initially told Kirk that we should holiday somewhere and not go to US. However, I think many of our family would have a broken heart, including me, if we weren't together during the holidays.

So we traveled back to Michigan on Dec 19. We spent time with Kirk's family at his brother's house first. Alex was so excited to go to "Ethan's" house. He was really excited to go play with all of Ethan's toys mostly. Elizabeth, Alex, Ethan, and Nolan all play together really well.

Kirk and I were able to catch up with our college friends on my birthday. It was great to see all of them, but sad because we didn't see the kids. The weather that day/night was horrible. The weather in general while we were in Michigan was crazy. Tons of snow, then it would melt, then snow all over again in a matter of days.

The kids got nice presents from Santa and were really excited to play with them. Kevin and Chrystal got Guitar Hero for Wii and Kirk and Kevin had fun playing with that.

After Christmas, we drove upnorth to the farm. That is where we got the unexpected happy news that Steve and Kim would be driving over from Minnesota. This was a week of lots of snow, rain, fog, more snow....again crazy weather. Elizabeth got to build a snowman the day we got there, but then he melted the next day. The new snow was too dry to build a snowman with.

The kids had fun snowmobiling and playing with all of their cousins. We went bowling one day. Everyone bowled and Bumpa and Gigi turned it on and both broke 200. By the end, the kids, especially Olivia and Natalie were exhausted. Alex even began throwing the ball by himself.

Another day we went ice skating. Elizabeth took off by herself pretty quickly and enjoyed it. Alex and Olivia both tried out skating, but didn't really like it. Ali, Sarah, and Anna are all really good skaters.

There were many poker games, including an only Dufon game one night as the in laws stayed at Sue and Collin's house.

On New Year's Day, we traveled to Florida for a visit with Kirk's parents. It is sunny and warm here right now. This is the place to be when Michigan is frigid.

We'll head back to Shanghai on the 8th and arrive on the 9th. Back home with added lbs from all the great food we've eaten.

Kirk will post pictures later.

Hope you all had great holidays and are healthy and safe in the new year!