Happy Birthday, Leah

Yes, I am behind - big surprise!  Leah's birthday was actually about 10 days ago but we were so busy celebrating (and then doing life) that I didn't get this posted until now.

We had a fun day to celebrate Leah's 9th birthday.  This year we decided to go to a pottery workshop for the morning of her birthday.  I thought it was one of those pick out a piece and paint it kind of places but actually the girls got to grab out a big hunk of clay first.  Then the teacher helped them decide on what to make, which they then designed and made.  Lauren made a fairy house for the tooth fairy (Sandi & Cindy you can imagine why she did this!) and Leah made a rabbit.

I was so impressed with their creations and then they got to paint it!  It was really a lot of fun and the girls loved getting to do the whole process.  They were going to be fired next and we get to pick them up this week.

After our pottery, we set out walking through the neighborhoods of Puxi to get to our lunch destination...Carl's Jr!  It was Leah's choice!  It was a beautiful day and really nice to walk the 30 minutes through a busy downtown area of Shanghai.  I really find that in America we just never walk anywhere...I mean we walk for exercise but few of us ever actually walk to a store from our house.  It is one of the experiences that we have loved about living here.

Once we had fabulous burgers at Carl's Jr, then we walked down to Baskin Robbins for ice cream, then off to the new Gap Shanghai store to do some shopping.  Keep in mind this was all Leah's idea...she is our little American girl! :)  It cracked John and I up that outside of the Chinese speaking pottery teacher and the masses of Chinese people around us, by the way our day was spent - you would have thought we were in America!  But I'm thrilled that we could so easily give Leah a day that she loved!

That night we celebrated with our tradition of the birthday girl decorating her own birthday cake in any style she wants.  We had her closest friend over for cake and ice cream...which can I just say that I paid $20 usd for a little bit bigger than a pint size of ice cream! Yikes - I about fainted when I had to pay!  Leah had said she would like to have Cold Stone Creamery ice cream for her birthday (the Chinese ice cream leaves a lot to be desired) so I said no problem...having no idea how expensive it was!  I guess it was a good thing I didn't know!  She loved it and that was worth it! 

Happy 9th birthday, Leah!