Thanksgiving and Deb's birthday dinner.

DJ and May and Deb.

One of our friends from the thursday social meeting we attend was kind enough to come with us to a restaurant to help us order and celebrate Deb's birthday and Thanksgiving.

 May also got Deb a scarf for her birthday.

George and Connie and Roxanne.

 

Chloe and Adam and May and Suzanne.

Carl, May, Deb, Suzanne, DJ, Chloe, Adam, Connie, George, Roxanne, Debbie, Archie.

Early birthday dinner for Suzanne.

We had an early birthday dinner for Suzanne this evening at a very popular restaurant. Her birthday is September 30th.We invited a Chinese couple that live in the same housing community we do. His name is Jason and her name is Bella. She doesn't speak any English, but Jason isn't too bad. I was glad he could makeit, but the waitress was even more happy to see him because it would have been very interesting to try and order even with a picture menu.

This is a new family from England. They are from Essex county, just south of Suffold county where I lived for a while and graduated from high school. They just arrived a week ago. Her name is Debbie and works at Ivy with me. She shares a birthday with China's National Day, October 1. In the middle is her oldest son David who is 18, and on the left is her youngest son Archie who is 11.

Suzanne got this pillow from Jason and Bella.

She got a hair straightener and a few other things from her mom and 500RMB from me and $20 from her grandma back in the states.

The nice restaurants in China have seperate rooms for patrons. The smallest rooms are for eight people and you have to order a certain amount of food. Tonights dinner was 572RMB and there was plenty of left-overs to take home. We had pork ribs, fried shrimp, pepperd steak, asparagus, broccoli, fried rice, fried sweet tofu, spicy pork pies and brown sugar pies.

End of school party.

These are some of the high school students from Ivy. Today was there last day of school and I invited them over to our apartment for an end of the year movie party.

Everyone had a great time and I was very happy to have them come over.

They all brought something to snack on during the movie.

This is Joy and Susan. They have become friends.

The girls surrounded DJ. This is usual anywhere we go with DJ.

DJ wasn't too thrilled to be sitting in Teddy's lap.

There were 14 students in all.

Some were from my class and others were from other classes at Ivy.

Some of the students they came were not used to dogs and weren't sure what to make of him.

We will have to get together again and play some games next time.

Earlier in the day, the Ivy teachers went to a lunch hosted by the director, Mei Han.

The lunch was a welcome for one of Ivy's foreign directors from London, who is visiting during the summer. The beauty on the left is the London director. Her name English name is Tina. She has two girls, about two and four years old. We will have to arrange a play date for them and DJ. The other beauty is of course Mei, who thinks she is 'no beautiful'.

This is Roxanne. Roxanne is from South Africa and Scotland. She just started with Ivy, but is on break until the end of summer. George and Connie were able to make the lunch also, but Andrea and David were busy.

It was a large spread as usual. I will start with the peanuts at the bottom right and go counter clockwise to tell you what everything is. After the peanuts is some broccoli with peppers, mushrooms and shrimp. Next is some kind of rib. Then there is fried shrimp. After the shrimp is a kind of cold salad. That is followed by some fried chicken. Next is a cold spinach salad. Then there is some seasoned beef. The plate after the beef has several different kinds of stuffed pastry. And after the pastry are some stuffed pastry balls. Finally, there is a glazed pork and eggplant dish.

Mix of pics.

The local convenience store has some small kiddie rides. They play music and move back and forth with a little up and down motion. DJ does not like it.

Suzanne gave DJ a pony tail.

These are DJ's new summer shoes.

We had some friends over for dinner. They brought DJ a new stuffed toy to add to her collection.

The boys name is Mike.

The two girls names are Cindy and Alice.

I went into KFC early one weekend and this was inside.

This is a picture from a forth floor window of the public school I was teaching at. The kids were practicing for something.

DJ found this friend to play with down by the river.

This little boy was a little shy.

This kid came along with his bike.

The kids loved the bike because it played music.

All the kids gathered around the bike.

That's a six pack of kids.

This building looked like it was new when we moved here but wasn't used by anyone. Now they have gutted it and are remodeling it.

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.

Lantern Festival

 

Mei treated the Alexander family, Connie and I to dinner tonight. This is the 15^th day of the first lunar month which means it is Lantern Festival and the last day of the Chinese New Year two week long celebrations. We had a very nice dinner of mostly different fish and vegetables because David is vegetarian. We went next door to TCBY for ice cream after dinner. It is still −16 ̊ C (3 ̊ F) outside but the TCBY was busier than I have seen them during the summer because of the festival. The restaurant and TCBY are next to the river and more than half the two million population of the city was at the river. Mei’s husband purchased a paper balloon for Tigh to send up. There was probably over 50 balloons in the sky that you could count before they went too high or too far and went out of sight. Normally there is room down by the river for kids to roller blade but there were so many people that you could hardly walk without just shuffling your feet. I didn’t take my ear muffs with me and my ears felt like they were on fire because they were so cold. I new we were close to where I lived so I said my goodbyes and started my way home. The road along the river was basically closed because of so many people. There must have been around 10% of the people that were coming or going at any given time. I walked past a restaurant that Deb and I had been too once and they were setting off a huge display of fireworks. I stopped just in front to take a short video and then proceeded home. I was reaching the end of my trip and warmth for my ears when I walked past the end of our building just as someone on the fifth or sixth floor decided to set off some firecrackers hanging from their window showering me with sparks and debris. The Chinese really do love their fireworks. I am headed out tomorrow to buy us a new laptop since this one is more than two years old and nearing the end of its life. I will save it and try to get it refurbished so Susan can have a laptop for college.

 

 

Groundhog Day and New Years Eve.

We were invited to share in Chinese New Years Eve dinner by my boss Mrs. Mei Han. She also invited a good friend of hers and family and Sarah. We had a very good dinner. It was a real honor and a pleasure to share this with them.