January Surprises

January has been a busy month, full of activity and a few surprises...

• After an amazing start to the month with Katie Greenway, Katie Sue Linn then stayed for theanother three weeks! For anyone who knows Katie Sue this was just a blessing for our entire family! It felt like being home (as in Arkansas home) yet here in Shanghai...we had lots of laughs and the older girls loved having a true friend here for so long. Earlier this week Katie Sue returned to India (where she has lived for the past 6 months) and Kelly went with her. We'll have Kelly do an update after she gets back in February - right now we know she is having fun but is very cold!
• We found a new restaurant to add to the favorites - a hot pot (this is the picture of Katie Sue & Kelly). You get broth (plain or spicy) and then order whatever you want to cook in it...ox tail, tongue, mutton or simply the Australian beef, noodles and veggies that we had! This is now Abigail's favorite restaurant (the one with the round meat as she calls it) and where we celebrated her 'Gotcha Day' January 21st - 3 years!!
• Our new lovely traveling vehicle arrived - it is big but it is also real convenient as we now have enough seats for everyone in our family plus Mr. Xu. It is a standard shift, which has been a learning process for Mr. Xu but he is getting significantly better! Of course it doesn't fit in the parking garage at our housing complex or Carrefour, but it sure is easy to pick out among the crowd of Silver Buick's that everyone else drives.
• Being the pet people that we are and having to leave all of our pets at home because we didn't think they would travel or adjust well here, we also got a new puppy. His name is Gobi (as in the Gobi Desert). He is from a shelter so we have no idea how old or what breed but he is extremely well behaved, sleeps great all night in his crate and is house trained. No matter what kind of day he has had or you have had, he gets excited from head to toe every time you come home!
• Megan went to the High School Winter Ball with a good friend Gillian (who sadly is leaving at the end of the school year). Lots of laughs and even some dancing!

The weather has been cold and we've even had several days of snow...wondering why we didn't decide to go someplace warm for Chinese New Year next week!!!