This is my third attempt in writing this week's blog. My new laptop apparently does not play friendly with blogger. Anyway, last week we celebrated (American) Thanksgiving at the school. Quite a few people came and the school catering company went all out with white table clothes and floral arrangements. We had some interesting interpretations of "traditional dishes" including a salad with octopus and pumpkin pie with a cookie bar crust and canned pumpkin poured on top (not baked). We all had a good chuckle and chalked it up to the Thanksgiving in China experience. Here are some pictures
On Saturday Abigail and I went with some friends to the Suzhou Expat Christmas Bazaar. She had been earning money all week doing various chores because she wanted to buy her friends some Christmas presents. We had a really nice time. The bazaar was in an old hotel within walking distance and it was a beautiful day.
So I picked up an expat cookbook, bought some home-baked goods and Abigail has all her Christmas shopping done! The first picture here is just to show you the set up. The one below it is a painting I got for Abigail that a local artist painted in front of us. I couldn't resist!
So with (both) Thanksgivings behind us we are officially into the Christmas season. We visited the german supermarket called Metro on Sunday and purchased a small Christmas tree. Unfortunately our priceless stockings did not make it to Suzhou so we had to purchase new ones. I have been invited to a Christmas party this Friday at the secondary principal's apartment and Mark will be going solo to a different Christmas party on Saturday (no kids allowed, which meant only one of us could go). Next week is the school performance of Oliver Twist (Abigail sings in the chorus and Mark does sound and lights) and also the school-wide book sale, which apparently english teachers are involved in (I just found that out today)! The weeks are really flying by which is nice because I am counting the days until we go "home for the holidays"
Yaay, I think the blog will actually post this time. I am trying it on Mark's Macbook. SSIS is in the works to become an i-school. That means each student has their own laptop (macbook). So Mark is on the Macbook vanguard team to help train the teachers on the computers when it is time. They are introducing it at the middle school level as of January so James will have his own laptop that he will bring to every class. We will have an apple support staff member full-time at the school to deal with problems that occur. Should be interesting, James is certainly looking forward to it!
Ok, that's all from me for now. Hope everyone had a good week. Enjoy all the holiday festivities!
