Shanghai Christmas Tree

For those of you who know Kirk, you know that he can be incredibly creative and that when he gets an idea in his mind, he can't get it out until the idea is accomplished. So was the case of the Christmas tree. I think this was his outlet for all the home improvement projects that we no longer have to do.

It doesn't make sense for us to get a real Christmas tree since we will be coming to the US on the 15th. We can buy a fake tree, but we have no place to store it. So the next best thing is......green construction paper on the window!! It actually looks really good too. This was a Saturday afternoon project that Elizabeth got to help with, Alex was asleep. They both had fun and now we have a little bit of Christmas spirit to the place.

Thanksgiving

Holidays away from family are always difficult. Especially when you cannot get the kind of food that you are used to having that your family makes. I especially miss Gigi's bread stuffing!

However there are options in Shanghai and this year on Thanksgiving day, we had Thanksgiving with a group of friends. We went to Cafe du Monde which is in the Thumb Plaza near our house. The owner, Robin, grew up in New Orleans and he serves authentic New Orleans and American food. We made reservations there since we knew his food was good.

We weren't disappointed. He had a buffet set up with two seatings, 5 and 7 p.m. We ate at 5 with Kim, Jeff, Orla and Ciara Young. Missy, Lucy, Allie Stevens joined us too as Luke was flying back from the US that day. The kids had more fun playing than eating and didn't appreciate the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, turkey, etc! But we were glad that they had kids to play with and talk with so that we could enjoy our dinner. They even had pumpkin and pecan pies.

The kids in the picture together from the left are Alex, Ciara, Orla, Allie, Elizabeh, and Lucy. You can see they enjoyed each other!