The most wonderful Thanksgiving Part 1

My family "adopted" Jenny a number of years ago.(you may remember I attended her wedding last summer). She's really more of a member of the family than a friend. She's spent Thanksgiving with the whole Coleman gang a number of years now and she's also been inviting all of us to spend Thanksgiving at her house, in South Dakota, for a few years now.  So this year William and I and my mom and dad decided, whether she meant it or not, we'd take her up on her offer. And off to South Dakota we flew.

Luckily William and I still had frequent flyer miles we collected while flying back an forth from China. This trip was our last gift from China.

We used the tickets well.

This was also Rosie's first time to have her own seat. She's over two now so can no long fly free as a lap child. She was very proud to have her own seat.

She is such a good traveler. She especially enjoyed the toys in both the Nashville and Dallas airports and she enjoyed looking out the window on the airplane.

We did so many fun things with Ross and Jenny.  The first night we were there Ross's family generously included us in a family birthday celebration and took us bowling. This was Rosie's first time Bowling and William and I haven't been since the Halloween before we were married... 7 years ago.

Rosie LOVED bowling and got a better score than I did. Actually I was so bad I just let her play most of my turns. She giggled and danced and cheered for every one all night long.

 Rosie also really loved playing Jenny's piano. Jenny is a wonderful musician and sings and plays amazingly well. I've always loved listening to her. This trip she had her Christmas song book out and would stop and play something almost every time she walked passed the piano.

Rosie thought this was splendid and loved playing the piano too. We may have to get her one.

My favorite part of the trip was our girl's shopping day. Jenny is wonderful to shop with. She's so much fun.
While the boys played on Ross's ridiculously large farm equipment we girls when to town, got Starbucks, and went shopping.

Jenny took us to Sephora and taught us how to shop there. I've always been completely intimidated by that store and have never gone with any one my own age, gender, and color. (the Sephora in Shanghai had nothing that would match my skin tone. Everything was too yellow or too pink.)

I've never had so much fun in that store before and now I feel much more confident about going back. Rosie also loved shopping in Sephora. She loves make up and loves colors and walked around and looked at everything with Jenny while I got a make up consultation.

In the end we came away with a little black and while bag that Rosie was very proud of and they even gave her some of her very own samples. She was so proud of them she wouldn't let them go the whole time we walked around the mall.  She is such a good little adorable shopper.

After some very productive shoe shopping it was time to meet up with "the boys". We'd left it to Ross and William to pick up my dad from the airport and then we headed to Falls Park, on the Big Sioux River. (that's where the city if Sioux Falls gets its name).

 We went there because it was magically decorated for Christmas and Jenny knew we would love it.

ALL the trees were covered in lights. It was so fun and magical I kind of forgot how cold it was.

We then ended our wonderful day with Gluten Free Pizza and hot tea.
Doesn't Rosie look so grown up with her own cup of tea?

One Year

One year ago today William, Rosie and I took a one way flight from Shanghai, China back to the USA.

My mom had this block calender in our room when we arrived. It said November 9th. I've left it on that date for a year. I guess I felt like if I turned it, I would be moving farther and farther away from China.

Tomorrow I'll turn the date over. Tomorrow it will be more than a year since we left our city, our Shanghai.

If you'd like to read about my last day in China you can go HERE. If you'd like to see a picture of the van my mom had to rent to pick us up from the airport and our ridiculous luggage go HERE.

Other wise, here are some pictures of our last couple days in China...

Last family picture in China.

Visiting the Shanghai Art Museum one last time

I spent the my last day in one of my favorite hang out places, Tai Kan Lu, with my dear friend Shirin and her baby boy.

I'm so glad Rosie is such a happy baby. Her joy has gotten me to many sad and lonely times.

Shanghai is such a fun mix of modern and traditional

William went for a walk on our last day... He took some nice pictures

and got him self some street food breakfast one last time.

Here is William sitting in the airport waiting for our flight and chewing on a Cuban cigar. We knew we would not be able to get those in the US.

Thinking about who and what we're leaving behind and wondering what we're about to get our selves into.

It's been kind of a weird emotional day. I'm happy we came back to the US and I know my mom is too. I think it was the best thing for our Rosie baby, for our marriage and for our health. But that doesn't mean we don't miss it sometimes.

To commemorate our one year anniversary we went to a new "Asian Cuisine" Restaurant. Most of the staff are from China and they were wonderfully nice to us. They even brought William a plate of dried fish that wasn't on the menu because he was craving it so much. They were happy to meet an American that appreciated real Chinese food. Now if we could only find some Hot Pot.

 Picture from William's tumblr account.

A Magical Day at the Magic Kingdom

OK I really need to finish up our Disney Trip so I can tell you what other fun things we've been doing this season.  So Here it is.. my favorite day at Disney World... The Magic Kingdom. I could have spent all 3 days of our trip in the Magic Kingdom. I think it's the most fun and most Magical.

William got up early on Thursday and went to the park as soon as they opened. Since we did midnight swimming us girls were a little tired and had a hard time getting up in the morning. Plus we like to relax when we're on vacation... something William has a harder time doing.
So William got the the park when there was hardly any one in the park and got some good pictures of main street and road Space Mountain a few times.

I love the way Disney decorates for every season. But I especially love their Autumn and Christmas decorations. Also the castle is Disney World's Magic Kingdom is so much getter and grander than the castle in Disneyland California, which I still thinks is pretty big and nice.

Once we girls had eaten and finally got to the park we decided to spend the morning getting our pictures taken with as many Characters as we could... you know, while our hair still looked good and the lines were short.  Rosie's favorite Character is Mickey Mouse. She was pretty excited when we told her we were going to see Mickey and kept saying his name while we were in line. When she finally was face to face with him she smiled and giggled and was very happy. She even posed by her self with Mickey and Minnie and wasn't scared at all.

Then we went and saw the Princesses. Rosie's never seen a Disney Princess movie so she didn't know she was supposed to be unpressed.  Sleep Beauty was very nice and talked to Rosie alot... but Rosie just wasn't very interested.

Then we saw Belle, my favorite Princess. I was pretty giddy and excited about that and Rosie was more warmed up to the idea also...

 But she couldn't take her eyes off the next Princess we were in line to see....

For some reason Rosie LOVED Cinderella. I loved that her dress was blue and called her blue. She smiled for pictures with her and even gave Cinderella a kiss on the cheek.

We saw a couple other characters and then headed over to Fantasy land. I've never really spent alot of time in Fantasy land.

In California it's too small and feel claustrophobic. and I think I must have grown out of the rides pretty quickly. But in Florida there is alot more space and Rosie loved the rides.
She insisted on riding the horses and liked it very much.

She rode dumber twice...

I did not, since it makes me motion sick... but I did get my picture with Dumbo.

And we rode It's a Small World a few times... It's always been one of my favorite rides and I was so happy that is was Rosie's favorite too.

Of course we did some shopping too. I spent way too much time in the Christmas store of course, and I also very much love the shops on Main Street.  I mostly just like to look at everything but I also like to get a couple nice souvenirs.  Ever since I was a kid my two favorite souvenirs have always been a balloon and a hat.
Well I did get a pretty wonderful hat...

And Nana got Rosie a balloon that lit up. It lasted for almost two weeks and we took it every where with us while we were at Disney World.

There are so many amazing things to explore at the Magic Kingdom. So many shops and great things to eat. So many little details and lots of fun rides. I didn't get to do half the things I would have liked to do... but that just means we'll have to come back.  It was also pretty great that we were there for "off season" so the lines were not long at all.

It was a wonderful trip and definitely a dream come true for me, and I know Rosie really loved it too.

Water Baby

Vacation is the best time to do things that you wouldn't normally do. Even things that are just a bit irresponsible.

When I was a kid we were allowed to have anything we wanted for breakfast. Naturally we asked for steak and ice cream... and got it.

While Rosie did get her first taste of Chocolate Soy milk, what she loves more than anything is swimming.  So since we were on vacation, and since Epcot closed at 9pm but our hotel pool didn't close till Midnight, We all went swimming till midnight.

Rose was very very happy. If not a little cold. Even in Florida.

Our day in Epcot

After staying up past 2am at Mickey's Not-so-scary Halloween Party we got up a little later than we planned and headed over to Epcot.

Disney World has 4 parks. The Magic Kingdom, Epcot, The Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios.

When I was a kid it was just the Magic Kingdom, which is a bigger nicer version of the Disney LAND in Southern California, And Epcot. The only thing I ever knew about Epcot growing up was that there was a big silver ball that looked very cool and had some sort of ride in it. I always wanted to go visit it.  I think my brother told me there was a roller coaster in it. Well there isn't. but there is a fun little "future" ride.

What Epcot does have is much more fun that I ever expected. It has pavilions from countries around the world. Much like the world's fair had when we were in Shanghai, only much much better. They are called Pavilions but really they are little streets with shops and restaurants set up to look like the country they are from (only cleaner than the actual counties in some cases like Italy and China).

Not only did each little section have food and shops from their part of the world but all the people working in each pavilion was from that country too! So all the shops in "England" were staffed with people with lovely British accents, France was full of French people. Even the people walking by sweeping up trash from the country of that pavilion.

We were definitely world travelers that day.

Here's a picture of my mom in Japan with her Tokyo Sunrise drink.  We also had some really good Sushi for lunch in Japan.

After lunch we wandered over to Italy.  Where we looked at very fancy cologne and designer bags.  There was a mime there too... but we didn't stay for that. I don't know what it is about mimes... do they make every one want to punch them or just me?

On the way to Germany was a miniature village with an electric train. Rosie LOVES trains and she an her Nana stood and watched it for quite some time.

In England they had red phone booths.  William was pretty excited about them and took Rosie in to play in one when the phone started ringing! So he answered it. It was so much fun. I have no idea how they knew he was in there but some one with a British accent called him in the phone booth to ask him how his day was and how he was enjoying his stay in Epcot and England.

It was really funny and very surprising. Rosie, who had just woken up from a nap, wasn't too sure about it though.

Here's a picture of me and Rosie in Germany. I really liked Germany. It was very cute an had a wonderful Christmas Shoppe that I spent a lot of time in. They also had a beer garden and a mechanical clock that Rosie and I enjoyed watching.

We spent more time than we needed to in China. But it was kind of fun hearing Chinese and looking at all the things for sale that we saw so often in China.  I think we spent too much time here but it was kind of like visiting home.

The country we spent the most time in was France. They had great chocolate and wine and really nice shops. We also had dinner there. Not only did all the staff speak French but the "chef" rat from the movie Ratatouille came to our table too. That was pretty funny.

The dinner at Les Chefs de France was incredible. The real chef came to our table and talked to us about our Gluten Free options and then made us a wonderful Duck breast dinner.  

 The atmosphere and friendliness at Tony's, on our first night in the Magic Kingdom, was by far nice than Chefs de France, but the dinner in France was was amazing. They also had the best Creme Brulee that I've ever had in my whole life. And I've had a lot of Creme Brulee in my life, since it's one of the only Gluten Free desserts.

Epcot was very fun and there was a lot to see. There were entire countries we never even made it too and we missed most of the rides. I could spend a lot more time there. I think next time I'll ride the rides first and then go visit the countries. And next time I'll eat a lot more in each country.

(Across the lake from England looking at the US pavilion at dusk)