Decorate the Christmas Tree

After Thanksgiving, we put up our Christmas tree. Chris was able to buy some clear lights that do not blink so our tree looked a little better. We always put on some Christmas music and decorate. It is usually pretty fun. This year, we needed to put the breakable ones high because Cohen likes to pull them off. Here are some pictures!!

The Chengdu Women's Club Annual Christmas Bazaar

Every year, the women's club takes part in their biggest fundraiser of the year and it is called the Christmas Bazaar. We invite everyone to come and get vendors to provide food, and local chinese to sale stuff. They would give a certain percentage to what they earn. We also have games for the kids where they win prizes. It is really fun. This year, I was in charge of recruiting volunteers. It was not an easy task, but lots of people gave me contacts and it went well. We had about 1200 people come and we made about $23,000 US dollars. And it all goes to charity to local areas around Chengdu!! We were excited to see all the work pay off!! Here is a video of the kids singing Christmas carols at the event. Each international school took a turn!! Rylan was not in her school performance because we were not sure of her hand so she just watched. Avery sang in both of these songs below and Cohen got into to second song. Enjoy!!

Thanksgiving in Chengdu

Thanksgiving came this year and it seemed different because the girls had school and no holiday. I was also used to leaving to go see family or family coming to see us!! This was our first thanksgiving away and we missed home. The girl's school had a thanksgiving lunch so I met them up there to eat with them. It was fun, turkey, potatoes, and pumpkin pie. After the lunch, one of Rylan's classmates got mouth and hand disease and they also suspected Rylan. She had some bumps on her hands but it was much different than her classmates. So Thanksgving I took her to the doctor. He basically could say she had and could not say she didn't so he told me to keep out of school. That day we were suppose to go and have thanksgiving dessert at our friend's house, but had to cancel so we had soup and grill cheese sandwiches. Not quite a Thanksgiving dinner. Friday night, we went to a Thanksgiving dinner at this nice hotel called Intercontiental hotel. It was really nice. They had all the Thanksgiving fixens and NFL football games playing on a big screen. They even had cake making activity for the kids and activities for them to do. Cohen and Rylan stayed home since we were unsure of her diagnoses. Our ayi watched her. Here are some pictures of Avery making a cake!!

The Abba Party

There is a woman here named, Kim, she has been living here with her family for 4 years now. Anyway, she turned 40 this month and decided to have a ABBA themed party. Everyone had to dress up that came. I was on the fence about it and Chris did not want to get dressed up and fitted for a costume. He said he had done that in Fratenity days! One of my good friends offered to go with me. So we got costumes made in 4 days and put on some wigs and dressed up. We looked like twins, only she is almost 6 ft tall so it was funny. Here is a picture of us!! The party was at a restuarant. We had a lot of fun and people sang some sungs!! I hope you enjoy the pics!!

The kids play soccer! (football)

This fall it was a short season of soccer. Avery only played this time and it only went for 4 weeks. I think it is not her sport because she really didn't enjoy it, not mention it was really cold the days we played. Cohen however wanted to play so bad!! It is hard to believe that he is only 16 months and is ready to play with the big kids. I got some pictures of him however did not get any of Avery. None of the pictures turned out good. Here is Cohen and another little boy from Sweden who played together on the sidelines!!

The Zoo outside of Chengdu

The girls had a teacher workshop training one day on Nov 10 so Chris took the day off and we went to a zoo that is about 2 hours north of here. It was on a mountain side and we were told we could feed the animals with real meat!! When we entered the park, there was camels and donkeys blocking the road. Cohen got a little scared because they came right up to the van. We first had lunch at a restuarant up there and then bought our tickets. We were the only ones in the car. When they let us through the gates, it felt like Juriasic Park. They opened the gate and then closed it and we were in with the wild life. The Loins were first and then we fed the bears, and lastly the tigers. It was crazy they came right up to the bus and put their claws on the window ready to eat. The chinese tour guide gave us meat on a sitck to feed them with. It was crazy and my heart was racing. It was an amazing experience. After that, they dropped us off to climb through the wildlife. We got to feed deer, monkeys, and the girls got to feed koi fish with baby bottles. I think that was there favorite. Cohen didn't get scared with the animals when we walked but he was in the back pack so he had his daddy to protect him. The walk through the park went on forever, but we got out 3 hours later and the girls walked/climbed stairs the whole time. Please see out web gallery for more pictures!!