He even looks cute just out of the bath.

This is kind of a fuzzy picture... but we got our tree up. Everyone looked so cute before church I had to take a picture.

Zoe and Marlo were singing the sleeping beauty song. Teac was happy to be the prince and to take turns dancing with them.

I think this is shift #2 but you get the idea.

This is Teac helping himself to more fruit salad.

This is our lovely Thanksgiving table... we had about 20 people over from our church group. Some had to be back to work and some didn't get out 'til later so it was a revolving door and we ate all afternoon. The best part about the whole day was I didn't have to do ANY dishes! Aparrently they were the best mashed potatoes and gravy that some people had ever eaten... and that is saying something.

This is our Thanksgiving turkey. It might look a little brown but it was absolutely perfect... stuffing and all.

We came into some amazing tickets to see this pianist perform. His name is Shen Wen Yu and he is soooo short but such an amazing pianist. He performed about 10 pieces and then just kept playing without waiting for an encore... at the end he was just having fun and he played The Flight of the Bumblebee faster than I have ever heard it or even imagined it... and it was absolutely perfect. He also played Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 and several other famously difficult pieces.... on top of that, his playing was full of emotion and he really seemed to enjoy playing and communicating with the piano. We will never forget it.

Katie and I at the party... her husband John is the tall guy in the other picture... they are soo much fun.

Short, medium, and tall....

The wheeling away of the birthday cake.

Any military party is going to be full of traditions, pomp and circumstance.

A couple of weeks after the amusement park we went to the Marine Ball birthday celebration. We had a great time getting all dressed up and dancing. Chengdu is not a dress-up kind of place so we rarely wear more than jeans to go out. This was a lot of fun.

After the amusement park we had a special treat and went out to Zoe's BBQ for lunch.

Here we are standing in front of the most complex part of the roller coaster. I think they liked it so much they went on it three times.

Let's see... who is having fun on this ride?

One of the last rides we went on was this big swing. The girls and I had a great time... Teac wasn't so sure.

They have a little aquarium there... we didn't go in, but outside they have a tank were you can feed a seal by holding a stick that they tie a piece of fish to. Zoe had to do it so I helped her feed the seal. They can really jump high.

I was in another rocket with Teac. Here we are up in the trees...

James had Veteran's day off so we decided to make it a family day. The girls were off for teacher inservice so we all went to the local amusement park. This is Marlo and Zoe on the big roller coaster. It was just their speed.

Here they are at international day... Zoe was Pocahontis on the dress up day, but for the big festival they were both very 4th of July.... Marlo is twirling her lasoo incase you can't tell.

Here we all are at the fall festival before the costumes came off. James was a gangster- if you can't tell-- and well, I was with him. That is my new Chinese-done hair cut. No, I don't like it very much.. I wear a pony tail often.

Teac was Blue.... mostly because he loves the show and likes to pretend he is a puppy... but in his costume he wouldn't make any puppy noises or anything.

Zoe was a cat.... here she is playing musical pumpkins :)

Of course by Friday night we all had to be something else... marlo was a rock star- Heidi helped her make her microphone.....

Halloween was on Wednesday, the school had a fall festival on Friday with a pumpkin carving contest. The kids started the pumpkin and papi got to finish it.

Here they are ready to go trick-or-treating. Some friends of ours put together a group of about 10 houses for the kids to knock at and then the Marines had a haunted house! We had a very fun halloween.

Happy Halloween... finally!! Marlo was a corpse bride and Zoe was a cat... again. :)

This is a great picture of Zoe for International day. She wanted to dress up as someone from "America".