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Wow, what a week we have had! I think we are truly starting to understand the joys of parenthood as it appears our daughter's social diary is becoming more and more hectic! I seem to spend half my time arranging her next social appointment and then the rest of it ferrying her to and fro, or entertaining her and her buddies!
I must start with the exciting news that I accompanied my best buddy Suzanne to an awards ceremony! Oh yeah, sadly her husband was out of town and so I was invited and I was just so excited to go on a posh night out! And on a school night too. So, I got all glammed up and off I went to the LAN Club down on the Bund. The traffic was awful so Suzanne had to wait outside for me for a while, but eventually I arrived and we waltzed up the red carpet, signed our names in gold on the poster and had our photos taken like celebrities before being welcomed with champagne and alcoholic drinks free flow for the evening. The evening was all about the City Weekend Bar and Restaurant Awards and it was fun
seeing who all the awards went to, especially as we hadn't heard of half of the places! Suzanne and I made mental notes that we must start trying new eateries! We were very restrained and left just before 10pm and were only a little tipsy after a few Mojito's!
On Wednesday, William was going on a family field trip to Sheshan and Ian was lucky enough to go along too. Over to Ian.... As everyone can imagine I like nothing more than to spend my day off with as many kindergarten children as is feasibly possible. So I was obviously filled with excitement as I got onto the bus, which was to be my prison for the next 90 minutes, that morning. My incarceration turned out to coincide with the kids second breakfasts, snack time, early lunch and elevenses, so it was basically an hour and a half of watching them eat and trying to convince them that saving something for lunch might be a good idea. Fortunately it did distract them from trying to play the drums on the windows so it was a blessing in disguise.
The place we went to was outside of Shanghai at Snake
Mountain (Sheshan) and it boasted clean air, nice views, a large lake, lots of sculptures, a beach, a large splash pool, and some kids play zones. I was very impressed by the place, and William did tell me that it was the best place he had ever been to (although I think 'ever' in William terms equals 'in the last week'). He did have a great time playing in the sand, building sand castles with his friends, eating lunch, and then splashing around in the pool in his pants! He did initially go paddling in the pool (having taken no swim suit - tsk) but one slip later and he was stripped off with the other midgets dazzling all with his brilliant white skin.
It goes without saying that a fantastic time was all and we shall be going back as a family as soon as we have the time (this time with swim suits)!
Back to Jo.....
Everyone was very excited last week as it was a short one, due to the Dragon Boat Festival which was on Thursday. This meant we had no school on Thurs, Fri and the children had today off also for Children's Day
- how lucky! We had been invited to go and see an actual Dragon Boat Race with some friends of ours whose daughter is in Sophie's class and also have a son the same age as William. The day was boiling hot but we persevered, and after a brunch at our family friendly Blue Frog, we went to a bridge somewhere in the city (none of us had any idea exactly where we were!) and found the festivities. Unfortunately, it was invitation only into the enclosure, but we managed to get close to the river. The day was so hot though that the children were flagging and we had to leave beforethe actual race began. We decided to head to Zhongshan Park as there is an indoor play area which was a great idea, some shade until the heat of the midday sun had subsided! Then we went and had a wander through the park, stopping for a while to do the cool sand pictures, and a quick go on one of the rides for the girls and the Dads took the boys while the mums rested after the art! We all went for dinner afterwards which was yummy.....a great
day had by all.
Friday we decided to chill a little, but I had to take William for a quick trip to the Doctor's as he had been attacked by so many mosquitoes he was itching away and feeling quite grumpy. It turns out he is one of many kids who is allergice to the bites, so we got medecined up and came home. Meanwhile, Daddy had been helping our grown up Grade 2 girl with her massive amount of homework. It never ceases to amaze us how much she gets. It is Assessment week again next week, so, on top of revision, this is what she was set over the 5 day break (inc weekend!): Math textbook, Math workbook, Math worksheet, English worksheet, English diary, Chinese revision and a poster about your favourite insect researching on the internet all the facts and be ready to present it this week. So, Math got done Friday morning and then we had a bit of a rest in the afternoon.
Friday evening, Sophie's friend came over and we had their favourite, 'Daddy's lasagne' and tried to get them all to bed. At 10pm, I gave in and made them warm
milk and cookies which seemed to do the trick, but 6am came round all too soon and they were up again! Daddy went off to work and left a grumpy mummy in charge! The girls were very good though and wrote their diaries together while William and I played, then we went into school and printed pictures of dragonflies for Sophie and honeybees for Sarah, and chose some paper for their posters. At this point, we took a break and went with Ms Victoria to the Fabric Market. I still hadn't collected my items which I had ordered when Mum was here so I had to do it this weekend. It was really successful and my mid length black linen culottes for only £13 are my favourite, along with my long black linen dress for £20 and Sophie's red summer dress which matches mine for £10! We all then headed to the Cool Docks and lunch at Starbucks before heading home to get the Insect posters done. It took some work, but the girls did their research on the internet and cut and glued and drew and coloured away. They look great. Sarah's parents were duly impressed when they arrived
and I think it was great that they worked so well together, it makes life a whole lot easier!
Yesterday, we took Sophie to her next engagement at Roxy's house where she was staying last night as I had a training day today, Ian was working and William was at school. The 3 of us then went for a yummy brunch in the sunshine before spending a couple of hours in the cool of the Foreign Languages Bookstore. It was brilliant fun and we only bought a few books!
Sophie was delivered back to us a couple of hours ago, with tales of outdoor swimming pools, going to see Thumbelina the ballet last night and staying up until 11pm! She is thoroughly tired and both her and William were snuggled up by 6.20pm!
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