Chinese New Year at School

Chinese New Year is a huge celebration here. The kids and Chad are off of school for a whole week. The week before break they had a bunch of different celebrations and class parties.

The first one was a Chinese performance at their school. It was on a Friday night and Chad had a work dinner so I invited Susan to join us. I think she enjoyed herself :) There was a half hour performance and then different games for the kids to play.

The kids all decked out in their traditional Chinese dress and ready for the performance.

Cool Sugar Art

 Rilynn with her friend from England

 Susan and Brady going fishing..

 Picking up marbles with chopsticks.. Impossible for us, but Susan did it so fast :)

Rilynn was presented an award during assembly for her hard work in English. She is now able to write in sentences on her own as well as is becoming an awesome reader! So proud :)

Rilynn's Chinese Party at school involved singing a few songs, doing some crafts, and then having a potluck. I just love how much Chinese she is learning!!

I put this video in to show how a typical Chinese lesson would be taught. That is her Chinese teacher, Ada Shui speaking. It's fun to see her speak and then for Rilynn to be able to understand and answer!

Brady's Chinese Party

BFF's

Brady with his buddies

Brady's Chinese party where they made a bunch of crafts. Here they are making a dragon.

Brady with his Chinese teacher Miss Laurel

And with his Australian teacher Miss Sam

Brady's class

Holidays back home...

It was great to spend Christmas in Minnesota with all of our families. Last year was hard being away from everyone during the holidays, so this year was much better :)

We have always had a very busy Christmas. We start off Christmas Eve at my parents house with our immediate family. Then head off to be with my mom's side and lastly go to my dad's side of the family. We usually are home around 10pm. Then Christmas Day the kids woke up to filled stockings and presents under the tree. After breakfast we drove down to Mankato to go to Chad's grandma's house and followed it up at Chad's parents. Slept over night and then headed back to my parents until we left back to Shanghai. A lot of celebrating, but great to be able to see all our family!

Connor and Brady with their matching helmets

 Salt and Pepper cousin Brady's

 Rilynn and Brady with Great Grandma and Grandpa Hasse

 4 generation photo

 Rilynn and her cousin Leah

 LONG day!

 Christmas morning

Christmas Day- Santa made a stop at Great Grandma Reed's house!

New Year's Eve we drove up to Duluth for our last Christmas at Chad's grandma's house. Stayed for a couple of hours then came back to my parents to ring in the new year with my dad's side of the family.

 Chad and kids with Grandma Reed and Great Grandma Decker

Kids with Grandma and Grandpa Reed

Both of the kids lasted until midnight! Such party animals :)

Kids with Great Grandpa Don- aka Gramps

 Had no snow in Minnesota until New Year Eve night. Thankfully we were at least able to see some of it!

Fun times at Grandmas! Money everywhere :)

Both kids loved juicing with grandma!

Was so great seeing everyone during our visit. Since we had a shorter trip back and with the holidays we are very sorry to those who we were not able to connect with and see :( We'll be back in July to make up for it!! Love you all..

Introducing my new godson, Ryder Marshall!

Ryder Marshall Kaphing was born November 26th at 8:18am 8 pounds 1 oz 21 inches. So sad I was unable to be at the hospital when he was born, but probably a good thing after freaking out about the Code Blue on Connor when he was born :) LOL

Thankfully we were able to spend a lot of time with him while we were back and while he was still a little peanut. I can't believe he'll already be 7 months old the next time we see him :(

Rilynn just adored every second with him. She was even able to feed him a couple of times and loved it!

Hat I bought for him

So happy to see their new cousin!

Holding my little peanut of a godson :)

 Chad with his new nephew

 Ryder modeling his new clothes. He looked so handsome!

Awwww... Connor loves his little brother!

San Francisco

Since we had plenty of babysitters while we were home Chad and I planned a mini vacation for just us. So off to San Francisco we went! We left December 14 and came back on the 18th. The weather was perfect and all around was a fantastic trip. Definitely would love to go back!

We stayed at the Hilton at Fishermans Wharf

The sea lions at Pier 39 with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background

We went on some tours while we were there. First we went to the Muir Woods where we saw GIANT redwood trees! It was the best air our lungs have had for the last year :) After we went to Sausalito and did some walking around.

SOOOO Tall..

The following day we went on an Alcatraz tour. We took a boat over to the island and spent a couple of hours there.

This was taken on the boat for all of our American friends in Shanghai to be reminded of what blue skies look like :)

Alcatraz

San Francisco from the island

Chad's locked up

Alcatraz on far left and San Francisco on right

Our last tour was a full day of wine tasting. We took a bus and went to Napa and Sonoma Valley and stopped at 3 wineries.

Not much to see of the vineyards, but the wine tasted good!

Would definitely recommend San Francisco as a vacation!