Random Happenings

Starting with the big news...Zoe lost her first tooth! Quite uneventful as she pulled it herself but then proceeded to put her wallet under the pillow with the tooth! Of course with today's exchange rate for the first tooth you do get 30RMB!

We've had a busy fall with field trips - the BioFarm for the kindergartners, Carrefour for the first graders (yes that's right, a trip to the local grocery store!) and an amazing race day riding the metro for the eight graders! Lindsey & Kelly have been busy with soccer that wraps up tomorrow with a day full of tournament play. Kelly also worked on the backstage crew for the Fall play - had a great time doing make-up, costumes, props and head sets. Megan and I found the M50 art area - a very neat area of local artists & photographers, art supply stores (quite the find) and some very cool graffiti!

Now that we are completely settled with things from home and have some key amenities (like silverware, etc) we hosted Ling Tong (a friend of the Harlan's who was at the University of Arkansas) and his family for dessert. Their 10 year old daughter Dreamy didn't speak much English - but we found that coloring is universal!

We are also now the proud owners of a lovely enormous map of China (which is exactly what we wanted). Our driver, Mr. Xu, heard us talking about getting a map and on his lunch break one day he went out and got a fabulous map that is now hanging in our den - our goal is to mark all of the places we have visited while 'on tour' here. Unfortunately Sue is seeing a bit more than anyone else right now with lots of travel for work!

Given there is no reason to celebrate Thanksgiving here, they have moved right on to Christmas - apparently everyone here loves to celebrate Christmas so the decorations are in full swing and the carols are in the air. Now we just need to add a bit more Christ into that Christmas!!