Two sisters at rest and play.

DJ has really grown since last year so we had to go shopping for some new winter clothes. The heavy winter suit that she got lost in when we put it on her last year barely fit this year. That's okay. We won't need such extreme cold weather gear next year when move to the south of China.

DJ.

DJ is extra busy today with two phones.

All packed.

Ready to go.

DJ's new winter shoes.

Susan's new shoes.

Do you see me?

DJ's new dress.

Winter is just around the corner. Ivy is still working short handed with new teachers promised to arrive soon, whenever that is. Susan is finished with 10th grade and starting 11th. She will be 14 at the end of this month. We are still working out the details of what she will do for college, possibly after her 13th and final grade of high school. She has been doing a great job with her school work and helping out with her little sister and getting things done around the house. She really is a beautiful and bright young lady. DJ is getting into as much as she is permitted. After this last winter here, we all will look forward to moving further south where we will not be snowed in 5-6 months. We are also going to try to return to the states for a visit sometime next year depending on what kind of contract we get.

Birthday suit.

The director at the school I work for bought this suit of clothes for DJ for her birthday. It was an early birthday gift that she had to try and just loves.

New swimsuit for Suzanne and new haircut for Deb.

This is almost the finished product of my cutting Debs hair. I thinned it out a lot and then cut it away from her neck and ears. 

We are going to go swimming next week and Suzanne needed a new swimsuit. 

DJ got some bubbles to play with. 

If you check last months, you will see an update for the building they have started putting up near our apartment. This is the latest update. Next weekend, they are going to switch off the power to our area while they connect to this construction. 

Baby tired. 

Dog tired. 

This is what Deb's hair looked like before I got started. 

A boy down at the river gave DJ this fan. 

 

 

Walking the river walk. 

 

 

 

 

We have some pics of this monument on the blog already from last year. It is a monument to the local people defending the city along side the soldiers during WW2. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A group of people playing croquet. 

There are several people growing gardens along the river bank. 

 

 

Odd how a lady in America is facing charges for growing a garden in her own front yard while people in China can grow a garden on land that isn't even theirs. 

 

 

This is a passenger train crossing the river. 

 

 

We got a taxi at the main road near our apartment and had him take us across the river to the north for a drive in the country. The plan was to go see a lotus pond I found on Google Earth. It was a nice drive in the country but the lotus pond wasn't in use. 

 

 

Kids come first in China.

DJ is having fun eating some ham. 

This hat was her great grandfathers hat when he served during WW2 in the Pacific as part of the Seabees. Suzanne has it now and was letting DJ play with it. 

 

 

 

DJ really likes a good sucker sometimes. 

DJ listening to music with some wireless headphones. 

 

Suzanne was wearing one of her new shirts that fit a little to well, because she got stuck trying to come out of it. 

 

 

DJ in one side and Suzanne in the other side of some of my new shorts. 

She ran out of energy again in the middle of playing. 

Here she is refueling with cucumber, tomato and chicken. 

Deb and Suzanne got caught in the rain while they were out walking. 

 

Because of the one child policy, kids are the most important part of a family. Kids are special to any family, but they really understand that here more than in the states I think. Some times it is taken to the extreme though, because parents can dictate to a school how they should be teaching, whether their child should be advanced, or even if the fully qualified teachers are even good enough based on if the teacher has been teaching their whole life or not. Where I come from, I learned to respect everyone, at least until that respect wasn't warranted for what ever reason. Here, respect is demanded always, but never returned.

SpongeBob SOUacoPants.

Dress-up.

DJ went into her room one morning to play and soon came back out with her winter hat and coat like she was ready to go somewhere.

This is one of the girls that works in the office at Ivy. She came with another of the office girls for our monthly apartment inspection.

This is another time when DJ was helping with the laundry by bringing Suzanne her yellow shorts.

I had some new clothes for DJ made out of some of the material I had left-over from when I had my suits made. There are two sets, one blue and one red. They tailored them after a shirt and some pants DJ is already wearing. The shirts turned out to be too tight but the pants are a good fit.

This is a new shirt I had made with some of the left-over material from the suits I had made. I also had a red one made.

It turns out that DJ loves eating tomato, cucumber and onion salad.

Ladies day.

The ladies went out to play badminton while I stayed in and worked.

They also went shopping for some new shirts. $80us for a dozen new shirts each. Not cheap, but not bad.

DJ had an afternoon snack of ice cream and was watching and listening to CMT when she fell asleep.

Early Easter.

Forth day of the forth month of the solar calendar and Spring is coming.

DJ had a great time taking her new stroller for a ride.

DJ liked going for a walk in the park. It was her first time to walk on grass.

We went to a favorite restaurant of ours for lunch and DJ loved the noodles.

We ordered five dishes: beef noodles, boiled peanuts, beef rice, slices beef and curry potatoes with rice.

We even took Spot in the restaurant. We can take Spot into our local corner store or even some restaurants. Either people like Spot or they don't. There are other dogs and dog lovers in the city but most people don't have pets at all for various reasons.

The river is starting to thaw.

This is the park along the river. We can take Spot into restaurants but we can't take him here, unless we carry him through the park and down to the river.

This is a picture taken just outside a tire shop called V-Kool. The tire shop is at the first major corner between our apartment and Ivy. We pass by it just about every time we go to the river.

We were all tired after our long walk, even Spot.

Debora and I took DJ out again the next day to the underground and bought some new shoes for DJ that she loves and a couple pair of pants. Debora also picked up a new pair of shoes. I couldn't find any shoes for me that I liked that were in my size. I will have to keep looking.