Harvest Time

We had a nice evening at home for Halloween! The girls carved pumpkins, one of which came from our very own garden. The rest of us hung out and enjoyed some homemade chili and corn bread! It's great to have James home to enjoy this time of year.

Home Sweet Home

We are so happy to have James home for a week! He will head back to China for another short stay! As of now he should be home for good by December 23! Maybe we wont have to buy anything else for the kids for Christmas, I know I don't want anything else!!!

Fort Nisqually

Today I took my fourth grade students to Fort Nisqually. It was the Hudson's Bay Company trading post back in the 1800's. Michael McGuire (good Irish man) was our tour guide for the day. We gathered outside the fort at 10:00am and concluded the tour at 12:30. Mr. McGuire had their attention the entire time. My students learned so many new things. They thoroughly enjoyed their time. Mr. McGuire said that the man who ran the fort (Mr. Tolmie) used to teach his children from 5:30am to 7:30am and then the kids would go to school! Hopefully my students will appreciate the blessing of living in our time period and be thankful they don't have all the responsibilities boys and girls did in those days. I know I am especially thankful for indoor plumbing. Getting up in the middle of the night to use a "chamber pot" doesn't sound like to much fun, let alone using the privy (outhouse) at that time of the day! We concluded our tour with a lovely picnic lunch.
This tour was especially interesting to Jamesy because his great, great, great-grandfather worked for the Hudson's Bay Company in Victoria, Canada back in the 1800's. Still trying to find out his exact invlovement.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

China pic's as requested:

China preparing for a parade and celebration! Not sure what holiday though!

and more...

Chinese "honey bucket", I'll never complain again about our "honey buckets"!

Town Square

and more...

James' hotel is the tall one in the middle!

James next to the Expo man!

China Update

China has proved to be very interesting, challenging, and quite the experience. On one of James' days off he was able to visit some of the outline areas. In the picture above he is actually traveling via boat to a small villiage where he did some shopping and food sampeling. James is staying in a hotel in Shanghai that has most of the comforts of western civilization, it even has a few american tv channels.

Shanghai is about 10 times the size of New York City, growing up in New York has given him some tips on how to cope in a large city. James says their subway system is amazing! It is a high speed train. What would take our subway hours only take minutes there because it travels at unbelieveable speed! James usually drives in to work but sometimes does have to take the train. I am so glad James has a driver to take him to work each day, I hear the traffic is wall to wall cars! It takes anywhere from 1 hour to 2 hours for him to get from his hotel to work. This makes for a 12 hour day!

James said the food has been great. He's enjoyed alot of different kinds of foods like frog & jellyfish. Check out the picture above, it doesn't look like our chinese food, does it?

Rumor has it that he may be home sooner than planned:)

I hope so, we miss him lots!

He says to say, "Hello" to everyone and "Thanks for all your prayers and support".