Our Caitlin turned 10 this week! We celebrated her birthday this Wednesday, November 30th. Mike kept teasing her that we were going to celebrate it on the official day, and since she was born in Maryland, it would be Thursday here in China. She didn't think that was too funny. Caitlin always chooses such an easy birthday meal for me...Spaghetti! And instead of cake, she chose brownies. Hurray! She is growing up to be such a sweet girl. She is so helpful, and people are always commenting on this quality of hers. She was so excited to have a birthday party sleep-over on Friday night. She invited seven friends. Believe it or not, she was the only American girl! We had two Chinese girls, girls from Africa, Holland, Belgium, Italy, and Germany. Quite the world-class party, huh? Well, I had several activities planned, but after a wild game of Christmas Bingo, they started to play on their own. I wasn't about to interrupt that! They played horse all night. I mean, as in little ponies. I heard comments like," I look like Spirit, but my name is Windy", and "Guys, horses don't talk!" and "Will you brush my main???". It was so funny, and so cute. Talk about an easy party!
On Friday morning, I was able to go to a neat place called Xue Xiang Lou, with my friends Yulan and Sunny. Yulan is a member of our group, and Sunny is a friend who has come to church and activities a few times. They are Medical Students from Taiwan. We had a great morning visiting this historical sight where an emperor of the Ming Dynasty built a tower to overlook the river for military purposes. There was such a beautiful view of the Yangtze River, and Nanjing. They also treated me to a "soy bean" breakfast drink that I'm sure Kellee and Mom will just love:-)
Last Sunday afternoon we hung the decorations on our "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree that we found. We just let the kids hang any old decoration on it that they wanted to. The star...That looked great on our real trees in the previous years, looks like it will tip the tree over at any moment. Believe me, it's even smaller than it looks in this picture. I bought two sets of lights, but one set didn't work when we got it, and the other was not working within the hour. But no worries...We love our little "China" Christmas tree.
We are really looking forward to our trip to Hong Kong in two weeks. We will get to go to hang out with great friends from Michigan! We will visit Hong Kong Disneyland, and also get to attend the temple there. We are also looking forward to the shopping we have been hearing about. We hope that everyone is having a wonderful Christmas season!
