We are still here!

Well, for some “unknown” (AKA – China) reason I am not able to go to any blogspot blogs for the past week or so.  So I am going to just try to update it via an email and hope it works out OK.  The only problem is I can’t adjust the formatting so I have no idea what the final result will actually look like! 

 

The last few months have been very busy around our house.  My parents actually came to visit for about 3 weeks and we had a great time with them!  The girls loved getting to see them and show them around Shanghai!  They also went with us to Xian which was fun for all of us.  Dad even became a fan of Chinese food – well, at least the Chinese food that Fang makes us for lunch…noodles and fried rice!  J  While my parents were here we had the great pleasure of getting to watch the girls do their end of the year dance recital.  Lauren was in a tap class and Leah did a ballet class; although Leah’s dance was a Hungarian folk dance or something similar that she had to learn for her ballet class.  I’m posting the pictures of them in their costumes.  And, of course, Kate could not be outdone so when the costumes were on and the pictures were happening she HAD to have her “costume” on too and do her dance for us!  Too funny!

 

I was so proud of the girls.  This is the first time they have ever done anything up on a big stage in front of loads of people and they both did great.  Leah’s was actually a solo so I wasn’t sure how she would do on that big ‘ole stage by herself but she did great!  She told me she was really nervous.  And Lauren was just as cute as can be in her little Tap Dance outfit – her song was the Itsy, Bitsy, Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot bikini so we had to talk to them about her first costume that was not all together modest.  They came up with what you see above which was better!  It was very cute though because after she tried it on the first time (I wasn’t there) she told me after the class, “Mom, I tried on my costume today and it was not very modest at all!”  I asked her what she did about it and she said, “well, I told my teacher that it wasn’t modest.”  Good girl!!  I had to talk with them a bit as well but they were really great in working with us and getting a costume that was more befitting of a 5 year old! J   So anyway, that was one of our very fun weekends where the girls got to feel like super stars for a small time!  Lauren is now done with tap and decided tennis may be more to her liking so she is trying that instead.  One of the very nice things about living in Shanghai is that have tons of kids groups that have lessons for anything one wants to try.  Lauren is doing pretty good with the tennis so far.  One funny story about it, though…it was her first week of lessons and I was telling her some ins and outs of tennis (the very few details I know) but I mentioned to her that girls who play tennis wear skirts.  She immediately said, “YES, I knew I was going to love this sport!”  Said by my girly, girl that would love nothing more than to wear dresses and skirts everyday!  Leah, of course, love, love, loves ballet and can’t imagine doing anything else! 

 

Other than that, we really have not been up to much at all.  We are trying to finish school up and only have about 2 weeks left.  We started late this year and so are having a hard time getting it all done by the end of May (when I like to be done) but we’ll get there!  The weather is beautiful here now so trying to keep them tied down and inside for any amount of time is a trick.  Luckily the beauty of homeschooling allows us to go outside to do lots of our reading and such!  We have a trip to Guilin coming up this next weekend.  It is supposedly one of the most beautiful places in China so I will let you know how it is.

 

Blessings!