We had a busy week. My fruit and vegetable guy from downstairs has a website (www.5jshop.com if you want to check it out) and has been trying to get me to order online. He delivers for free and likes for me to order online so he can select the best produce for me and keep me happy with the quality. So, I tried it for the first time and was happy to have my week's worth of fruit and vegetables delivered on Monday. I had to laugh because my I definitely did not enter the right weight when I ordered. I received the tiniest bunch of grapes (a branch of 6) and a plastic bag with about 5 weeks worth of strawberries!! They must have thought I was crazy! I'll try to do better next time. While my fruit and vegetables were being delivered the agent that helps us with issues concerning our apartment came to look at the tv in Mark's and my bedroom that has never worked. We had her look at it before Christmas because we thought we just weren't pressing the right buttons on the remote (the buttons are in Chinese). Her response at that time was "well, why do you need 2 tvs anyway?" So we left it alone. Last week we asked our agent to come and remove said broken television since it is quite big. All of a sudden there was initiative to fix it. Hmmm.
Tuesday was Mark's birthday. It was also the night all the 6th graders at SSIS received their apple laptops. Mark is on the apple vanguard team so he had to work until 8:00. It was an exhausting day and I felt really bad that Mark barely had time to breath, let alone celebrate.
Here he is blowing out his candles, right before bed.
Mark's homeroom sang him happy birthday and made him a card so that was nice. (One of the other teachers wished him a happy 52nd birthday). The school gives a bouquet of roses to all the teachers on their birthdays.So James has his laptop. He will take it to school for the first time tomorrow. He has been on it every chance he gets. So it should be interesting to see how the laptop program goes.
So the ending to my story about our tv was the agent decided that the tv did not work and the landlord said they would deliver a new one. So on Thursday we got a brand new flatscreen tv installed in our room! It's technically no more ours than the furniture but it's nice to have while we're here (and at no expense to us).Saturday was Valentine's Day. We headed out to walking street to get Mark's birthday present. There was no time to get it before then. Mark has wanted an ipod touch for quite some time. I obviously needed him to purchase it because I wouldn't know a fake or a good deal. So he has been bent over his new ipod touch right along with his son who is bent over his macbook!
Since I felt bad about the lack of celebration on Tuesday, we had some friends over on Saturday night. It was just a low key family-friendly night of pizza and board games. I had planned a surprise party for Mark with some guy friends at a bar near the apartment for afterward. So he was picked up by his department head (who told him he needed to talk about work) and then spent the night out with some friends. I had told the guys that if they dressed in Texan attire (in honor of Mark) I would buy them a free drink. I wasn't there but had a friend take some pictures for me.
So these are the three who "dressed western" with their drink, courtesy of moi. John is on the left, he's Australian and I'm not really thinking that counts as a cowboy hat. Maybe it's an Australian cowboy hat. Ben is in the middle, an American (Mark's department head). Apparently he thinks the wifebeater is western attire. Josh is on the right (James' homeroom teacher - another American), he at least has a proper hat and belt buckle.
These are some of the guys that showed up. There were a few more that came after this was taken. Glen is on the far left (a Canadian who used to teach in Oakville) and Simon in the back who is from the UK. So, another busy week starts tomorrow. I am starting a morning fitness program for the primary school. James starts track and field this week and Abigail is starting dance lessons at a nearby apartment complex. Claude and Lynn will be here in two weeks so I am starting to get things organized and ready for that.
I hope everyone is doing well. We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks Mum and Trudie for the care packages, they are much appreciated.
Happy belated birthday to Mike - Mark looks forward to having joint birthday parties with you in the future :)
Lots of love,
Karen (and the Smiths)
