Michael's visit

Just a quick mid-week blog. Michael and his friend Lisa left today after spending 4 days with us in Suzhou. We had a good time showing them around. It was cold and rainy their first day here but thank goodness the sun came out for the rest of their time here.

On Saturday we headed out to Lion's Grove Garden, one of our favourite places in Suzhou.


Can you see James on top of the rocks? He is in his own world when we go to Lion's Grove. Climbing the rocks and exploring the caves. He loves it.
We did a little shopping afterward and Mark bought me a new teapot. Lisa bought a chinese chess set for her son. We also went to the tailor and Lisa had a dress suit made.
So, we really enjoyed having visitors. The kids didn't have school Wednesday, Thursday and Friday so we are back into the swing of things now and it will be go, go, go until Christmas.

This is my new teapot.

That's all for now. Will blog again on the weekend.

Hi Everyone,
We had a weekend of skyping and running errands. We talked to Trudie and David on Saturday and then headed to walking street to pick up some special Christmas presents that I had ordered (can't say anymore just in case the wrong person reads this). On Sunday we skyped with Mum, Dad and Mason. I headed to the framer's with a friend to have some prints framed that I bought at the bazaar last week. Mark stayed home and watched James and Abigail as well as my friends' three daughters. He did quite well and apparently danced for them to much enthusiastic laughter.
On Sunday night we skyped with Mike, Treasa and Jack who told us it was "a fine day". Love it.

So since I didn't really take any pictures this weekend I thought I would post some pictures that I promised when we first moved in. This is my newly covered couch. The orange is gone!

The pillows I bought from Ikea that were in our window seat at our old apartment looked perfect with the new slip covers. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

This is my new plant stand that I picked up for about $15 US. One of a kind. I thought it was really interesting.

So tomorrow is parent/teacher conferences. The kids don't go to school because the conferences go from 8am until 6pm. Mark is heading to Shanghai tomorrow night for a Texas Instruments conference and will be there until Friday night.

Speaking of Mark, he had told his grade 12 students that if they raised 5000 rmb for a charity that fights AIDS in Africa he would let them shave his head. They informed him today that they had reached their mark. So this was the scene today at break time.


There was some talk about leaving it like this but Mark neglected to see the humor in that remark.

The scene in the hallway. There were quite a few gasps. At least it went to a good cause. Unfortunately he has also commited to shave all his facial hair and his eyebrows if they raise 10,000 rmb. Yikes!

That's all for now. It's a chilly, rainy night so I am off to get into my flannel pjs and curl up in bed!

Love from Suzhou!

trip to Luxiang

I think I'm finally getting back into the habit of blogging regularly. Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself by saying that.

Anyway, another busy weekend comes to an end. Yesterday Abigail and I went with some friends to the annual Expat Christmas Bazaar. I blogged about it last year. It is quite early this year but I was glad because it gave me the chance to buy some things and still have enough time to send them home for Christmas gifts. All the stuff was beautiful. Local artists, custom made jewelry, cashmere, and home made baked goods. Abigail bought some Christmas presents for her friends too. Mark and James went to the dentist to have James' braces looked at, we walked to the sports equipment store to get some warm weather gear for Mark because he is biking into school and back everyday now. At bedtime Abigail talked to her best friend Tabitha who moved to Qatar last year on skype (lots of giggling).

Today we went on a trip out to the country to an area called Luxiang. The trip was organized by the school's social committee so we went with other teachers. James chose to stay home and hang out with his friend Hannah. Here are some of my favourite pictures from the day.


This is what you can see when you walk through the gates. The village is on water. You can't see it very well because it was quite overcast today but there are mountains in the background.

Look at this guy! He reminds me of Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

Roof tops



We climbed up the mountain a bit to look out at the town. This picture really doesn't do it justice because it was so foggy. The mountain is covered in orange groves.

The path back downI saw this on the side of a building down a deserted alleyway. Notice it has the word "Tibet" scrawled at the bottom.

That's all for this week. We have a full week of school and then only 2 days the following week due to parent-teacher conferences and 2 teacher PD days back to back. Michael is coming to visit on the 20th with his friend Lisa. It is going to be quite busy until Christmas.
Have a great week everyone!

Halloween 2009

We are cuddling up in bed watching Top Chef tonight. The weather has turned cold and it is time to turn our a/c's into heaters.

I thought I would post some pictures from last weekend (Halloween). Mark and the kids had a slow morning while I took off to the orphanage. I have joined a group of female teachers who take turns going to help out with the babies. This was my second time. It works out to a commitment of one Saturday morning a month. I was a little nervous the first time I went because I had heard that a lot of the babies have down syndrome and other developmental problems. I pictured a really dark and depressing place. I'm not going to say it's not difficult and it doesn't break my heart but the facility is clean, they obviously receive a lot of donations because the babies all have new matching sleepers and new blankets on their beds. The ayis work very hard and are always smiling, they are saints to do what they do every day. We are only allowed in the baby room and are not allowed to take pictures. I did take this picture as we were leaving the first Saturday I went.
So basically what we do is spend 2 hours in the baby room just holding as many of the babies as possible. There are usually around 20, mostly girls, quite a few with down syndrome, cleft palates and other handicaps. I thought it would be really uncomfortable but they are as sweet as can be. It really just gets sad when I start to think about what a difficult road lies ahead of them.



Ok, on to happier times. I took Abigail trick or treating on Saturday night with the other staff kids. It doesn't look like it from the picture but our group has dwindled down quite a bit since last year. They had about 12 places to trick or treat and the weather was wonderful, some friends of ours had a party so we met up with Mark and James there.
Here we are before we set out for trick or treating. Abigail was a gypsy, I was a mime. I was a horrible mime though, I talked all night. I couldn't exactly stop being a mom!

This is James and his friend John. He was a magician. I don't know why they refused to smile for me.


This is a group of the kids bobbing for apples at the Halloween party. You can see Abby in her hairnet (she had to take her wig off).

So October has flown by and here we are in November. We have a busy weekend starting tomorrow and I will blog about it next week. I have been busy subbing almost every day and chipping away at the online course I'm taking. I am leading a middle school girl scout troop and that started up this week as well. I have a feeling November is going to fly by just as fast as October.

That's all for now. Lots of love from Suzhou............