Nine if Fine!

Blogging about Carline's 9th brithday 4 months afterwards is definitely not going to put us in the running for the "Parents of the Year" award, but we still wanted to share what was a terrific day celebrating a terrific girl!

Her day started with the family tradition of breakfast in bed. Dan joined in for a picture and we heard the loud and distinct sound of wood snapping! Add one bed repair to the honey-do list.


Chocolate cake...Caroline's favorite. Made possible by loving grandparents willing to tote oversized suitcases full of food and cake mix from the states to Shanghai.

When we asked Caroline what she wanted to do on her birthday, she wanted to go see the elephant show at the zoo that she had heard about...so off we went. It was well worth it!

The show started with 3 elephants and their trainers coming out and allowing the crowd to buy a bag of cucumbers to feed the elephants. We went through about...mmm...5 bags.

Then on with the show. Before this visit, I'd never seen an elephant on a balance beam...I have now. I don't know about you, but I kept thinking of Dumbo?


Taking a well deserved bow.

After the show, we still had a few RMB left after buying them out of cucumbers, so the girls each took a ride on one of the elephants.

As we watched our youngest try not to slide off the elephant and onto the ground, we realized that the whole liability and lawsuit thing hasn't reached the same level here in China...

After the show, we went through the rest of the exhibits which were similiar to any other zoo we've visited in the past, complete with the friendly reminders to not "Flap on the glass".

OK so now we have hit all of the truly important stuff-hopefully more frequent posts to come (but don't hold your breath!)