Colten's Pre-school Holiday Concert / Huzhou China 2012

He's a mouse!

2012 Lantern Festival - Nanjing China

Entrance to the Nanjing city wall

We were invited by some friends to go to the lantern festival on the Nanjing city wall. It was very colorful and beautiful.

The kids enjoyed some neat (and tasty) candy, handmade right in front of us. Drake had a Dragon, Avery a Pegasus and Colten a Koi Fish.

 

 

Xīn Nián Kuài Lè (Happy New Year)

Welcome to 2012, officially! 

According to the Chinese Lunar calendar we are now entering 

The year of the Water Dragon.

 
 
 

 

Above: View of some Fireworks from our apartment... this went on from morning til night but around 11:30pm until 1am it really did"POP OFF!" It was insane! I can only equate it like being inside a rainbow war zone. I don't think either Andrew or myself had ever seen such amazing fireworks so close - eye level and no more than 75 feet from our balconies - on any side of our apartment. Truly an amazing, fun, celebration that we are glad to have experienced thanks to the people of Nanjing!

It's Chinese New Year's Eve & Drake's 9th Birthday !

We started off our day with some yummy birthday cake for breakfast. Drake's cake was Hui Tai Lan - from the same show as Colten's cake was; Xi Yang Yang. The chocolate flavor of the whip was so yummy!

After cake, we prepared for a family lunch, which we were invited to by one of Andrew's student, Winnie's, family. We have spent time with this family on several occasions and they are so generous and nice to us. We felt very honored to be included in their New Year's traditions. For Chinese people, today is a day of family. Traditionally, last night everyone cleans their home from top to bottom in preparation for visits from other family members.

On New Years Eve, the whole family eats together and children are given new clothes, new toys, and money in red envelopes. After, each day of the week, for the next five days is spent at a different family mambers home. The food was delicious, by the way and all of the children had a great time playing together.

Since there was a light snow yesterday, we took some time for a photo op before it had completely melted away, though it was already afternoon.

Then - more cake! And because wrapping paper seems to be in short supply in Nanjing, we improvised and sent Drake on a wild goose chase through the apartment to find his gifts. He found them all easily and each one lead him closer to his ultimate gift - and electronic keyboard and microphone.

  

Tonight we look forward to all the fireworks shows that (as Andrew would say) will be "poppin' off" outside of our apartment.

Christmas Merry from Nanjing China

Happy 9th Birthday Drake!

Today is not only Chinese New Year eve but also Drake's 9th Birthday... 9 Years Old!!!!

Wow! How time flies.

Due to the lack of wrapping paper in Nanjing.. or atleast my lack of finding it we decided to hide Drake's gifts and send him on a wild goose chase to find them.

Each clue lead him to a gift, building up to the "big one" an electronic keyboard.

 Continuing with the theme of Xi Yang Yang from Colten's party Drake had a Hui Tai Lan cake and it was so yummy!

We love you Drake, Happy Birthday!

Happy Thanksgiving from Nanjing China

Today we watched Andrew’s class put on a play about Thanksgiving in America – Avery had a role and it was her first performance ever. She had the only solo line (“Land-ho”) and pulled it off without a hitch!

To warm-up the crowd, Colten’s class did a rendition of wheels on the bus – Colten loves that song but was more interested in watching his classmates perform and pulling his pants legs up than rolling the wheels 'round – all in all, very funny and cute!

The play was great, and it was also written by Andrew. Everyone seemed to have fun and the other parents were very impressed. Afterwards, the class sang a chinese song about being thankful - so cute! It had somewhat of a Napoleon Dynamite feel to it - hahaha.

Happy Halloween from Nanjing China

Since we can’t just buy a costume at Wal-Mart… 

Today, I painted Avery’s face like a kitty and made her a tail with one of my scarves.  

Drake happened to have a skeleton shirt so, we went with it an painted his face to match. Colten had his lion costume from last year which is suppose to fit a two year old but, the pants only came to his knees and he didn’t want to keep the head piece on so, he was just Colten with a furry short-pant suit on.


The school hosted a Halloween party and along with treats and costume contest, they did the monster mash and other silly dances...

Thanks to Andrew; Lots of fun for everyone!

Double Happiness

Last night we attended the wedding ceremony of our newest friend here in Chine, Luan (Chinese) and Bjorn (Swedish). They are already married, in Sweden but now needed to be married in China as well – more for “face” reasons or as Luan put it "my parents want to make sure everyone knows I am married"… as she is pregnant. It was a great party. The food, spirits and festivities were hun hao.

Bjorn serenaded Luan with a popular Swedish tune and then his rendition of its now or never, which I thought was an inappropriate but hilarious choice considering the occasion. After the ceremony and dinner there was karaoke by several drunken Chinese men, a tai chi dance by Luan’s mother (it’s her new hobby), all of the kids were able to take the mic and sing – yes of course Drake and Avery sang about three times, Colten danced. I told them to sing the ABC’s once – they did and all of the Chinese people loved it. They all received stuffed animals as prizes and at the end Luan gave all of the children in attendance 100RMB each (about $16), she says its tradition. 

There was also this weird period of time during dinner when the “dj” played careless whisper by Wham! On loop for at least an hour - - let me repeat, ONLY that song for an hour… also hilarious!

It's a Party!!

On Saturday we had a big party for Colten and lots of his friends from school came. We had pizza (from Papa Johns) and cake - a 16" Xi Yang Yang (Happy Goat) head with white chocolate shavings as the wool and fruit whip filling).

The cake was yummy but by American standards may not have been considered sweet enough. Chinese desserts are maybe a third less sweet than what we are use to but everyone enjoyed it and we had a great time.

Interestingly enough, Colten received alot of gifts, which we were told after was not common in China. Typically money is given to the guest of honor but perhaps because we were hosting such an American style party, others joined into the tradition and brought gifts instead of RMB... I have to say, money is always a good gift, no matter what the tradition but, Colten enjoyed his toys all the same.

Happy 2nd Birthday Colten!

We celebrated the day with just family and a small cake with angry bird balloons (Colten's favorite). I set it up with Drake and Avery's help while Andrew kept him occupied in a different room. When all was in place and the candle was lit - we called him in - he was shocked! The lighting is bad in the pictures but the moment was priceless. Once he figured out what was happening he was so excited.