We are back from Calgary after a wonderful Christmas vacation. 2 weeks of playing in the snow, eating all sorts of goodies, sleeping late and playing with Mason - who is shaping up to be quite the character! James told me on the flight home that it was "the best Christmas ever".
I'm going to try to include some Christmas pictures...
Yaay!! It worked..look at that monkey. Mason refused to say my name the entire time I was there. I have waited for so long to be an aunt and everytime I asked Mason what my name is he just laughed! Apparently he said it when I wasn't around... what a turkey!
We went up to the mountains for a couple of days. Enjoyed some good sliding, lots of hot chocolate and some time at the spa with Mum and Tara. Mark and James went on a GPS adventure hike in the mountains and were told to watch out for the cougar that had been spotted not too long ago! Here's James at one of the lookout points.
We had a ton of snow, apparently more snow than Calgary has seen in years so we had to take advantage.
yes... that is my Dad going down the hill.
Mark, unfortunately, was sick the whole time we were in Canada. But he was a good sport about going out into the cold in the mountains and on a very cold New Year's Eve at the zoo. His highlight was playing guitar hero with Tara in Mum and Dad's basement - a present from James.So now we are back in China. We have a week and a half left before we go on another break for Chinese New Year. Another 2 week vacation. It seems ridiculous to be going on another long break but we'll take it! We don't get any more time off until May after that. We are hoping to fly to Malaysia the second week of our break. We want to have 2 or 3 days in Kuala Lumpur and then some time on the island of Langkawi. We are having some trouble booking tickets so it is just a maybe right now.
The school is having a Chinese New Year banquet for the staff tomorrow night. It is apparently bigger and better than the Christmas dinner which was really nice so I will be sure to bring my camera and take pictures.
Sadly my teaching assignment will end when we go to Chinese New Year. I can't believe 3 months is up already. I have really enjoyed it and learned a lot. I didn't know I could actually enjoy being around teenagers all day! It does look like I will be signing a contract to teach at SSIS next year. I talked to the director before we went on Christmas break. He is currently hiring people for next year at various recruitment fairs around the world. It has to happen quite early in order for visas and paperwork to go through. So I will be most likely teaching the younger children. Not sure what age yet.
Before I wrap this up I wanted to post some pictures of the new comforter Mark and I bought for our bed. A little Christmas present to each other. It's wonderful - silk on one side and cashmere on the other. We decided to get a cashmere throw blanket for the living room as well. We went to the tailor's and picked out the silk and cashmere and it was ready in 2 weeks!
I folded it over so you could see the cashmere side as well. This is our throw blanket - we picked out a silk trim with bamboo.
I'm home with Abigail today. She caught what Mark has and is running a bit of a fever. So I am off to make some chicken soup. Hope everyone is well rested after the holidays and all the best in 2009 - it's going to be a great year!
