Visit to Santa

They just weren't all that brave with this Santa. I don't think I would've been either!

Thanksgiving at Elizabeth's School

Thanksgiving at Elizabeth's School

Elizabeth's school had a really nice Thanksgiving luncheon. They sang songs for us and we all ate Turkey!

If you can not see the above video click the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Peg9DBjxUP0

Century Garden Play Group

Play Group

See Pelton...proof that I hosted a playgroup. Alex and I now have a playgroup every Monday morning with some other moms and kids from Century Garden. Lin, Ciara, Jean Luc, Chloe, Ophir, and Ciara.

Yahtzee!

If you can't view the above video click the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kRJ1Q9RX-4

Alex loves to play Elizabeth's Disney Yatzee game. See how well he rolls the die.

Around the House

Around the House

You can see that Alex still has his curls, the kids tried to show their support for U of M, and Elizabeth on her way to pajama day at school.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends and family. We are really sad that we can't be there to celebrate with everyone. We are thankful that we will get to do webcams with the Roessler's in Florida and with the Dufon clan in Fountain.

I've been remiss on writing stories lately. The days do seem to fly by. You can see that we have had some fun adventures to the park, to the Oriental Pearl Tower (Elizabeth calls it the tallest tower) and with our shipment coming in.

Speaking of shipment, we found out that we brought way too much. Number 1, we lived without it for so long, we really didn't need it. Number 2, we are crunched for space. We got creative with underbed storage and consolidated some things so there is a place for everything. Although it's "GOODBYE cute little Metropolitan, Minimalist apartment, HELLO Meijer Toy City"!!!! I'm grateful for the toys now because of the weather change.

Okay the weather.......it is now a consistent dreary, rainy, damp, November day. We haven't seen the sun in over a week. Pretty depressing. Alex and I have a cold and he doesn't like not being able to go outside. He gets pretty cranky when we don't go for our walks. So now I've given in and just put him in the stroller whether or not it's raining and we go. (I have a rain cover for the stroller).

Elizabeth's school had a Thanksgiving Day celebration lunch. It was a potluck. We brought the mashed potatoes, gravy, and my sad attempt at Frankenmuth noodles. Although a couple Michigander parents did recognize what they were!!!

Tonight we are going to the Intercontinental Hotel with our friends from Kirk's work, Rob, Stacy, and Roman. Then Saturday, we will go to Nick Petouhoff's (fellow GMI grad) for a big Turkey party.

Alex still isn't walking by himself....yes 19 months old....but he does have the ability. He just is very cautious. He's been that way since he was born. He loves to take our finger and walk the circle around our apartment. He's saying a lot more words and even replacing some with Chinese words. He doesn't say "thank you" any longer, he says "xie xie" (shea shea).

Kirk is the master at posting the pictures and video, so I'll have him post the recent stuff later. We love you all and look forward to seeing a lot of you at Christmas. Hope you are enjoying the blog.

p.s. pelton...open the purse strings and go buy a web cam.

Happy 60th Birthday Pop Pop!

Happy 60th Birthday PopPop! We are sorry we can't be there to help you celebrate. We hope you don't set off the smoke alarm with all of those candles.




If you can not see the video above please click the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M-96O0sLtI

Trip to Oriental Pearl Tower

2006-11-12 Trip to Oriental Pearl Tower

Boat Shipment Arrives

2006-11-9 Boat Shipment

Trip to Peoples Square & Nanjing Rd

2006-11-4 Trip to People's Square and Nanjing Rd.

Elizabeth's School Trip to Century Park

2006-11-2 Lizzy School Trip to Century PArk

Halloween Video

Just when you thought you couldn't get enough of Halloween. Here is a short video of Elizabeth (with here friend Crystal) and Alex Trick or Treating.

More Halloween pictures

2006-10-31 Halloween

Halloween in Shanghai

I'm just going to add one photo so that you can see what the kids looked like. I'll have Kirk import the whole album (I can't remember how to do it).

We started the night with having our friends Orla and Ciera (key-ra) come over to trick or treat. All the girls were princesses. Then we turned around and went to their apartment! Our complex only has about 40% expatriates so Halloween isn't that big here.

Stacy Eckstein invited us to go to a trick or treating party with her and Roman at another complex with many more expatriates. Elizabeth saw many friends from her school, as well as her teacher, Mrs Chiu. She and her friend Crystal had a great time.

Trip to the Bund

2006-10-29 Trip to the Bund

We made a trip today. We took the Metro (subway) to the other side of the Huangpu river, the Puxi side. The kids love to ride the Metro. It is very easy to get around the city with the Metro, but not if you are disabled or with a stroller. We carried the kids in the stroller down and up a lot of stairs.

We walked along the Bund (see the pictures of the older European style buildings). Chinese people love children, especially light haired children. We stopped to give the kids a snack and were eventually surrounded by 30 people. It was our first experience like this in China. A lot of people wanted to touch the kids and of course they all wanted to know if Alex was a nanhai (boy).

We then took the pedestrian sightseeing tunnel from the Puxi side to the Pudong side. We rode a tram car through a tunnel of amazing lights and music.

Once we got to the other side, we didn't get stared at as much. We got some ice cream from Mc Donalds and walked up and down the river. Elizabeth loved twirling and singing. She couldn't finish her ice cream, but didn't want to give it up and throw it away. I distracted her and Kirk threw it away. He then proceeded to tell her that a bird scooped it up and flew away with it. Great....she'll be traumatized by birds forever now. Of course she pulled the drama queen act about it.

We finished the day with good German food at the Paulaner restaurant on the Bund.

Alex is starting to get a lot more confident with his walking and he walked all around without any help for a while. You can see how big he's getting by comparing him and Elizabeth next to each other.

View of Pudong from the Bund side


If you can not see the above clip click the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhP92M8Ed5k

Alex walking along the Hungpu River

If you can not see the above view click the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRWhsmSoIgw

Lizzy Singing and Dancing (she needs help with her singing)

If you can not see the above video click the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzixh7DJI08

Guess Who is Walking

Guess who is walking....

Alex is starting to walk across the room unassisted. If you can not access this video above here is the direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MVmxqGXGYM

Alex Stroller Climbing

Alex's new thing is to climb all over the stroller. If you can not access the video above, the direct link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjUvm0AFCNk

First Visitor to Shanghai

Nick Gerasimidis wins the prize for being our first friend from home to come visit us in China. Nick works for GM and makes regular visits to Shanghai. Both Kirk and Kath went to school with Nick. It was good to see a face from home!

We also got our first letter in the mail direct to China from the US. It was a birth announcement from our friends Brock and Julie. They had a baby boy. It only took 84 cents to get the letter here.

Concordia Fall Carnival

2006-10-20 Concordia Fall Carnival

Here are pictures from the Fall Carnival at Elizabeth's school. She got to wear her Halloween Costume (She was Jasmine) and play many games with all of her new friends.

Sick kids

2006-10-15 Shanghai Sick kids

Rough week this week. We started out with a Goose Egg on Elizabeth's head on Sunday at the park. Then on Monday, I had to pick her up from school because she threw up. I thought it was just a side effect from the goose egg. Then Monday night she woke up with a 102. 3 F fever. I took her to the doctor the next day and he found that she had Strep Throat. Nice. And of course, guess who was at the doctor the next day......Di Di. Alex had a side effect of the infection too, Scarlet Fever.

It's Friday. We made it through the week. The kids are better, Kirk and I are still healthy. I think I'm still healthy because I made and ate Gigi's chicken soup. Kirk is just not around enough to catch it. Shou Ju caught it and went home sick today.

We went to a pub called the Flying Fox for dinner. They have an outdoor play area and good fish and chips. Then after, we finished with Haggen Daz. Great ice cream. Maybe it's just because it's been a few weeks since we've had ice cream.

We got our air shipment this week. It had been a month since it was packed. We really now understand how much junk we have and how you don't need that much to survive on!

Shanghai Third Week Pictures

2006-10-15 Shanghai Third Week

We had another good week in Shanghai. Elizabeth had her first week of school as well as her first field trip. Alex also started his school.

Elizabeth's school is Concordia. Her teacher's name is Mrs. Chiu. She is very nice and Elizabeth really likes her. Her class and the other preschool classes took a bus and went on a field trip to the local Carrefour supermarket. It is comparable to Meijers. I went on the field trip as well. The kids had fun but lost interest at the end. The purpose was to see what people did at work and people's roles in the communicty. After the trip, we went back to the school and had pizza. (Papa John's....my favorite!)

Alex has started school also. He and I go 2 days a week, Wednesday and Friday from 3 pm to 4:30 pm at the Shanghai Victoria school. It is a parent/tot class and it is held in Chinese. He has two teachers, Laoshi Micki and Laoshi Christine. They are nice and speak English. There are about 9 other students.....all Chinese.....all girls. Needless to say to all of those parents out there with boys.....Alex is the craziest in the class and doesn't pay attention to instructions most of the time. He just wants to barrel around with the toys. We learned the colors red, white and orange on Wed and we learned a Chinese nursery rhyme on Fri - Xiao Bai Tu. Shou Ju has to work with us on that one. Anyway, Alex is getting the hang of things and really likes going to school.

We have hired some helpers around our house. Shou Ju is our Ayi. She cleans for us, watches the kids a little, and cooks for us. She is very nice and a very welcome addtion to our family here in Shanghai. She speaks a little english and wants to learn more so we are helping each other by teaching each other the languages. She calls Elizabeth, Jie Jie (older sister) and she calls Alex, Dee Dee (younger brother). She has already taught us a lot.

We also hired a car and driver. We just don't feel safe always taking taxi's since the kids aren't buckled in. Our driver's name is Leo and he carts us around in a Buick minivan. It is much more convenient to have the driver when I am grocery shopping! He is very nice and the kids love him as well as he is very good with the kids. He doesn't know much English so he let's me practice my Mandarin on him. He and the door lady said that I am really trying.

Today we went to Century Park (we call it the big park) with the kids for a picnic. This park is absolutely unbelievable. They still have the plant sculptures up so that is cool to look at, but even without them, there is so much to see and explore in the park. This time we hung out on the east side of the park. We sat on the bank of the river and had bread, cheese, salami, fruit and of course a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken! It is a perfect place for a picnic. After our picnic we walked around some more and Elizabeth tripped over her feet on a cobblestone path. She now has a HUGE goose egg on her forehead. Thank goodness school pictures were last week.

Our curtains get installed this week on Monday and our airshipment comes on Tuesday so we will have a busy week. Kirk is in Thailand overnight tonight for a presentation at Ford and will be back tomorrow. Check out the pictures. I'll post some video tomorrow.

bye for now -

Kath