Word Financial Tower Structure Complete

Here is an article from the local English newspaper about the new Financial Tower that we can see from our apartment...

Mainland's tallest is topped off by -- HUNDREDS of people gathered on the ground yesterday morning in Pudong as a steel girder embedded with golden bolts hung 492 meters above them.

When the girder was swung into place it marked a major milestone in...

Here is the view of the building before the last piece was put in...

Here is how it compares to the other tallest buildings in the world...

Click above for a larger view

Day #6 on our own

We are in the home stretch. Kath comes home tomorrow. The last couple of days have been a little more difficult as I had to be at GM all day and into the evening Wed - Fri. Xiao Ju has been a big help over the week.

We kept Alex home from school on Friday as he had a temperature when he woke up. He was fine after we gave him some Tylenol. Both kids have had runny noses all week. Xiao Ju won't let them have cold drinks or ice cream or even have the air conditioning on as this will not let them get better.

Elizabeth had a day off from school. They both had fun with Xiao Ju. Xiao Ju taught Elizabeth how to write some Chinese Characters and they did art projects.

We are just hanging out today, it looks like it is going to rain so hopefully we can get outside.

1st day in India

Okay, I feel better knowing that Kirk is handling everything on his own. Elizabeth and I were pretty weepy when I left.

So now I'm staying in Delhi, India. The Delphi office is in a town called Gurgaon. It is a growing industrial area.

You cannot believe this place. It reminds me a lot of China, specifically Wuhan, 8 years ago. A lot of bikes and no separation between the bike lanes and car lanes. Traffic is crazy. Except in China there are no cows walking in the street. People told me this, but you cannot believe it until you see it.

We were busy today visiting with suppliers and meeting the India team. They are all very hospitable and proud of their organizations.

I'm excited to be here. The food is great. I had my favorite, chana masala, today and learned a lot about it's origin in Northern India.

Long days this week, but I'll try to write again.

Day #2 on our own

Here is a picture Elizabeth drew yesterday if we were a Mermaid family. You can tell Alex and have very nice Mer-man outfits. Surprisingly we are surviving without Kath. This morning was a challenge getting the kids ready for school. Once we got going it was no big deal.

I picked up Elizabeth from ballet this afternoon and she wasn't being the best ballerina. She was goofing off with Crystal and Ms. Li had to separate them. Once we returned home we all went to Century Park again and played soccer. Elizabeth scored a lot of goals on me and I could not score on her. Alex didn't get the concept of scoring goals. Maybe next time. We then walked through the wildflowers and came home and ate dinner. Xiao Ju helped get the kids baths and we were able to get them to bed on time. I have to be to work early tomorrow so we have to get an earlier start tomorrow.

Kirk & Kids Home Alone

Kath had to make a trip to India to meet with her team members there. This left Kirk alone with the kids for the week. We had an eventful first day. We went to Century Park for a picnic and to play. We had our picnic in the shade near one of the ponds. We then went to an open area to play soccer then we spent some time in the sand at the small beach they have. Alex didn't want to leave. He had sand all over him if you can believe it. We then played some more soccer and Alex and Elizabeth rolled down a hill. I cooled them off by pouring water on them. Lastly we went on the Bee Ride at the park and Elizabeth went on the Bounce House while Alex went down the slides.

We came back to the apartment and took naps. Then later we made dinner. Elizabeth helped make Chicken Noodle Soup. She had a craving for it. After dinner we had dessert then it was tubby time as the kids were dirty.

Elizabeth and Alex hope their Mom has safe travels and they want her to come home soon!

Big Explosion

The construction company blew up something in the basement of the building they are constructing behind our building. It was really loud! A bunch of smoke and dust was in the air for a while.

Alex's School Uniform

Alex must wear a school uniform to school every day. The golf shirt is the nice one. He also has a long shirt with a round collar. It doesn't look too manly. We will get a picture of that one when he has worn out this uniform.

Getting Blog up to Date

All of the Pictures and Videos are Loaded. Kath is currently working on writing the notes to go along with them. Keep checking back for updates.

Okay, Okay, I finally took some time to sit down and write. According to Kirk, I am not writing enough detail so I have to work on that. Whatever! You can see by the Simpson's picture what he does in his free time, nerd :)

Thank You Aunt Gretchen!

Pop Pop brought presents from Aunt Gretchen this summer. You can see the beautiful quilts she made for Alex and Elizbeth. Eliazabeth got a dancing quilt and Alex got a Thomas quilt. Alex asks for his every night now before he goes to bed.

Thank you!

Happy 40th Anniversary Mom & Dad (Roessler)

Grammy and Pop Pop celebrated their 40th anniversary in August. Elizabeth painted a picture of them. Congratulations.

Century Park & Downtown

We now have a yearly pass to enter Century Park. We have a card that will let us in at 5:00 am and we can enter into the gate by our house. It makes it so much more convenient to get into the park that we have gone about 4 times per week now. It's amazing, it doesn't smell of pollution in the park at all.

We also made a trip downtown to Elizabeth's favorite restaurant and a walk on the Bund. Camera guy went crazy again.

Roessler Family Simpsonized

Here is our family Simpsonized. You can do it yourself at www.simpsonizeme.com. You have to upload a picture of yourself and then you can make modifications if necessary. Elizabeth came out Yellow (like Lisa from the Simpsons) the first time so we made some modifications. She also insisted to have blond hair.

Alex's First Day of School

Alex has also started school. He is going to the Victoria Kindergarten just outside of our complex. Same school where we went to Bee Bee Playland, the parent tot class. The first two weeks, I went with him to help transition. He has two Chinese speaking teachers, Clare (Li Laoshi) and Sarah (Tian Jin Laoshi). He has one English speaking teacher, Judy, from New Zealand. Judy has 30 years experience teaching 2-6 year olds so I am happy about that! She'll be able to help get him out of the terrible twos!

He likes it......part of it....He likes the playing but doesn't like it when he has to sit still! The Chinese lessons usually take about 10 minutes to explain and then they get to do the activity which takes about 2 minutes!!!! Just a different style of teaching.

His friends, Ciara Young and Orla Surlis are in his class, so that helps him. I left him alone on Thursday and he did fine.

I am picking him up after lunch because he is disruptive in the nap room. In a few months, I think he will see all of his other friends sleeping and will join them. Until then, he is most comfortable coming home and sleeping in his own bed.

I am sure to have more stories about him and school in the future.

Mickey Mouse Magic Show

The Mickey Mouse Magic Show came to town to the Grand Theatre. We took the kids, Kirk thought Elizabeth would really enjoy it. True enough, she did. However, it was in Chinese. If you think Donald Duck's voice speaking in English is annoying, you should try listening to it in Chinese!!

Alex couldn't sit still so gladly I took him into the hallway so that he could walk around. He did like dancing to the music.

Afterwards, we found a new restaurant called the Naked Cow and had the best flank steak ever there. We ended our day at the new Coldstone Creamery in Raffles City. There were about a million people there. Turns out, it was the equivalent of Chinese Valentines Day. Kirk has vowed never to return to Puxi on the weekend!

Panorama Pictures from our Apartment

Back (View of Large Homes & Construction)

Front (View of Century Park & Shanghai Skyline)

Kirk found a program on the Internet that allows you to take multiple pictures and stitch them together. It worked really well for getting a panoramic view out the front and back of our apartment. You can click on the pictures above to make them larger.

Kirk had some free time on his hands and took some panoramic pictures. I truly think we live in the best place with the most awesome views of the city.

Elizabeth's 1st Day of School

Elizabeth was so excited to be going back to school. She is a Ladybug again in Mrs. Chiu's room. She has a new teacher as well since Mrs Round went back to the US. Miss Alforte was in the Frogs room last year. She is very nice and Elizabeth likes her as well.

http://concordia.ciss.com.cn/concordnet/


This link is to her school website. You can go to the Preschool area to see photos throughout the year.

The user name is ciss\parents and the password is children.

Back in Shanghai

We made it back home to Shanghai after a long flight through Minneapolis and Tokyo. It was a painful trip as Alex is such a terrible two year old now. The pain of the trip is still fresh enough in my mind not to want to come back for Christmas. Hopefully Alex will have matured, or I will have found a drug to knock him out with!

Here you can see the new Financial building that is being built. You can see the hole at the top is starting to develop.

Elizabeth got to see her buddy Oia again. Here they are getting ready for their weddings. They don't look that excited do they? They will both make beautiful brides when they grow up.

Crystal Mountain Trip

The next part of our trip was to Northern Michigan just south of Traverse City. We stayed at Crystal Mountain Resort. This is a golf resort in the summer and a ski resort in the winter. It is a family owned resort but is really growing. Kirk's co worker (and BFF) Dave has a place there and highly recommended it.

We rented a house that was on the 17th hole of the Betsie Valley course. It was a short drive to the pool area. The pool was great for small children, it had a small slide and water guns, and lily pads to go over. It was a zero depth pool on one side so it was perfect for our kids.

Kevin, Chrystal, Ethan, and Nolan and Grammy, Pop Pop, and Sophie came with us. We had a lot of fun just hanging out and swimming everyday. Ethan loved golfing. That guy has some serious natural athletic ability! Kirk and I took Elizabeth one night for a chairlift ride. She loved it. Too bad it didn't run everynight.

We drove to Bumpa and Gigi's on Saturday for the Fountain 125th birthday. There was a parade in town and Gigi drove her Cadillac and Bumpa drove his tractor. Elizabeth joined in the party in the Cadillac. It was actually a really big parade! After the parade we had a cook out at the farm and Alex got to go for another round of golf cart rides.

We ended our trip with a visit to Traverse City. I know it is commercialized now, but I love going there. We took pictures on the beach. Alex just wanted to play in the sand so it was difficult to get good pictures.

We will have to try it out during the winter time when the kids get older and have a try at the ski hills.

Mall of America

On our way back to the Minneapolis airport, we had a little time to kill. Kim suggested that the aquarium at the Mall of America would be fun. Indeed it was! We really enjoyed our time at the aquarium and even got to pet some baby stingrays. Okay........ that was a little gross.

When we were done walking through the aquarium, we went to the amusment park and Legoland. Alex loved building the cars out of Legos and racing them down the track. After lunch, the kids and Kirk went on some rides. They rode the Semi Truck ride and loved it. After that they went on the Carousel. The only thing that would've made the trip more complete was if we had the time to get Dippin Dots (I looove those!)

Natalie's Baptism/Trip to Dufon's in Minnesota

Our next blessed event was going to meet Natalie Grace Dufon and attending her baptism.

We flew to Minneapolis from Flint. The Slivinski's, Thompsons's, and Bumpa and Gigi also came. Instead of our yearly camping trip at the farm, we had it at Steve and Kim's.

They borrowed a bounce house from their friends for the whole weekend. Not only did the little kids like it, but the big kids and "bigger kids" did too. Even Bumpa and Gigi jumped on it! That was a blast!

On Saturday, we walked down the street and went into the river. We played in the water and then floated down in tubes to where Steve's house is. Elizabeth thought that was pretty cool. That night we had a great barbecue and we celebrated Anna Marie's 7th birthday with cake and ice cream. Saturday included lots of tennis games, jumping matches in the bounce house and card games.

Sunday was the baptism. It was a very nice ceremony during Mass. I was blessed to be Natalie's Godmother and Dale is her Godfather. You can see how sweet Natalie is from her pictures and how much her brother and sister love her.

After the baptism, we took some family pictures. You can see how big all the kids are getting.

It was a great weekend and a lot of fun to all be together. Thanks for hosting Dufon's!

Visit to the Park

We had to spend the morning at Dr. Politis' getting 4yr old and 2 yr old checkups. They are both on track. However, they both had to have shots! Fortunately to take their mind off of the pain, Aunt Chrystal invited us to picnic with them at Firefighter's Park in Troy.

This is a really nice park that Chrystal takes the boys to and meets Kevin for lunch sometimes. The only problem was that there was a considerable amount of dirt on the ground since there were a lot of trees and the grass in some spots couldn't grow.

Of course, Alex is naturally drawn to dirt. We think he will definitely be either a farmer or an archaeolgist when he grows up. You can see from the pictures, he was covered in dirt shortly after we arrived. He and Ethan also had much fun playing on the structure.

Wisconsin Visitors

A trip to the US wouldn't be complete without seeing the Wisconsin gang. Jill, Jan, Amy, and Kelly graciously made the drive to Michigan to spend the weekend with us. We had a lot of fun basically just goofing off!

Police Concert

The Police reunited for a tour and it just so happened that they made a stop in Detroit while we were in town. A few years ago, Kirk took me to see Sting in Detroit and we got lucky and got front row seats. Since we've seen him once in the front row, we had to do it again.

The concert was great! They played all of the great Police tunes. A lot of 40-50 something year old women were screaming!!! See the video attached.

Elizabeth's 1st Trip to the Dentist

Today Elizabeth went to the dentist for her first cleaning. She went with me last year to watch me get my teeth cleaned, but I don't think she remembered that. She was SOOOO good! I had an appointment too.

They took xrays on her teeth and then we went into the cleaning room. She listened to the hygienist talk about what was going to happen. My hygienist then came into the room and said that she was ready for me. I asked Elizabeth if she needed me with her for her cleaning and she said no. I was two cubicles away and heard everything. She did great and never cried once.

No cavities (for either of us!).

After the dentist, we visited our old neighborhood and our neighbors, the Bruett's. Elizabeth was curious about our old house, she remembered it.

Allison and Nicholas both grew a lot over the year. We had a great time visiting. Allison gave Elizabeth a manicure and pedicure and of course she loved it. Scott and Cindy were both there and it was good to catch up with them. Unfortunately, this is the only time we had to spend with them as our time got too busy.

We'll look forward to seeing them again next year!

Nolan's Baptism

Here are picture of the first joyous party that we went to. Nolan William was baptized. We were able to see Chrystal's family and all of the kids had a great time playing. After the baptism, Kevin and Chrystal had a party at their house. It was a really hot day and the kids ended up getting out the hose and having a splash party. Alex loved to fill up the bucket and dump it on his own head!

Michigan Friends Summer 2007

We left the farm and headed south to the Harris' mansion on Commerce Lake. I teased Andrea a lot about the size of their house. You have to understand that we are used to living in a small apartment. Compared to our apartment, their house is an absolute mansion. I could never keep it clean! You could fit a couple families in their house. Ten Chinese families. :()

Anyway, we had a great time with Jeff, Andrea, Ryan and Rachel. We actually met John, Suzanne, Clare, and Maggie (the dog) on the way. They were coming down I-75 also from Suzanne's parent's house up north on their way back to St Louis. Cronley, although we were having dinner at the Harris', was hungry as we drove through Grand Blanc and we pulled over to the Hot Dog Stand. He ate 3. Does that surprise anyone?? :)

You can see from the pictures we had a really good time. We were able to get out on the lake and do some tubing and some swimming and some Jet Skiing. Elizabeth likes to go fast, imagine that! Maybe next summer we'll have her up on skis.

We made a trip to Cass Lake beach and the kids loved using the slide. That night, Pelton and I were able to go meet up with friends. Michele Miller and Angie Bohr, then Pelton and Beth Hatsios, then Jeri Ward and Kath in the pictures. We had a great time catching up.

The next night we took pizza and salad over to Chesna and Beth's new house. Harris got pulled into doing some moving as they were not all moved in yet. Alex liked hiding in the furniture. You can see him in the pictures with his pink Wowee still. Nichoel Wasik, Nick and Katherine also came.

The rest of the week, we just hung out and played. I think Ryan was ready to get rid of us so that he could have his toys to himself again! On Friday morning, we got to finally have Friday morning breakfast with Grandpa and Grandma Pelton and Aunt Deborah. Uncle George had to work. Aunt Deborah is pregnant with twin girls!!

Thanks to the Harris' for letting us live in the lower wing! We felt so much at home and loved hanging out. Can't wait to do it again.

Dufon Farm

After my leadership conference, I drove back to Cleveland and picked up the kids. Gigi and Jake and us had a caravan back up north. They brought Olivia with them and Dale and Nicole followed a couple days later.

Wow! What a great time we had. It was really hard for me and the kids to be away from Kirk for so long, but this was the best thing for the kids.

Let's start with Elizabeth. She was so excited about being able to spend time with Alli and Anna. When they came over, I didn't see her again until they left. They had fun playing in the back, going for golf cart rides, and we went to the beach as well.

Now for Alex. If he heard anyone say "Golf cart", he would be right there by the door ready to go out. Being the routine boy that he is, he would talk about what we would see next on the ride. Let me walk you through:

We would drive down the lane, pass the pond, go around the junk pile, go over the bridge, look for fishes, drive past the cornfield, point and say "cornfield", go into the new paths and look for berries along the way. Then return and say all the same things!! He just absolutely loved running around the farm.

At the pond, Bumpa had to put up a rope to keep the little kids from walking into the pond. One day, it was windy, and we flew kites by the pond. Bumpa had a lot of fun doing it and said it was the first time he'd ever flown a kite. He was the last one flying them.

Oh, and the swing. Alex still loves to swing. Everyday, we had to walk down to the swingset and swing for at least 30 minutes.

On Tuesday, July 3, we loaded up the kids and went to Scottville to hear the world famous (well maybe) Scottville Clown band. We got there, sat down and waited for them to start and then it started raining. We thought it might, so we brought umbrellas and waited and thought it would pass. It started raining harder. So we went into the VFW hall and waited. While we were waiting, Elizabeth saw one of the clowns. He was dressed as a girl. She said, "Mom, look at that silly boy, he's wearing a dress!"

It started raining so hard and didn't look like it would quit. By this time, we were wet dogs and it was warm, so I hauled the kids through the pouring rain, through puddles into the car. You can see Elizabeth's displeasure at being so wet!!

The next day, we went to the parade in downtown Ludington. We went to the same spot as last year, by the shoe store. The girls had fun dancing around in the empty street before the parade. Jake was bored! House of Flavors gave away pints of ice cream again. Alex's favorite was the firetrucks, Elizabeth's favorite was the Clown band. We came back after the parade and had an awesome cookout!

At night, we attempted to go to the fireworks at one of Suzanne's friend's house on Lake Michigan. No luck...cancelled due to fog. They rescheduled on Friday, but Nicole and Dale wouldn't be able to go since they were leaving for a wedding during Friday afternoon.

The rest of the time at the farm was spent just enjoying the fresh air and wide open space. The kids loved playing in the pool that was set up and running around in the back. It was too short of a trip and we'll spend more time next summer. This will be a place that we will spend time at every year in the summer no matter where we may live. Thanks to Gigi and Bumpa for a great time!

Construction Everywhere!

Construction Everywhere click above for pictures

All around our apartment there is construction. There are cement trucks, welding equipment, digging machines and cranes moving 24 hours a day. Behind us they are building an office building. They have dug the underground garage. Across the street they are building a shopping mall and a 5 star Japanese hotel. They are continuing to add more restaurants, shops, and a small boutique hotel in the strip mall behind us. Down the street they are just completing a tall office building. Soon they will start construction on a new 5 star Shangrila Hotel. All of this is supposed to be complete within the next year or two. This will not be the quiet area for too much longer.

Welcome Natalie Grace Dufon

Natalie Grace Dufon arrived June 26th at 3:16 PM Central time.

She weighed 8 pounds and was 20 3/4 inches long.

This is Steve and Kim's baby, Nathan and Sarah's new sister. We've done a few webcams with them and Natalie seems to be a very good baby and she is very beautiful.

Elizabeth was excited that she is a girl! We will fly there July 27th and spend the weekend with them and attend her baptism. More to come with that trip.

Slvinski's House

The kids spent the week at Aunt's Cole's house from June 24 - June 30. Gigi and Jake came to help out. Needless to say, they had a blast and didn't miss their Mom at all. Alex LOVES Buddy (their dog). Elizabeth had a lot of fun playing with Olivia.

I had to work in Troy that week and really missed them, but I knew they were in good hands. I loved it when I got the text message from Nicole saying, "Al pee pee'd in the potty". By the way.....one time thing. :(They swam, went to the park, did arts and crafts, went to the community pool......

When I picked them up, they seemed like they were both more grown up. I cannot imagine what Kirk is going to think after being away from them for 3 weeks.

I picked them up on Saturday and we left for the next destination....Bumpa and Gigi's.....more to come

Back in the USA

Ahhh....the smell of clean air and new cut grass! Nothing like that in Shanghai! The kids and I made it back to the USA on Thursday. We waited too long to book our tickets and had to fly from Shanghai to Tokyo to San Francisco to Detroit. That last flight was painful. Will not do that by myself with the kids again. They were really good considering having to sit in a seat for the better part of 18 hours. We went the the St Isadore Strawberry Festival today. There was a band called the Polish Muslims out of Hamtramck playing music. Elizabeth, Ethan, and Alex had a ball dancing. I love summer church festivals! I love American made, grilled, hot dogs! I only ate one, but I could've eaten a couple more. Note to anyone we are visiting this summer.....just grill a few hotdogs and we'll be all set! We are cheap dates. The kids really miss Kirk and we are struggling with the body adjustment to the time. It will get better in a few days. For now, we watch a lot of Mickey Mouse clubhouse and Little Einsteins in Kevin and Chrystal's guest room between 4am and 6 am! I'll post pictures later in the week.

Alex & Daddy Go To School

Alex & Daddy go to School click above for pictures

I was able to take a couple of hours away from work to take Alex to school. Just my luck it was the day that taught the kids how to turn water and flower into dough. Alex isn't the best kid is class as he doesn't like to sit still while the teachers are showing the rest of the class the activity. When the teacher brought out the flour to show the kids how it felt, Alex ran right up to her a stuck his hands it and started tossing the flour around the room. When it was time to mix the flour and water to make the dough, Alex had to pour the whole cup of water into the pan so it was impossible to make dough. He stuck his hands in the mixture and didn't like the way it felt do he wiped them off all over himself and me. I think that the Chinese people in the class must have thought we have never seen flour and water before.

We did finally get cleaned up and Alex got to go a play with all of the toys. He also got to go outside on the swing, which I believe is one of favorite activities. We had a good time together and it was fun getting to meet all of his friends at school.

Father's Day

Father's Day Click above for pictures

I couldn't have asked for a better Father's Day. All you have to do is look at the pictures and you will see why my day was so much fun. I was woken up by my two lovely children who gave me beautiful picture of themselves for me to hang in my office. You can see the pictures in the link above.

Snow White Ballet

Snow White Ballet click above for pictures

Kim and I took the girls to see a Russian Children's ballet perform Snow White. Orla, Ciara, and Elizabeth absolutely loved it and were really good.

Elizabeth's Last Day of School

Elizabeth had her last day of school as a 2007 Ladybug. She will be returning to Concordia in the fall and most likely Mrs. Chiu will be her teacher again.

From the left, Mrs. Taylor, Lauren Round, Mrs. Round, Crystal Tan, Mrs. Chiu, Elizabeth and Samantha Chow. Mrs. Taylor, Lauren and Mrs. Round will not be back this fall. Mrs. Taylor and her family moved back to Australia. Mrs. Round and Lauren moved back with their family to Warren, MI.

Kirk's Trip Down Under

Kirk's Trip Down Under Click above for pictures

I made a trip to Melbourne, Australia on business to visit Ford about an opportunity for my company on the new Global Truck they are developing there. I met an old work mate and good friend Jeremy Gill and his wife Crystal there. Crystal was able to get time off work to make the long trip.

Melbourne is a really nice city. It was nice to visit a Western City after being in Asia for so long. It is amazing how much you miss the little things. For one I can eavesdrop on conversations there and understand what the people are talking about. We spent most of the time wandering around the city. Jeremy and I spent most of the time preparing for our meetings while trying to stay top of work issues back home. We will have to come back as a family on vacation where we can spend more time touring.

The pictures in the link above are from around town. They have a free cable car that takes you around town that tells information about the key areas of the city.

Elizabeth's Ballet Recital

Elizabeth's Ballet Recital click above for pictures

Finally after all the practicing the recital was here. It was a production of the Nutcracker and it was held at the Portman Hotel Theatre. It was really amazing. It was like a professional production of the ballet. The dancers were amazing and all the practicing really paid off. Miss Li is the teacher in the middle.

The little girls were the youngest and really did an outstanding job for being so young. The craziest thing at the end though. You know how you give your ballerina flowers after???......Well you do that here as well, but in true Chinese fashion, all the parents rush up onto stage at the same time, while all the dancers are there on stage at the end, to give them the flowers. There are about 200 people on stage at once!! Chaos.

Elizabeth fell asleep in the car on the way home!

Elizabeth's School Recital

Elizabeth's Recital at School click above for pictures

A lot of singing practice for the school recital was happening during the last couple months of May. The preschool and elementary school classes performed American Folk Songs. Elizabeth's class sang: I've Been Working on the Railroad, Shoo Fly, Knick Knack Paddywack, and Polly Wolly Doodle. Alex loves to sing Shoo Fly with Elizabeth. Kath loves the Polly Wolly Doodle song.

They all did a great job and it was a lot of fun watching the concert.

Oh yeah......more of Alex's antics on the last picture. He pulled one of Elizabeth's Easter Bonnets out and decided to wear it! Ha Ha

Ready for Big Boy Bed???

Alex's Ayi couldn't find Alex one day. She was very worried searching the house and the outside hallway (Alex has been known to sneak out when the door is open and ride the elevator down). Kirk was working from home that morning. Looks like Alex was playing schoolbus in Elizabeth's room and fell asleep on her bed! Shou Ju put pillows around him and let him take his nap there.

Pretend Sleepover

Orla and Ciara came over for dinner one night and we had a pretend sleepover. We had pizza for dinner and popcorn for dessert. We watched a movie and had a lot of fun. When it was time to go to sleep, Kim and the girls went home. A lot of fun for 4 and 2 yr olds.

Field Day at Elizabeth's School

Field Day at Elizabeth's School click above for pictures

The preschool and elementary classes had a field day. They had a lot of fun doing running races and other outdoor activities. The day was hot and humid and the kids were pretty tired at the end of the day.

Dance Recital Practice

Dance Recital Practice click above for pictures

Dance recital practice.......this was very painful for the Mommies!!!

For 4 Sundays, we had to take the girls to an all day recital practice where there were about 100 other girls ready to practice. The Chinese take their ballet very seriously!

They were very tired after practice and usually very cranky as they had to wait in between their performance practice for hours at a time.

We (the other moms and I) think that the other local girls are used to this. But we complained at the amount of time 4yr olds had to wait around to practice.

The girls who were in the recital from Elizabeth's ballet class were (see picture of girls standing by the wall) - Crystal Tan, Claire Wang, Elizabeth, Samantha Chow. Missing from these photos are Claire Yin and Shue En (not sure on spelling???)

Fun with Dottie

Fun with Dottie

Dottie is the Ladybug's classroom mascot. Each child in the Ladybug's preschool class got an opportunity to take Dottie home for a week or so and had to take pictures of where Dottie has been and what the child did with Dottie. The day Elizabeth brought Dottie home, she was literally jumping for joy!

There was a journal that came with Dottie. Dottie has been to the Great Wall in Beijing, to Thailand, and to Century Park as well as many other local places. Dottie can help make coffee, go to sleep with kids, and go to ballet classes.

Elizabeth took Dottie many places as you can see. Dottie watched the Goodyear Blimp from outside our apartment on our balcony. Dottie helped Elizabeth cook a grilled cheese sandwich and eat it. Dottie went to Church with Elizabeth. Dottie went to the Bund and overlooked the Pearl Tower, rode bikes, participated in Field Day, went to the little park, and hung out with Alex too.

Elizabeth was sad when Dottie had to go back to the classroom. However, at the end of the term, the teachers made "Dotties" and gave them to all the kids!

Spring Fun

Spring Fun 2007 click above for pictures

Yes, it has been a while since we've posted. We've had an eventful spring so far. Actually, they say that as of May 22, it is officially summer in Shanghai since the temperature has been so nice.

At the end of the May holiday, we went to Century Park for an International Music Festival. There were all sorts of different types of musicians and bands. The kids had a lot of fun dancing. We went with San, Sophia, Oia, Chloe, and Bella and Elvis, Kim, and Juna.

The next couple pictures were at Alex's friend, Chloe's birthday party. She turned 2 and had a princess party. Alex had fun playing with the tea set. The first princess is Oia and the next princess is Juna. The family picture is of the Eng Family - Sophia, San, Oia, Bella, and Chloe.

Alex made a crown at the party, see how great he looks as the handsome prince! He may be a prince, but he still wants to drive himself around. Olivia - look out, you will have no chance at riding your cozy couple while Alex is visiting you!

Mother's Day brought me a bike. I am now closer to being a native Chinese. The kids and I have had a lot of fun riding the bike to the Carrefour, Church, and School. We are very careful and always look out for the other guy!

The Goodyear Blimp was flying over the Park one day. We were able to snap a few pictures. It will be heading to Grand Blanc soon, I'm sure!

Finally, a picture of Alex, Pooh, and Daddy. Alex calls his milk - Nook A Nook. Not sure why????

New Haircuts

It was time for the curls to go. The weather is getting too warm for him to have the mop haircut. Alex got his first "buzz" haircut today. He did not like it very much as he screamed and wouldn't sit still the entire time. The haircut is not exactly even, but it will keep him cool. The Chinese lady that cut his hair mentioned several times to Kirk that next time he should bring Alex in while he is sleeping. We are not sure that is going to work.

Kirk took him to get an ice cream afterwards and he was in much better spirits. You will also see in the after picture that he has his pink wooee (fuzzy blanket). He had to hold this the entire hair cut.

Elizabeth also got a new summer haircut. She went to the hair salon with Kath. She is very excited about her new haircut.

Happy Birthday Grammy

Grammy,

We hope you have a wonderful Birthday!


Love,
Kirk, Kath, Elizabeth & Alex

We may have found the next Pele

I think this video speaks for itself. This guy is really good with the soccer ball. Okay, I am a little partial, but for a 2 year old, I thought it was good. This was the first time Kirk saw him play, when he video taped it. He agreed. By the way, I taught him!

Hong Kong

2007-05-01 Hong Kong click above for pictures

For the May Labour Day in China, we decided to visit Hong Kong. It is only a 2.5 hour flight from Shanghai and is in the same time zone so we went for a short 3 day stay. We stayed in Kowloon overlooking the Victoria Harbor. Wow! There are a lot of buildings here.

The transportation system in Hong Kong is top notch. We rode an immaculate subway from the airport into the city and caught a free shuttle bus to our hotel. It was very easy to use.

Right by our hotel was an Outback Steakhouse. Yes....we gorged on some really good US food. Blooming Onion, Steak, Potatoes, veggies, salad with good blue cheese dressing!!!! Of course, we did do the Australian beer, Fosters.

On Wednesday, we went to Hong Kong Disneyland. Everyone warned us that we might not like it because it is small and would be crowded during the holiday. We found the exact opposite. It was perfect for kids our age and there was no crowd. Perhaps it is overpriced for China, but we loved it. We had such a fun day. The kids got to ride all the rides they wanted to. They splashed around in a small water area, got soaked, but I had a spare set of clothes. It was a pretty hot day. Alex doesn't do well in hot weather! We watched the parade and then stayed for the fireworks.

Alex's favorite ride was the Buzz lightyear ride. Elizabeth's favorite was the Teacups. She got to talk to Belle and saw Ariel in the parade.

They both passed out on the way home.

On Thursday, we didn't have such a good experience. We went to Ocean Park which is similar to Sea World. Apparently it is not overpriced for China because that is where the crowds were. I'm very tolerant of crowds and a lot of people, and I couldn't handle it. We had to secure seats 1.5 hours before the dolphin show that lasted all of 20 minutes. We left right after that!

Then we took a taxi to Victoria Peak. It is a high spot with shopping and you can overlook all of Hong Kong. You can see some of the pictures that Elizabeth took. We took the Tram down, which started in use in the late 1800's. On the way, we met a nice lady teaching English in the Yanxi province near Mongolia. Her name was Jennifer and she was originally from Menominee Wisconsin. We all caught a cab to the Star Ferry and then took the ferry across from Central Hong Kong to Kowloon. Any Amazing Race fans out there??? They were just in Hong Kong and rode the Star Ferry.

We watched the laser light show that they have every night and then parted ways with Jennifer. We were all pretty tired after this. That's about the time I noticed that my work mobile phone was gone. It must have slipped out of my pocket during a taxi ride. Well, in Hong Kong, it must be finders keepers, because whoever found it, when we called it, shut the phone off. That made that day a bummer! We were able to catch 15 minutes in the top of the hotel outdoor pool and that really tired us out. So much so, that the kids and I passed out without dinner. Kirk went and had Mexican.

On Friday, we tried to swim again, but it was raining. So we packed up, left our luggage at the front desk, and headed out to shop. We wanted to find some shoes to fit me (although i really don't NEED any) and a new dress for Elizabeth, but ended up with a Wii for Kirk. If you don't know what this is....I didn't either.....and Kirk probably didn't.....until we heard about it from Cronley. Anyway, once Kirk's has his mind set on something, he has to follow through, so we searched up and down Nathan Road for the best deal. Since it was raining, the kids and I couldn't take it anymore and went to the bookstore by the hotel. We were able to pick up a few English books.

We flew back after getting the subway again and on the plane, Kirk realized that he left his Ipod in the hotel room charging. Now, we stayed at a 5 star Intercontinental Grand Stanford. Once again, finders keepers. Guess with kids, we need to keep our belongings to a minimum since we get so busy trying to keep them in line. By the way, I will NEVER stay at an Intercontinental again and am going to smear their name on Trip Advisor.

Overall, Hong Kong was nice. It was clean and easy to get around in. We may go back again, but I think we would stay right at Disney and just stay a couple days to hang out in their pool.

Not sure where our next adventure will take us. Perhaps Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, or Vietnam.

Welcome Nolan William Roessler

We would like to welcome Nolan to the world. Kirk's brother Kevin and his wife Chrystal had their second boy today. Ethan is proud to be a big brother. The whole family is doing well. We are looking forward to meeting him when we come back to Michigan this summer.

Lizzy & Alex + A Beautiful Shanghai Sunset

These are just photos from our everyday life. One night the sun set as a beautiful red ball. When they talk about the red sun in China, it is literally a red sun. It is amazing and my photo taking ability does not do it justice.

The pictures of Elizabeth and Alex are along a path along the river that runs through Century Park. Just off of Fangdian Lu, the path starts and it is quiet, peaceful and right now you can smell the jasmine flowers. In fact today, Alex and I saw a beautiful humingbird buzzing around a jasmine tree in the little park.

Elizabeth took some of these pictures. She loves to take pictures.

Chinese Idol

KTV click above for pictures

Okay, I think there is a bad video attached to this. I did not approve that this be added, but if I remove it, Kirk will be offended. And I was sober!

After the Autoshow, Kirk wanted to take his team out to express his appreciation for their hard work. Unfortunately, Cindy didn't feel good so she left early. Hudson, Cici, Dr. Wang, Dr. Wang's sister in law, and Kirk and I had dinner and then went to KTV to do a little Karioke. That is a big thing here. You get your own little room and sound machine. Hudson and Cici love to sing. Hudson is really good too! Much better than me.

Book Character Parade

2007-04-27 Book Character Parade click above for pictures

It was book week at school during the week before vacation. On Friday, they had to dress up as their favorite book character for a parade. The whole preschool and elementary school was there.

Elizabeth and I have been reading the Charlotte's Web chapter book so she decided to dress up as Fern. She wore a yellow dress just like Fern did in the movie for the fair. She brought her stuffed pig to be Wilbur and a big spider to be Charlotte. A lot of people first thought she was Little Miss Muffet, but then tney saw the pig and understood.

A lot of kids dressed up like princesses or spider man and bat man. I was really proud that she chose to be such a warm, loving character like Fern.

Alex's 2nd Birthday

2007-04-25 Alex's 2nd Birthday click above for pictures

We celebrated Alex's 2nd birthday a couple times. He got to open up gifts from us and other family on the morning of his birthday. We even had a couple web cams.

That night, Elizabeth got to pick where we went for dinner. Her choice - Hooters. It just happened to be the night of the Miss China Hooters 2007 contest. So Alex got to get his picture taken with some of the finalists. Of course, Elizabeth passed out at dinner and missed most of the party.

A couple days later, Alex's friends George and Lin came over for a playgroup party.

Then when we were all home that night, we celebrated again with his cake and singing Happy Birthday. He likes singing the happy birthday song now.

It's hard to believe he is two already! Time flies.

Work Visitors to Shanghai

2007-04-22 Work Visitors to Shanghai click above for pictures

Along with the autoshow came work visitors. Both Kirk and I hosted people from the States. We were able to meet up for a bit as a group one night.

The large group picture from left to right was: Rob Eckstein, Larry Denton, Cindy Zhou, Tim Glock, Hudson Yang, Sean McGuire, Dr. Wang, Kirk and I. In the next picture, it was Kirk, me and Matt Pohlman.

Kirk and Sean were so stressed out from the Autoshow, they had to get a foot massage.

On the weekend, I took Matt for a whirlwind tour of the popular tourist attractions in Shanghai. Then later that night, we met up with Clifford Kang and his wife Wendy Wu. We had dinner at a great Korean barbecue restaurant and finished the night at the piano bar in the Jin Mao tower.

AutoShanghai 2007

2007-04-20 AutoShanghai click above for pictures

The last few weeks have been kind of crazy. These pictures show the Auto Shanghai show. It was just as big and glamourous as the Detroit Auto show. The show was at the exhibition center just around the block behind our apartment.

Dura had a booth and Kirk was very busy involved with the preparation for the show. You can see the booth and some other pictures of cars that he saw.

You can also see how much traffic was in front of our apartment. It was awful, it took forever to get around that week. We were glad when it was over!

Guest Blog from Gigi and Bumpa

Would you believe that Bumpa and Gigi would fly to China? So many things to do and see.If we weren't sightseeing we were entertained by Alex and Elizabeth.

Alex loves to play with all his cars and trucks. Bumpa would ask him were the tractor and cars were and he would line them up ready to play.

Elizabeth likes doing puzzles and dolls. We went to Elizabeth's school and Gigi read them a book she composed about the farm. They enjoyed looking at Elizabeth and Alex pictures. The boys liked the picture of the homemade tractor plowing snow.Some have not seen that much snow. We went to Alex's school, the girls out numbered the boys. Before Easter went back to school for an Easter egg hunt and lunch with Elizabeth's class.

We went to the markets and could not beleve what goes on. A person can buy anything they want. They had their calculators out, ready to bargain. And don't touch it because they thought you were going to buy it. Marion said that was the biggest goodie barn he ever saw.

About the traffic and drivers. That is another story in itself. I think GiGi had a hole in the floor from braking so much. We managed to cross the streets without getting hit by the buses,cars,motorbikes and bikes. That was our first lesson.

Marion said the only safe place to be is on the 20th floor of their
apartment and watch all the traffic. What a view they have. A person would
not believe they lived in the city looking out the window. At night the
buildings are lit up and a couple of nights we watched some fireworks.

We went to an Chinese Acrobat Show and they had 8 motorcycles in a cage.
They went ever which way but loose, around and round, up and down. They sure
do know to entertain. If you ever get a chance to see one of their shows it
is a treat.

The gardens and the flower show were just beatiful. But I have to remind
myself they have many people working on those. So if I choose to do a couple
of new projects in my garden I'll be happy this year. The ideas are going to
be time saving for me, like less weeding. Of course, Marion doesn't know what
is in the planning for him to help out.


All in all we had a good time with the Roessler Family. Thank you again. Marion and Karen

Shanghai Botanical Garden & Expo Museum

Shanghai Botanical Garden & Expo Museum click above for pictures

We went to the Botanical Garden on Monday after Easter. When we first walked in, we thought it would only take 30 minutes to walk through the exhibition. Little did we know! This place is huge, a lot like Century Park. It had some amazing exhibits and we really enjoyed walking through. See some of the pictures I took of flowers that I thought were especially pretty.

That afternoon, we watched Elizabeth dance again with her friends. They have a recital coming up at the end of May or in June.

On Wednesday, I pulled Elizabeth out of school early and we went to People's Square to check out the Shanghai Urban Planning and Exhibition center. It was amazing. It has a model of the city of Shanghai! We saw our apartments, although they must have been planned to be on the opposite corner of Huamu Lu and Fangdian Lu.

We had such a great time with our visitors. Gigi will be doing a guest blog for me (hopefully) so that you can hear her perspective. I think they enjoyed themselves and they even got comfortable enough to take the Metro around by themselves!

We're thankful that they came and thankful that Kirk's Mom came in March. It will be busy for us until we come home in July, but it helped get us through!

Okay Pelton, that should've kept you busy for a while. Stop pestering me now! :)

Easter

Easter click above for pictures

We decorated Easter Eggs. Elizabeth had a lot of fun doing this with the Princess Easter Egg kit that Grammy had brought. You can see the beautiful eggs with GiGi and Elizabeth.

On Easter Sunday, we went to our church, Sacred Heart in Pudong. It was pretty crowded, but we got there early and got a good seat. We ended up seeing Elizabeth's friend Sophie and her family and they sat next to us. Alex went into the nursery and loved it.

After church, we went to Elizabeth's friend Oia's birthday party. I forgot to take my camera, but she had a blast.

Then we got to do the Easter Egg hunt. Alex just liked finding the eggs, shaking them, and opening them when the shaking sounded liked Jelly Beans. He thinks they are "nummy". We had so much fun and were so thankful to have family celebrate Easter with us as it wouldn't have been the same.

The last thing we did that day was take Alex to Farhana to get his hair cut. He was a little better this time. We really chopped it off and with it we chopped off all of his sweetness. He is a full blown terrible 2 year old!! We'll take more pictures of him but he really looks like a little boy now, not a baby, and he looks just like Kirk.

Najing Lu

Bumpa & GiGi Visit - Nanjing Lu click above for pictures

On Saturday before Easter, we went took the Metro (subway) to Xintiandi. This is an area of Shanghai in Puxi that was occupied by the Europeans and then once they were kicked out, it was the site for the first Communist party meeting. Now it is an upscale shopping and restaurant area. We ate at Latina which is a Brazillian steakhouse. The food was very good.

Then we walked to Nanjing Lu. This is a pedestrian street in Shanghai that has always (since the 1800's) been a shopping area. It is now lit up with many neon lights and is a site to see. We stopped at a Pearl market and Gigi was able to spend some money that had been burning a hole in her pocket.

Gigi and Bumpa found the Metro so easy to use, the next week, they mastered taking it on their own to many places.

Science Center & Crystal's B-Day Party

Trip to Science Center and Chrystal's B-Day Party click above for pictures

These are funny pictures, I'm just getting a look at them for the first time. So Kirk and Alex took Bumpa to the Science and Technology Museum and Gigi, Elizabeth and I went to her friend's, Crystal Tan, birthday party. Apparently Bumpa and Alex were a big hit with the local Chinese students! They all wanted their picture's taken with the Laowai (foreigner).

The party was a lot of fun and Crystal's parents, Dave and Peline, did a great job organizing it. It was at their apartment's clubhouse and their were 28 kids. On top of that, there were parents and Ayi's too! Elizabeth had fun and you can see the picture of her and her buddy, Jacob B. I think they have a crush on each other. Jacob is a very rambunctous but smart 4 year old. He draws pictures all the time for Elizabeth and she brings them home in her lunchbox.

Touring Downtown

Bumpa & Gigi Visit - Touring Downtown click above for pictures

The Monday after we returned from Beijing, we just did a little local sightseeing. Bumpa had read in the newspaper that Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft) had his yacht in town. Liu drove us down to check it out. Well as you can see in the pictures, it was pretty huge! It has a crew of 60 people, a helicopter, and a submarine!

Another day we went to the Oriental Pearl Tower and looked out at the sights. We saw the progress of the new financial tower vs the Jin Mao tower. We went to the Bund on the Pudong side and had dinner at Paulaner.

Finally we ended up at home with both kids on Gigi's lap for some stories.