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.