The Beach

Hands-down favorite activity for J and the kids--the beach. Endless fun. Claire learned to snorkel this time and is a natural (so happy the pressure is off me to be J's snorkeling partner). We saw turtles almost every time we went, and for those willing to get their faces in the water, a lot of other sea life, as well. Hawaii is beautiful.

Christmas Morning

Santa found us in Hawaii and left lots of surprises!

Nativity Play

Christmas Eve included a classic nativity play directed by Sylvie. Bella quickly abdicated maternal responsibilities, but Paul took his seriously.

Polynesian Cultural Center

We all loved visiting the Polynesian Cultural Center. I tried to learn something unique about each of the cultures represented there. Let's see if I can remember:
Tonga: the oldest of the cultures--most of Polynesia trace their roots back to here--never was colonized
Samoa: the men do the cooking
Fiji: Melanesian in skin color, Polynesian in culture
Tahiti: former French colony
New Zealand: fiercer dancing and face tattoos
Hawaii: hula dancing that tells a story with the hands

The evening show was amazing, too. Jet lag wasn't a problem when watching fire dancing!

Together Forever

The highlight of our trip was being able to attend the sealing of Shawn and Lucki and their girls in the Laie Temple. What a precious family that can now be together forever.

Sylvie's Birthday

Sylvie celebrated her 7th birthday this year in Hawaii with cousins. What a treat! Aunt Lucki whipped up a fantastic party, and Costco did the rest. (How many times can you go to Costco during a two-week vacation to America? Ask Jonathan.)

Welcome to Hawaii!

We flew to Hawaii for Christmas break this year. We were greeted by J's parents (who had been there all month) and his brother's family (who live in Honolulu) and later joined by his sister and her husband. Aunt Lucki made these awesome welcome leis for the kids full of yummy snacks. She is so thoughtful and knows just what kids like!

Pie Night

Inspired by our friends the Hughes in Bangkok, we hosted a pie night this year. Dessert buffets are probably never a good idea if you are watching your waist, but gathering a lot of friends to kick off the holiday season is!

A Different Thanksgiving

Inspired by our friends who are meat and dairy free, we invited them to a turkey-less Thanksgiving. Our "main dish" was a boat-like stuffed pumpkin, and I tried new recipes for most of the sides. I even made a vegan pumpkin pie! I know you won't believe me, but everything was delicious. Even Jonathan said it passed all expectations.

Back to school

The girls are attending an international school, and so far so good. They use the same British curriculum their school in Taipei used, so that hasn't been an adjustment. The Chinese curriculum is quite rigorous (which is why we chose this school over some of the other international schools), but I am very impressed with the teachers, and the girls seem to be keeping up. Chinese and English homework combined is over an hour a day, so that will be a challenge, but so far, good attitudes have prevailed. There are lots of other kids in the neighborhood that go to the school, so they have lots of friends already. Sylvie hasn't been able to ride the school bus yet, which has meant drop off and pick up, but we are hopeful that she will be able soon, and life will feel a bit more manageable.

The school had a welcome BBQ and did face painting:

our little tiger

pink cat

puppy dog

fierce tiger

Broken Leg

On our fifth day here, the kids were jumping on the trampoline in our yard, and I heard Sylvie screaming. She was curled up in fetal position in the middle of the trampoline holding her left thigh. She said her leg hurt, but she wouldn't let me look at it or touch her. Finally, I called a neighbor who helped me move Sylvie inside, screaming and still refusing to move her hands so we could look at her leg. I didn't think it was broken because I think of a fracture being caused by impact, and she hadn't fallen off the trampoline. I let her rest there a few hours until Jonathan got home. She finally moved her hands, and we could see her femur was bent. We moved her screaming onto a make-shift stretcher (a closet shelf), put her in our friends' van, and J took her to the emergency room. Luckily, there is a very good hospital with Western-trained physicians very close to our house.

She had somehow landed funny when jumping, and the x-ray revealed a spiral fracture in the middle of her femur. An orthopedic surgeon was able to do surgery that night, inserting two long titanium nails through two slits on either side of her knee into the shaft of the bone. No cast, no plate, no screws. The nails stay in for 6 months and then she'll have another surgery to remove them.

Sad Sylvie

Wild Bedhead

The doctors made it sound like an easy recovery, saying that she could move her leg right away, be up on crutches within two weeks and walking with a limp by four. Well, whether or not these things were physically possible didn't matter to Sylvie, as fear kept her from trying much of anything. We stayed an extra night in the hospital because she wouldn't get into a wheelchair or use the bathroom. She spent the first week with her leg in the same position it had been in since the fall. A lot of screaming (mostly at me) and whimpering, so it was hard to tell whether or not she was still in pain. Even changing the band-aids on her knees involved her screaming and my coaxing and ultimately, a lot of crying. She did get used to the wheelchair and let me carry her to the bathroom. She was upbeat enough by the start of school two weeks later that she was willing to start on time.

It is now a month later, and she still isn't using the crutches, but she went swimming, which she liked, and she hops around a lot using walls or chairs to support her. Her quads in her left leg have definitely atrophied, so it will probably take her longer to walk normally, but we'll get there...eventually.

A side benefit of the surgery was that the breathing tube further loosened her already loose front teeth, so those came out within a week, and she has a new smile.

Halloween Face

Fun Place for My Tongue

Easy Move

It was our easiest move yet. We had about a 15 minute ride to the small airport in Taipei around noon and hardly had time to eat our lunch before the plane was descending into the small airport in Shanghai, which was just a 10 minute ride from our new house. Friends picked us up, showed us around and had us to dinner. We went to bed at a normal time.  No grueling flight, no time change, no jet lag.

Now the adjustment since then has not been our easiest yet, but I'll leave that to other posts...