April Showers

Harvesting tea leaves at Nine Creeks. 

Don't let this picture fool you. Beyond is an evil climb of never ending stairs. I combined the Six Harmonies Pagoda (stairs) run with the Nine Creeks run. 12.5 miles. Good training for Ragnar? Let's hope. 

Friday morning assembly at H.I.S.

The first graders shared what they learned about insects during their assembly. They took turns sharing some fun jokes. Brock's favorite: "What is a rabbit with beetles all over it? Bugs Bunny!" He's so straight faced on stage and barely does the movements to the songs. But off stage is a different story! The contrast is really funny to me.

And Brock received the Dragon Award! It was for being a joy to have in class, being fair and helping his classmates.  His P.E. teacher was telling us that when he gives them an assignment where they can be creative, Brock is really fun to watch. He doesn't follow everyone else but does his own thing and you can tell he really enjoys it. 

And Callie won the Book Prize. Way to go Brock and Callie! 

My Sweet Honey Honeyz: Angela, Yanti, Natalie, Marla. Love these gals!

The Mc Erlean's invited us over Saturday, April 12th, after soccer for a get together. As always, a super great time with great friends and epic food! Karl made Chicken Parmesan and more. Divine. 

Organized Chaos? (Dash's face!) Jose, Howard and John getting a run for it.

Along the river there's this sweet chicken coop and the entrance to a home is above.

Froggies at Market.

Seafood. Wholesale food market.

Six Harmonies Pagoda while it's raining. I didn't realize there would be torrential downpour during my run on this morning. I don't mind the rain but my phone does! Saturday, April 19th.

The Osborne's stayed with us Friday and Saturday night! They are almost an hour away and it's just lots of fun to have them over. Great Kiwi family! Anton's an awesome rugby player but is game to play basketball with the boyz. Colby is absolutely lovely. She and I took the kids to the Easter activity at the church meeting house in the morning and the boys caught up with us at the end. It was a treat for them to have a babysitter that night! Michael Saylor and his girlfriend Bonnie, David Hamilton and his girlfriend Denise, Osborne's and Brian and I tried out a new pizza place, the Warehouse, and we loved it. I'm am a fan of arugula on pizza! 

Hangzhou Branch Primary children singing in church on Easter Sunday. 

The wild card here was Chael! He's in nursery and somehow slipped by us to be up there with the other children. He totally tried hard to sing all the words and do the hand movements that the chorister was doing. It started to look like gangster signs, however! And then! Dash decided it was a good time to take the lego guy Chael was holding just before the song was over. That didn't go down well with Chael! Dear me! It is always a treat to hear the primary children sing. 

 I didn't do an Easter egg hunt for our children this year! Bad mother? But we did have a lovely Easter Dinner Potluck after church... I did my part there. And they got candy. We'll shoot for next year. 

A good Monday morning run around West Lake with Kristy and Natalie Foxwell. 

My first time running around West Lake! And I've lived in the Zhou for seven years! It is beautiful. And even entertaining as we had to weave through the tourists. I'm rockin' the new trail runners as my others were still drenched from Saturday's run. 

Chael playing at Elliot and Catherine's house. He loves playing next door! The twins are in and out of our house with their ayi too. They don't last as long at ours but Chael begs them to stay. 

This monstrous and unique architecture is the Low Carbon Science and Technology Museum. We wondered if others found the irony. But it looks pretty cool!

Kristy and I took the boys to the Low Carbon Science and Technology Museum. They were excited to just be out of school early and running around. They are really really fun and pretty darn cute too. 

We could have had almost as much fun staying outside the whole time I'm sure. 

"D-A-S-H" in lights!

Super silly horse ride. Riding a horse is very low on carbon.

Yeehaw!

Callie received the Dragon award today at school. It was for improvement in all subjects. Good job, Callie! We are now in the 4th quarter and she is doing several after school activities. I usually like them to do one a week. I don't know what happened. Monday- basketball with Eric Chernoff. Tuesday- soccer with Trevor. Wednesday- home with a Mandarin tutor when not in Shanghai for sports day or another function (lots going on lately). Thursday- home with a Mandarin tutor although she'd love to help Brock's soccer activity. Friday- running club to get ready for the 5K on May 17th. She was just in a musical, "Treasure's Island," with the 4th and 5th graders. I would love to do piano or guitar lessons for her but it just seems like too much right now. We don't have a piano... And I haven't been able to talk Brian into that one. But she has a cool guitar! AND, she has braces now! She got them on April 2nd. Super cute!