Hawaiian Luau Night

Last night we had a Hawaiian Luau, complete with a roasted big and hula dancing! Sophie went up and joined the dancers. Noah was waiting for the promised fire eaters but they never showed up. Apparently they couldn't get the right fuel. He was very disappointed! Thomas had fun with the coconuts!

Christmas at the compound (Catch up post)

There was a station where the kids could make their own noodles and then they would cook them for you with veggies and meat. Yummy! Sophie made some with her friend Rachel.


Thomas danced the night away. Here he is doing the Macarana.


Noah and his buddies waiting for the band to start again!


Noah with his best buddy, Aleski.

The compound that we live in held a christmas party for the residents. The food was fabulous and the kids had a great time dancing to the band. We are living in a newer compound and they really seem to be trying to be family friendly. We are fortunate. Not all compounds are.

Sophie's birthday (Catch up post)

Hard at work


Opening presents


The gang


I am 8!


Sophie with her good buddy Mikaela




Sophie had a birthday party with a few friends from the compound we live in and a few friends from school. It was an arts and crafts birthday party. She came up with 6 different art projects she wanted to do. We had different stations set up around the house and the kids went to each table and made the project. Lots of fun. It was a truly international affair. When we sang Happy Birthday it was sung in English, Chinese, Finnish, German, Italian, Malaysian and Korean! Three of the friends from school spent the night so it was a long party. I can't believe she is 8!

Snorkeling

On the boat getting ready to snorkel





Proof I do more than take the pictures!



Noah and Dad swimming with the fishes!











This morning Thomas had his second and last dive. He is already talking about when he can get fully certified. He really enjoyed it!

We then took a boat out to a coral marine sanctuary about 15 minute ride away where the boat anchored and let us snorkel and paddle around for 2 hours. Really fun. Noah was a little freaked out by being surrounded by fish of all sizes. They clearly associate divers with food. He prefered to hang out on the boat. We talked him back into the water by convincing him just to swim without his mask. The "What you can't see can't frighten you" theory. Jon and Thomas discovered the edge of the reef-the big drop off. You could see large schools of fairly good size fish swimming around. Sophie snorkeled for awhile and then decided she liked just swimming better too. Lots of fun and an activity we will try again! (Pictures would have been better if I had an underwater camera!)

Flips and slides

Thomas flipped like this....

So I hurled myself in like this....












The sun came back our today and was very warm. The kids have been bugging me to go off the diving rock so I told Thomas if he would do flip off the rock I would jump off. I was assuming that he wouldn't do it. I was wrong. So he gracefully flipped off the rock and I not jumped off, not so gracefully. When I surfaced, Sophie asked, "Mom how do you make that shriek noise when you jump." Last time I make a bet with Thomas!











After the rock we spent some quality time on the big slide. We tried various ways of going down seeing how fast we could get going. I may have won this bet although Jon claims he flipped Noah onto his side when going down with him on his lap. Sophie and I tried to see if we could get that kind of speed too. All we got was bruised elbows! Clearly weight plays a factor.

Rainy Day excitement

We had a very rainy day today. The kids did make it into the pool in the late afternoon despite the rain but overall a day to explore the under cover activities Thomas played on the Wii and the younger kids spent a good 2 1/2 hours making paper lanterns and painting ceramic sculptures. The real excitement came when we came back to the room to get ready for dinner. Thomas asked if anyone else saw the mouse. I thought he was joking until I saw it run across the floor! We called housekeeping who sent up a pest control person immediately. Should I be concerned that there is a pest control person on site 24/7? Anyhow he searched around the room poking a fly swatter into small areas. I was sure we said mouse not fly.....He set two sticky traps. We happily headed out for dinner. Upon our return the kids immediately checked the traps and there he (she?) was! Just hanging our on the sticky trap paper. Sophie wanted to peel his little feet off and keep him as a pet. Noah also voted yes for mouse souvenir. Mom voted no and won. Another phone call to house keeeping brought Mr. Pest Control back. Off Mr. Pest Control went and hopefully that is the last four legged visitor we have.

Lantern Parade

Yesterday 12/26 the resort had a lantern parade where the kids got to carry a lantern throughout the resort looking for Santa. They had to sing Christmas carols to receive little gifts along the way. Sophie led the group at one point in "Rudolph" and they had fun seeing Santa in the sand under the palm trees! The lantern parade reminded us of the rectangular lanterns in Germany that the kids made and sang "Laterna" while walking through our neighborhood in Hofheim. These lanterns were stars (the star of Bethlehem) and the walk was considerably warmer. Fun!

Scuba diving Thomas

Thomas was very anxious to cash in on his Christmas gift from Amma and Bubba (grandparents) of a scuba diving lesson. He went today and loved it so much is already begging to go again before we leave. He took a one day intro to scuba course so he didn't get certified but could still go out for one ocean dive. He watched a safety video and learned hand signals and what to do if you run out of air (surface?!?). They then practiced for awhile in the pool before they went out for about a 30-45 minute dive in the ocean. He loved it and will most likely get to do it again (thank you grandparents!) Sophie and Noah are looking forward to going our on the boat to snorkel and perhaps a bannana boat ride. (Think large inflatable bannana shaped tube which we can all sit on while being pulled through the water at terrifying speeds! Merry Christmas!)

Kid's Lit Quiz

Another overdue post.....

Thomas was part of the Kid Literature Quiz Team this fall at school. The kids were put into groups of four kids to answer trivia questions all based on kid's literature. His team made it to the national competition (held in Shanghai). They competed against 17 other teams from inernational schools from all over Asia (mostly China). Thomas's team came in fifth! (Only the top team got to advance to the interantional finals held in Oxford England this summer! It was a great experience and he really enjoyed it! (Did I mention he was the only boy to compete from SAS?!?) The first photo shows him with his team (Thomas and three Asian girls!) and the other is with the Team leader.

Field trip to Lin Min

So this is one of the posts which is at least a month overdue. In November Noah's first grade class went to visit and bring goodies bags filled with school supplies and little toys to a first grade class at a local migrant school. The official population count of Shanghai is around 17 million people but if you factor in all the migrant workers it is much much higher 25 million by some counts. The migrant workers do not enjoy any benefits that "registered inhabitants" are afforded (housing, education etc). There are migrants schools that are little more than cement shells of buildings where the children of the workers get educated. The school receive no funding so want for a lot! There is a migrant school just down the street from the American school. SAS (Shanghai American School) has somewhat adopted them providing funds for a playground, windows and doors, desks and school supplies. Anyhow Noah's class had a unit on needs vs. wants as part of their social studies curriculum. They ended the unit with a visit to the school. They brought goodies bags filled with some things the kids might need and some things they might want. It was a very interested experience for me as a parent and a teacher. I think it is safe to say it made a bigger impression on me than it did Noah! SAS has 85 first graders divided into 5 classes. Lin Min School has 123 first graders divided into 2!!!! classes. A couple of things really stand out in my memory. First of all how many more boys than girls there were. About 3 to 1 -rough estimate. I know where we are and all but it is the first time I have really noticed it. Secondly as our kids passed out the bags the Lin Ming students sat quietly at their desks (two kids to a desk) and smiled but nobody opened the bags. A few took hold of it but not one child ripped into the bag. I am sure they were told not open them until we left. I am told corrporal punishment is still widely used. Wow! Very interested day. Noah was his usual bubbly self, smiling and trying to pass out as many bags as he could. He tried to sit down next to one little boy. Just another day at another school in his book!

Rock Wall or Diving Rock?

So the big question we have to answer every morning is do we start off with the diving rock or climbing the rock wall? The diving rock seems to win most days. I am including some photos of Sophie and Jon on the rock wall. The 145 pound Phillipino man holding the rope took one look at Jon and said "Maybe you can climb down too?" I think he was afraid of going for a ride if Jon rapelled (?) down. I am taking the photos. Maybe you can see me on the wall next time (or maybe not!)

The kids are working on perfecting their cannon balls. Noah has great form but for obvious reasons Thomas has the biggest splash! They tried a group cannon ball but it lost some of its form. Again I am holding the camera so no cannon balls for me!

We are truly enjoying a wonderful family vacation! Merry Christmas!!! (Santa did find our hotel room and managed to fill their stockings to the over-flowing point. I hope Santa was good to all of you!

Finally another post

WEll I am not sure if anybody is still checking our site since it has been soooo long since I have posted anything but my New Year's Resolution is to be better with this blog thing! I will start a little early! WE are currently on Cebu Island in the Phillippines for Christmas vacation. We decided to trade in snow and ice for sun and sand this year. (Although we were having neither snow nor ice in Shanghai!) Cebu is beautiful and the kids have spent the last two days in the pools. (There are somewhere around 7 or 8 to choose from!) I think we will be well water logged by vacations end. Here are a few photos and then I will try to catch up on some of our going ons since mid October! There have been a few.....