Halloween Party

I love Halloween! I loved Halloween in Briarcliff! I have always loved Halloween and spent every year as a kid searching and trying to come up with the best Halloween costumes I could think of. Luckily my Mom is very crafty and my dad is an engineer. Great team when you decide you want to be a shower! OK -so it was kind of a copy cat from the movie The Karate Kid, but it was a fantastic costume! My dad built a harness to hold the shower up and my mom decked me out with a cool shower curtain and fake water - I have to say I looked really cool! I think I even sprayed my already very hairsprayed wings (feathered hair) blue to look wet. Anyway- I decided we had to throw the best Halloween party to show those not so familiar with Halloween (our Dutch, Australian, and British friends) how we do it in America. So I whipped up some of my best scary snacks - I'm looking at you dip with witches nails, Candy Corn pizza, Brains in a cup, Worms in the dirt, etc, we played our favorite scary music, and had plenty of fun games - bobbing for apples, Halloween BINGO, Scavenger Hunt, cookie decorating and more. We hosted about 50 of our wonderful friends and had a great time!! And because we were hosting the party we had to have some good costumes - so we were all Mario guys. Mark was Mario, Nicholas was Wario, Ian was Luigi, Kyle was baby Luigi and I was Peach. With the fabric market and some major help from our tailor friend Mr. shang we looked pretty darn good. I am sure you would love to see some photos of the fabulous event, however, the person in charge of photo taking ( I won't mention any names) snapped pictures all night long and was so proud of himself to announce at the end of the night that he took over 100 photos! So I turned the camera on to scroll through the fabulous photos and the message popped up "No CF card"- hhhmmm so 100 photos became no photos!!
Here is one pulled from Facebook - it is all we got.

The little guy turns 1!

Wow- I cannot believe my little man is 1 year old! I am sure I would be saying the same thing if we still lived in Briarcliff, but with everything we have been through in the last year - I really cannot believe it!! This guy has sat on The Great Wall of China before his 1st birthday! He has become a true China man over these last 9 months - he loves flirting with the Chinese girls, loves eating dumplings (he once ate 20 in one sitting) and eggy rice (fried rice) and loves watching Teletubbies in Mandarin. Many years from now I think he will have a fondness of all things China and not even know why - who knows! Anyway - we had a nice quiet night celebrating his BIG day!

On The Great Wall - 7 months

1st Birthday

UN Day

Every year Dulwich celebrates United Nations Week with International activities, a food festival, and a dress up day. Nicholas dressed up in his Yankees best and we tried to make Ian into an Uncle Sam , but he was not too thrilled with his clothing choice. Thanks Uncle Ben and Ashley - I think he looks pretty cool in his Polo duds!!

Superheros

Ian and our new neighbor and friend Reeves love to dress up as Superheros and they love to fight evil on our trampoline!!

School Camp Out

One of the main events for a Year 3 student at Dulwich College Shanghai is the Year 3 Camp Out. All Year 3 students(second graders) sleep in tents overnight on the school playground! A few days before the big event we headed over to the sporting goods store to get his supplies - sleeping bag, yoga mat, and a torch (flashlight to we North Americans). Nicholas was soooo excited for this that the night before he decided to practice by sleeping on his bedroom floor. He got to share a tent with his good buddies Matt and Dylan and had a fantastic time! They slept over on a Thursday night and got out of school early on Friday at noon. I have asked him many times what all he did, but not much information was divulged. I just know he was taking a nap by 2 so I think it was a late night!