Wow, can you believe I have a 16 year old? I sure can't. Rachel is excited to be 16. She doesn't have her driver's license, and there isn't really a lot of chances to date, here, but at least it's not a big NO! Right? Saturday night, Mike and I took her to dinner to celebrate. She chose a little French resaurant in town called The Five Senses. We had a good time. She had just returned home from Yangshou the night before, where she had trip-week with all of the other grade 10 kids. She had a good time. She got phone calls from her Grandmothers on her birthday which meant a lot. She got notes and calls all day long. We sent some muffins and fruit and hot chocolate to seminary on her birthday morning. The Priestley's gave her 2.5rmb for every week she has been alive. That was exciting. She had chosen very specific food for the day. She wanted guacamole and tortilla chips (very hard to get) which we all enjoyed. Of course, Rachel had her own bowl. For dinner, she wanted chicken pillows, and asparagus. For the dessert, I made a black-forest cake, but had Strawberry pie filling instead of the cherry I thought I had. Well, she seemed to enjoy it. Her friend J.J. came over to wish her a happy birthday and stayed for cake that evening. I think she had a great day. On Monday, her friends made a cake for her. This Friday night, she will share a birthday dinner of pizza with her friend Pao from Germany, who also has a birthday. They will all have pizza with their friends.
Rachel has matured a lot this year. School is getting quite involved, and she is picking things up very well. She is a wonderful part of our family. We love you Rach!
Today we all went and had our shots. Yep, we've been here long enough to need boosters on just about everything. The children were all very brave :-)
Caitlin is off to Shanghai this weekend to play in a Soccer Tournament for middle school. She really enjoys sports, and is doing quite well (for coming from my genes-well, I know my brothers and dad are great with sports, but games like soccer and basketball, or baseball and I have never really been compatable).
Here are a couple of photos from Rachel's birthday. Also, I put a couple of photos Rachel and Nicole took on their trip-weeks. They are pretty good photographers...
Rachel will make a scrapbook of her trip to Yangshuo as an assignment for school. Here are some of her photos:
Nicole's class did a photo contest. Here are some of her best photos:
Caitlin wanted to take photos on her camping trip to Wuxi, but she had the old camera. Unfortunately it didn't work. She had a good time, and learned to use GPS and lash a bamboo raft.
