Blogs from TEDA, Tianjin, China, Asia

We travelled to Australia for Christmas and we stopped at Heron Island for 5 nights. This is the most amazing place on earth we have ever been to (Right up there with Tibet!) The boat ride from Gladstone to the Island was only 2 and a half hours and was calm. When we could see Heron Island in our sights it was like looking at the photos we had seen when we researched this place. Stunning turquoise blue water that was crystal clear and white sandy beach. When we were walking along the jetty we could see a couple of sharks swimming past and so many parrot fish! There was a quick 15 minutes talk about the hotel and grounds then off to find our room and explore the island. Our room had lovely views of ... read more

I can not believe it has been 2 years since my last blog! I did so well in that first year of moving to China, writing a blog every month! Then every day life kind of took over.......school and nursery for the boys and then I started to do some voluntary work at a Chinese nursery and that is how life has been! But I finally get a little free time this week to sit down and reflect. So we moved to China in Feb 2014. We were only going to be here for 2 years but we got the chance to stop for a further 16/17 months so grabbed it with both hands! This coming February will celebrate 3 years living in Teda! Just where has that time gone? Matthew is now in Grade 4 ... read more

This month has flown by! We had Williams little friend Lipe over for some Christmas fun....They decorated Christmas decorations and made reindeer food! I helped William to make little boxes for his friends at nursery......it was a busy week leading up to Christmas!!! We had a lovely Christmas, Andy was able to have Christmas day and Boxing day off which was great and then he had the weekend off too. Christmas eve the boys were busy the whole afternoon getting ready for Santa.....They sprinkled their reindeer food outside of our apartment and Matthew wrote a nice letter to Santa and William drew a lovely happy Santa picture for him! Then they got snacks out ready for the reindeer and Santa....all was ready. They woke up at 5am but were sent back to bed!! 7am I heard ... read more

The day I have been waiting for has arrived!!! I love Christmas time, watching Matthew in his school Christmas show. I was not sure what to expect as he goes to an international school, weather it would be a Christmas show or carols???........TIS put on a great show!! They put on a "TIS has Talent" show. Matthews class worked together and did a group performance. They danced to a piece of music from Cirque Du Soleil. The dance was all about movement and how to flow and work together. They all did a fantastic job and I was a very proud mummy!! They did It all again the following day during the last day of term assembly. The other children did a fantastic job too.....I have included some photos but I have to say the last ... read more

Matthew has been doing football after school club for 3 weeks as the school field has been replaced.......the building work was aimed to be finished by September but things don't always go to plan out here!! So Matthews class should have had 3 months to practise, learn the rules of the game etc but they had 3 weeks!!! But I have to say the children did really well!!! I went along to help out with the teacher and a couple of other mums. We had to travel for about an hour to another international school in Tianjin. The kids were really excited and they looked so good dressed in their new football kits!! They played about 4 games, 8 minutes for each game so by the end of it all the children were ready to go ... read more