A boy and his daddy!

One of my favorite things in daily life is seeing how much Aiden loves his Daddy! 

Seeing their pictures together and how they interact always bring a smile to my face. Such a special bond these two have. I hope it lasts forever! 

In Hangzhou 

Climbing in the caves together in Hangzhou

Cooking pancakes. 

Enjoying a Saturday morning breakfast at McDonalds

Watching a movie

Being silly and playing

Computer time with Daddy! 

Checking out the sights in Hangzhou

My absolute favorite! When Jeffrey comes home from work, Aiden dashes to the door to see his daddy. Its the sweetest thing ever! 

When I Dip you Dip we Dip....Party Style!

Until moving to China I never realized how much of my world is truly "American." Meaning, things that I thought were known around the world really are not, just known to us Americans. So...I guess one of my purposes here in China is to introduce all of my wonderful friends from around the world to these concepts. This is just one of many examples.

DIP!

No, not the tobacco kind, the kind you eat!  The yummy wonderful dips that go with chips, veggies or anything else you can come up with. The sweet kind, the savory kind...any kind of wonderful dip.

When, sitting at 星巴克 Starbucks, during one of our Monday walks, I mentioned to the group that our next pot luck was going to be a dip party. Needless to say, I got nothing but blank stares from all of my non-American friends. It was quite comical. But, after some explanation it started to make sense.

So the party was created! I LOVED the fact that most everyone put their own culture spin on the dip they brought. Everything was wonderful!! We always have a great time at our parties.

We always have a ton of food! 

Everything was sooooo yummy! 

Some of the examples of the dips that were made and brought are, cookie dough dip, southwest dip, smores dip, buffalo chicken dip, mango salsa, brownie batter dip, pumpkin pie dip, Asian chicken dip, Chinese soy sauce dip, tuna dip, HP Sauce, feta dip....and SOOOOO many more. Everything was so delicious and I was stuffed at the end of the party.

Ladies enjoying all the yummy food. 

And of course...we always have coffee:) 

We had so much food that we couldn't eat it all. So much was leftover.

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I am extremely blessed to have wonderful friends here in Wuxi. Makes life so much better. 

Just Another Day in Paradise - China Style

The things we see and experience in China never get old. 

Its so vastly different from anything in the US that is stays strange. From split pants on kids, to people pushing in front of us in line, to crazy construction and LOUD fireworks on a daily basis, life never gets boring. 

Here is just some of the things we saw and experienced today on our typical Monday 5K Club walk. 

The boards on this bridge have been rotting out for the last year...they are finally fixing them. 

Start of the bridge getting fixed...this is normally where we need to walk to avoid getting hit by a scooter. Needless to say, we are very thankful they are fixing it so we don't fall thru! 

The local hospital. Lately it has been PACKED on Mondays. There are people everywhere just standing around outside. We have yet to figure out exactly what is going on, but it makes me very thankful for our healthcare system in America! 

If you look close you can see part of the crowd outside the hospital. 

More of the crowd...and my thumb. 

I love my life here in Wuxi, but certain things make me very thankful for my life back in the states. I have to confess though, there are things that I really miss. Examples are: Target, a grocery store where I can buy everything I need at one place, a dishwasher, and a washer and dryer inside my house (and that works well). Being here has taught me to be thankful for the things I have and not to take them for granted. We are so blessed! 

I can tell you though, when we move home if you ever need to find me, just look at Target or 

Chick-fil-a...I can almost guarantee I will be there a lot for the first few months at home! Ha!

Ending our day by playing out in our backyard. 

Mommy / Aiden Date Day

Jeffrey had to leave again this week for work, so Aiden and I went on a Mommy/Aiden date. We went to Dunkin Donuts for a special treat and then on to the grocery store to buy meat. It was a fabulous day. 

Starting out for the day. 

Aiden decided he LOVES donuts! 

Mama this is GOOD!!! 

We found this interesting...should I try the Purple Rice coffee???

At the fabulous foreign grocery store in town. Aiden loves to "drive the car"

I know these days with Aiden are precious and he won't be 2 forever. So we will take the days and cherish them while we can. 

Cheap Fun Entertainment

This week is one of the dreaded ones here in China...an 8 day work week for our guys. "Working weekends" was not a concept we were told about until we arrived here. This is where they have to make up some of their holiday time by working over a weekend either before or after that specific holiday. Its not a fun situation, but we try to make the best out of it....well I guess Aiden and I do. Poor Jeffrey is stuck at work while we play. 

Since the majority of my friends here are in the same boat, we all get together to keep ourselves occupied and try hard not to think about the fact that it is the weekend. Today was no exception. We explored a mall that just opened, had a great lunch at a Korean BBQ place and braved the crowds at Auchon. Everything is better when you have friends to do it with. 

Checking out some of the fish selection. 

Lunch time goodness

Always open for new experiences. 

So grateful to have all of these wonderful ladies to do things with. But we are ready for our men to come home and join in the fun. 

Snow in Wuxi

Another new experience for us here in China...SNOW:)

A few friends of mine texted me while at the beach saying they were getting some flurries, but for us this was our first China snow. Yea! ;) 

Before the snow started sticking...

Just started coming down hard enough to be seen. 

It actually was sticking! 

It actually stayed over night...yes I know this is not a lot of snow, but it was cool for us. 

We tried to get Aiden to enjoy it, but he thought it was too cold. Ha! 

Family Baking :)

I so love family time. 

Jeffrey has lots of time off this week so we starting it out right on Saturday by making homemade bread and cinnamon rolls. 

This is a "Ratliff" tradition and one of Jeffrey's (and mine) favorite memories with his mom. Every time we would go back to Missouri she would have glorious fresh bread coming out of the oven. And when she made cinnamon rolls...they didn't last more than 5 minutes. Delicious! 

So we decided that this was going to be one of our family traditions together as well. Aiden loves to help in the kitchen so as soon as I said, "wanna make bread" he was off and running to the kitchen. 

Jeffrey's favorite part is rolling out the dough for the cinnamon rolls. 

Glorious bread that we finally perfected. My dear sweet mother in law tried to teach us forever to get Grandma Magruder's bread right. We always ended up putting too much flour in, but this time we got it right. 

Man were these ever yummy!!! We had to hold ourselves back from eating the whole pan at once!! 

I love creating new family traditions together, especially while in China and our traditions are not always going to be the same here as they are at home. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!