Ni Hao Everyone! I hope this finds everyone well. We had a special treat this past weekend skyping as we got to see Mason, Eli and Ryker on the monitor! Mason waved, Eli stared and Ryker tried to eat the camera! It was great! We're hoping we'll see Jack sometime soon (hint, hint).
The boys left for camp this morning. It is quite eerie walking around the school as 2/3 of the population is gone. So it is just the girls for the next 3 days. Abigail and I are planning to get some Papa John's pizza and a DVD tonight. It may be difficult as all 4 of our dvd places are only open for an hour in the evenings because apparently the "DVD police" are in town(?)
We found out last week that it is very hard to find deodorant and contact solution in Suzhou. We did manage to find some but had to take a taxi to the eye hospital in old Suzhou and paid a fortune for deodorant (I know what Mark is asking for Christmas this year!)
We have next week off. It is the Chinese National Day but they take a whole week off. Abigail's birthday is Tuesday. I am hoping to convince Mark to go to the bird and flower market on Saturday morning. I would love some plants for my balcony and this market is apparently also dubbed "pet street". They sell birds, fish, turtles, frogs, dogs, cats and one of my kindergartners told me she bought her hamsters there. I would love to see it. Mark is trying to avoid James begging for a dog or cat but we may compromise with a turtle, we'll see.
James is doing well in school. Surprisingly he does not have a lot of homework. I thought once he hit middle school he would be hitting the books until all hours of the night but apparently the IB program doesn't work like that. The philosophy is less homework and more projects. He was quite happy that one of the assignments in his english class is to read a book a month and sit down and tell his teacher about it. That was right up his alley. He told me his favorite class this year is Chinese which was surprising. I think he is quite anxious to know what everyone is saying when we are walking around Suzhou.
Unfortunately good books for the kids are hard to come by. The 2 libraries at the school are quite good but both James and Abigail are looking for books in specific series. The school does monthly scholastic book orders which is nice and the prices are reasonable. We're also going to look in Shanghai next week.
Anyway, that's all for now. I keep trying to post summer pictures on facebook but the internet is so slow here and often times out before the pictures are uploaded. I'll keep trying though. Lots of love until next time!
