Christmas 2013

I wanted to get in a quick blog post mostly because we have posted so little this year.  The kids had fun this year during the holidays and with Will in school now he is learning more of the commercialized part of Christmas and Santa etc.  In the past the kids didn't really know who santa was.  Will was however quite disappointed Christmas morning to find out the Santa wasn't going to come by and spend time with him.  He figured that Santa would come by for lunch and play all day.  He didn't like the idea of him only coming at night and not being able to see him.  

Will at his school a few weeks ago making gingerbread houses during the December Family Fun Day.

June enjoying eating the decorations for the gingerbread houses during Family Fun Day.  She loves FFD because she gets to go to Will's school for a few hours on those days.

Will after a haircut where he got a "Chinese" cut that looked suspiciously identical to the Chinese guy that cut his hair.

We found June here with a spoon having a go with the peanut butter that aunt Heather brought over.  

For Jen's bday, Dec 20th, we joined a gym that has a big indoor kids play place that the kids love.  This is Will in pure joy at the bottom of a slide.

The Pearl Tower on a December night.  The city "looks" Christmas-y but doesn't feel like it. 

Santa brought Jen some new wheels for her bike.  Watch out boys.

Christmas day feast with some friends.  Ham on the bone, funeral potatoes, salad, rolls, veggies.  yum!

June was clearly happy about the feast.

After dinner we watched the Grinch and had hot chocolate.  On Christmas day we were able to Skype with some family and friends back in the US but certainly would have liked to have been able to Skype with more.  Christmas in China is fun, sort of.  I had to fly to a northern China city on the 26th for work which wasn't fun.  Fortunately we had a few friends that stuck around this year although most expats leave to go to their home countries for the holidays.  Church attendance went from about 150 to 30 the past two weeks!  We got to have my sister Heather come for the first part of December which was a lot of fun.  I should just go and copy and paste her blog posts on to our blog because she included a lot of pictures and a great description of her trip.  The kids loved having their "big friend" here.

In December we also celebrated Jen's bday.  We had lots of fun going to a healthy restaurant and getting a massage.  Happy Birthday Jen!

The Wonder Center

Was just looking at our blog and it shows the number of posts per year since we started in 2008.  We used to post 40+ times per year the first two years.  Then...not so much.  2012 only has 6 posts while 2013 has had 7 posts year to date.  Probably need to do a bit better job if this is what we count for our family journal.

Not too much special happened this past week.  Will rides his bike to school each day.  He started riding without training wheels when he turned 4 yrs old.  When we asked him why he could suddenly just pick up a bike and start to ride it on his first try (true story, just just grabbed the neighbors bike and started riding around the parking lot) he said that he could do it now because he was 4 and when you are 4 you can ride a bike.  Fair enough.  So he rides with Jen to and from school each day.  It's about 1 mile each way - not uphill or in any snow.

Will loves school.  We love his school.  The school is probably best described as a hippie village, complete with drum circles - I'm serious. There are no desks in the school, they cook all of their own food and it's all vegetarian.  They recycle and make their own paper.  The school starts anywhere from 8-9am depending on when you want to show up.  They have a family day once a month where the parents all come for lunch and participate in activities.  They have a school blog that gets updated every Sunday night that talks about what they will be doing during the coming week and has a video montage with photos from the previous week.  There are 6 kids in his class and two teachers (just like Utah schools....one thing similar to Utah though is that there are 3 mormons in his school of 30 kids - not exactly Provo numbers but more than you'd expect in China).  One teacher is from Australia and the other is Chinese.  Every other day his lessons are in English or Chinese so they get both languages.  They were blown away by his Chinese at the beginning of the year.  He is learning to write his letters and numbers and the sounds they make.  We don't yet know if he is right or left handed since he uses both to write and doesn't seem to have a preference for either one.  We don't push either one but just watch.  If he were in a Chinese school they would just force him to use his right hand.  He has classmates from a variety of different countries and cultures.  Will learned a few things pretty quick at school.  One of those things was that he needed to participate in all of the cooking and cleaning.  Early on in the year they were baking some cookies one day and Will said he didn't want to help.  They said 'ok' and he played while the other kids helped make the cookies.  At the end of the day all of the kids got to take the cookies home to eat.  Will wasn't given any.  He was very upset about it.  From then on out he is always one of the first to help out to cook!

June always loves to go pick up Will at school or go and play on the monthly Family Fun Days or join on the field trips.  The teachers all know and love her and she has a great time.  In the front yard of the school (they transformed a huge villa/house into the school) they have a big cage with a few rabbits in it.  When June shows up the rabbit always come over to the gates because they know that June will never let them down and give them a snack.  She loves to feed the bunnies.

Both kids have swim lessons every Friday, which they love.  Then on Saturday's they have gymnastics which they quite enjoy as well.  Gymnastics finishes at lunch time and there is a Subway in the same building (some of you that have visited us will know the building as the tallest one with the hole on top like a bottle opener.  The Shanghai World Financial Center, 3rd tallest building in the world and tallest in China - at least for another two years anyway) so we always get a sub sandwich after class.  Will calls these his 'gymnastics sandwiches'.

This coming week is Thanksgiving.  This is one of the only times I get homesick.  We haven't decided exactly what we will do but nothing every compares to my Aunt's spread that she puts on.  It's the best. A week from today my sister Heather will be here!  We are all looking forward to her coming over.  Will has been saying all week that "Quinn's mom will be here soon!".  While she is here Jen will go to Thailand for hip surgery.  Hoping that is uneventful and smooth.

The is a pic of the kids doing dishes at home recently.

This is the waitress in Queenstown, NZ that Will fell in love with.  She is from Shanghai and her and will had an instant bond.  She was a good sport and almost fell over when this blond haired blue eyed kid asked her for a glass of orange juice is Chinese.

New Zealand

We are really struggling to get a blog post put together.  Here we've just added a few photos from our recent trip to New Zealand.  In summary it was awesome.  Clean air, big majestic mountains, beautiful clear lakes, oceans, open space, friendly people, good food, not crowded - basically it was everything that Shanghai isn't. 

Overlooking downtown Auckland on the North Island.

Auckland

Will playing with his buddy Oli.  Oli used to live in our apartment complex in Shanghai before his dad got a job in NZ.  It was fun to get together with our friends.

Sheep, yeah there are lots of these there.

Typical NZ roads.

Kids chasing the birds on the shores of lake Waki-whatever (never did learn how to say the name of this lake that we stayed next to for 5 days...)

Chinese guy that was playing for money in the street that freaked out when Will spoke to him in Chinese.  He started playing Chinese songs for Will.

Jen's friend Marnie, Oli's mom, used to be our neighbor and in our branch in Shanghai.  We went to the Auckland Zoo with them.

Will out running in Arrowtown - an old gold mining town on the South Island.

At the zoo

On the shores of lake Waki-something-or-other

Will cherishing his moment to be on grass.  yeah, not a lot of this in Shanghai to roll around in.

Stunning views of the lake.

Views of a paraglider over the lake.  We took the gondola up a mountain and had lunch up there and did the luge.  Will loved it.

Auckland

Jen's yummy burger (vegi and beets) from Burger Fuel - an awesome local chain.  Mine had real meat and beets and was very good.

More to follow, hopefully. 

our week

UT. is a dream. I love this land. Here are some pics of this past week. We did a lot--swimming, splash pad, playgrounds, hiking, games, fireworks, rehearsals, recitals, yummy food, running and playing at the high school track (kids loved the long jump pit), library visit, picnics, kids camping out in the basement, horses...

After Amb's piano recital. Little kids eating refreshments.

These two are like peas in a pod. They are having fun running around together.

Will likes eating some of his meals outside on the back patio for some reason. Maybe because he likes the dog, or maybe he's enjoying the wonderful weather...

double trouble 

This is where I get to ride my bike-through beautiful fields, orchards, and amazingly clean air-and emptiness. I wanted to take it all in so I stopped my ride to get a pic.

While A. has play rehearsal we take the kids to the track. They play in the long jump pit, while my sis and I take turns running laps-reminds me of my mom taking us kids to the track. We played while she ran. Sometimes we ran with her. Sometimes we raced. This time it was Will who wanted to race. He got on the track and said, "Wo yao qu bizai" (I want to race). After a "On your mark, get set, go!" He took off and ran an entire lap. Then his cousin B. raced the second lap with him. I was like, "Oh my word he just ran 800 meters like it was nothin!" He was speedy.

If you can zoom in on this pic you should-J.'s face is classic.

Will got into Amb's lipstick before the fireworks started.

J. then wanted to take a turn

I am having so much fun with this family. Lots of laughs.

playing around before the fireworks show. Aren't the mountains and green grass beautiful!

Don't be fooled. This is actually a cherry pie without the crust top. Who needs two crusts on a pie??? But it doesn't look all that appealing in this photo, but man alive! It is tasty. We made it from scratch, and even picked our own cherries from the orchard.

The cherry trucks had just shaken the trees the day before and were done with them, so we had permission to collect what we wanted--the kids loved this.

darling little miss

these are the best cinnamon rolls ever! My sis did a fantastic job.

kids enjoying cinnamon rolls. Very happy kids.

Mango quinoa black bean salad=health and happiness.

hiking bridal veil falls

enjoying the sun and cool water.

J. also enjoying the cool water. She wanted to swim in this ice water.

splash pad was a hit. Cheesy grin.

Can you believe these were only 5 bucks? I'm used to paying that much for 1/4 this amount.

On a walk outside our home, and W. pulled this.

Enjoying the wild outdoors.