December happenings

Beck turned 4 on December 10th and had a Pirate Party to celebrate!

We were pleasantly surprised with all the Christmas decorations and music around Shanghai. It truly felt like Christmas here. The funny thing is they do not celebrate it, it is strictly a commercial Holiday. Whatever the reason, we will take it!

We went to the tree lighting event at the IFC mall 2 blocks from us.

We had a Polar Express breakfast with our branch complete with a conductor.

We made Christmas cookies and shared them with neighbors.

We watched this little man jump and play in his saucer for most of his day!

Tanner spent some time in Mongolia in -30 degree weather and now refers to it as "Mangolia." He is dying to go back when the weather is warmer and go fly fishing.

I think we might have a few more family members these days...

Ford at 7 months

He keeps getting better everyday!!

Grandma and Grandpa come to visit!

Back in November...we had a blast with Grandma and Grandpa, we just wish they could have stayed longer as always. We can't wait till they come again!

We were walking through a local park and could not pass this up...We had fun "fishing" though we must have not been very good since it took us roughly an hour to catch one. Apparently, there is a catch and release policy cause this guy throws your fish back in and gives you one out of a bucket. Funny story...the day after we caught the fish, Tanner walked into the kitchen and the fish was laying on the ground, he must have jumped out of the bowl and unfortunately he only lasted another 24 hours.

Unfortunately, Grandpa took a flight out early Monday to head to Yang Jiang to work but luckily Grandma stayed a couple days longer. We went to the top of the World Financial Tower which is a must when visiting Shanghai. Even though it was rainy it was still spectacular.

In October...

Tanner did a lot of this...

and we missed him but tried to enjoy our new city. The kids had a week off of school for Chinese National Holiday so we took the ferry to The Bund with some friends, checked out the Pixar exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art and even found a sketchy amusement park in the middle of the city.

We got a few random firework shows.

This little guy turned 6 months and started on solids!

We headed to Jing'an Temple one Saturday before our traditional Saturday food crawl. The food here has been better than expected. We can get it all!!

Reese loves to help pick up trash around the city. It is actually so much cleaner and well maintained that I thought it would be.

These two had fun watching soccer.

We celebrated Halloween twice with a Church activity on Saturday...

AND a yummy Halloween dinner followed by american style trick or treating thanks to our friends the Stucki's.

Stucki's and Nichol's with the Gustafson kids!

Birthday Boy

Since Tanner was heading to Australia for the week we went out Saturday to celebrate his b-day. We first started with a 70 minute foot massage, it was amazing and only cost $15 usd.

We then headed to our favorite Sushi place Haiku for dinner. We are going to continue to celebrate when he gets home with a Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. I love this time of year!

Happy Birthday T! We love you!

Ocean One

When we came to Shanghai for our house hunting trip in March we saw some apartments downtown and some houses just outside of the city. We have always wanted to live the "city life" and with our kids being small we figured this was the time to do it. After being here 3 months, we are so glad we chose an apartment down town! We live in an area called Lujiazui and within walking distance we have two malls, grocery stores, wet markets, 2 of the tallest buildings in the world, the river, subway stations and lots of restaurants and massage places. Tanner walks about 15-20 minutes to his office which is so nice. Our apartment is called Ocean One and we have an indoor pool, an outdoor pool, tennis courts, a pirate playground, an indoor playground, 2 work out rooms, and saunas.

This is the front of our apartment, we use the bar area for our computer/office space.

Living room

Dinning room

Kitchen
Hallway down to the bedrooms
Ford's room
Reese's room
Reese's bathroom
We have 4 bathrooms (5 if you count the Ayi's) Beck and Fords look the same.

Beck's room
The Ayi's room (Ayi is what they call the maid/nanny's)
We use it as storage but would you believe that this is where the Ayi lives if you have a live in!

Our room
Our closet
Our bathroom
The square mirror in front of the bath tub is a TV.

The view

Come visit!!