2012 Christmas Letter

December 12, 2012

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

It is our hope that 2012 has been a good year for you and your family.  With Thanksgiving behind us, it is time to start preparing and decorating for Christmas.  Usually we have all been together to get the tree, but due to travel and school schedules this year, only LeAnn, Mariah and Hailey were available to go out for our annual Christmas tree hunt.  We only have three full time members of the household now with Mariah and Kara away at college.

Mariah (21) is a senior at the University of Denver.  She has decided to stay for a fifth year to obtain a Masters in Accounting.  This summer she traveled to Dallas, TX, Chicago, IL, and Hollywood, CA for leadership conferences put on by the Big 4 accounting firms as part of the recruiting process for an internship next summer and potentially full time employment.  She decided to take an internship with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Denver next summer.  She stayed in Denver this summer and worked as a member of the new student orientation team to welcome new students to DU. She explored the city and even climbed her first two 14er’s (14,000 ft. mountains).  She has started a wine blog to explore a passion developed in Argentina.  She has also been keeping up with her Spanish by volunteering at Museo de las Americas, a Latino arts and culture museum in Denver.  She also made her first trip to the annual Las Vegas get together with her cousins this summer.

Kara (18) graduated from Eagan High School last spring.  She was a member of the Eagan High School golf team which came in second in both the conference and in regions, thanks in part to a nice 25’ putt she made on the final hole of district playoffs.  We had a fun open house for her in June to celebrate her accomplishment, and got to visit with a lot of friends and relatives.  We took her down to Drake University in Des Moines, IA this fall where she started her freshman year.  She went through sorority recruitment and joined Kappa Kappa Gamma.  She stays busy with various social events (such as western themed and formal dances), philanthropic events, classes and homework.  She plans to major in advertising and marketing.  Kara worked as a playground assistant for the city of Bloomington over the summer.

Hailey (16) is a junior at Eagan High School.  Last spring she became a licensed driver, making it easier to get to and from school, friends’ houses and other events.  Last spring she was member of the track team and specialized in the long jump. She is always on the run with her friends, and we enjoy having a house full of girls working on homework, or, better yet, whipping up yummy treats that we can all enjoy.  We did college visits to the University of Minnesota Duluth, Carleton College, and St. Olaf this fall.  So far she is not sure where she wants to go, or what she wants to do after high school.

Ray continues to get some golf in when he can, trying to stay even with Kara.  He made a lot of pens, bottle stoppers and ornaments on his wood lathe during the MN indoor season (aka winter).  He still does relatively simple items and is in awe of the fine detail and thin walls that expert turners are capable of doing.  He is also closing in on finding his 1000^th geocache, and has found geocaches in 28 US states and 12 countries so far.  Ray is still working at Advantek and has spent a lot of time traveling the second half of the year as part of a new equipment installation project.

LeAnn has been doing a lot of home decorating projects based on ideas she sees on Pinterest - an internet website that is full of fun project ideas.  She regularly goes to yoga classes and keeps active with long distance walking, bike riding and golf.  She has also started a new job with Right at Home, providing in-home cleaning, support and companionship to elderly and disabled clients.  She has really enjoyed meeting and helping support many fascinating people through this new job.  She continues to work as a preschool teacher for the City of Eagan.

In March, we took a spring break trip to Gulf Shores, AL.  Mariah was not able join us since her spring break schedule did not match up with the other girls, but Kara and Hailey both brought along a friend for the trip, making for a van full on the way down and back.  Driving down gave us opportunities to stop along the way.  We stopped at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and Graceland (Elvis Presley’s mansion) in Memphis on the way down. 

The white sand beaches of the Gulf Shores area are beautiful.  We spent a lot of time enjoying the beach and surf, toured around the area, visited an alligator farm, went on a dolphin watching cruise in the bay, and went over to Pensacola to the Navy base to watch the Blue Angels aerobatic fighter demonstration.  It is incredible how fast they fly and how close together they come during the show.  On the way back to Minnesota, we stopped at Opryland in Nashville, Churchill Downs, and the Louisville Slugger baseball bat museum and factory in Louisville.

Ray and LeAnn took a couple of fun local trips during the year, including a kayaking trip down the Cannon River south of the Twin Cities. The river was crowded with a lot of tubers, but we went further upstream and were on a quieter part of the river.  In the early fall, we went down along the Mississippi River and toured three different wineries.  At the last winery, we ate lunch on a large deck overlooking the vineyard.  Although the wineries in Minnesota are relatively few and far between, it made for an enjoyable getaway, and is interesting to learn about how the wineries deal with the local weather compared to the wineries in true wine country.

Both Ray and LeAnn’s moms are doing well. Karren still is living at her home in Burnsville, and stays busy with cards, church, and her many friendships.  Lois is still spending the winters down in Apache Junction, AZ, where she continues to golf, play cards and participate in many activities within her mobile park.   

We had all the girls home for Thanksgiving, and had both sides of the family over for dinner. We got our first big snowfall this weekend – around 10 inches.  Hopefully now we will have a white Christmas this year.  We look forward to having everyone home again and celebrating the season together.

                                                                                      Have a great year,

                                                       LeAnn, Ray

                                Mariah, Kara, and Hailey

Email:  bloom2511@hotmail.com  

Blog: www.bloom2511.blogspot.com

Mariah’s blogs: http://onesmallgrainofsand.wordpress.com/, http://vivaciousvines.wordpress.com/

2012-12 Zhujiajiao Ancient Town

Ray had an extended stay in Shanghai and visited the town of Zhujiajiao on the western outskirts of Shanghai.  He traveled by bus with Andy from the Shanghai plant and John from an equipment supplier.  The bus left from near downtown and it took about an hour to get to Zhujiajiao.  It was raining when we arrived at the bus station in Zhujiajiao, so Andy thought it would be best if we took a tricycle taxi to the riverside.  It was tight fit, but we stayed dry for the 1/2 mile ride.

Zhujiajiao is built along a series of rivers and canals, so our first order of business was a boat ride through the canals.  The boats are guided by a gondolier who steers and propels the boat with a single long oar from the back of the boat.    John and Ray were given a chance to steer the boat, but keeping the oar on the peg and making it move forward were not as easy and the gondolier made it appear.

We toured Kezhi Garden, which was a residence with a large food garden, a pond, rock sculptures, and a large home.  Inside the rooms were various artists practicing their crafts.  One of the more facinating was paper cutting master who made large and small paper cutouts of various things such as the animals of the Chinese calendar, warier scenes, and flowers

We then went back to the tallest and longest bridge across the canal, built over 300 years ago.  This is called the Bridge for Freeing Captive Fish.  Our gondolier did have turtles for sale on his boat that could be bought and released, but no fish.  Andy bought a turtle, but was bringing it home for his son.  While walking over the bridge, I noticed a family down at the base of the bridge and they were throwing the turtles back into the river.  The turtles were in for a rough landing as they were probably flying about 50' in the air, so this was not a gentle release.

We walked along the river and checked out some of the shops and food stalls along the way.  They sell souvenirs like silk blankets, wood carvings, and various foods.  We stopped at a dumpling shop that used sticky rice, chestnuts and pork wrapped in a leaf, tied with a piece of straw (using her hands and teeth) and then steamed.  When done, it was gooey and very tasty.  

After crossing the bridge, we found a place for lunch.  All the seafood was very fresh, as it was kept alive in fish tanks next to the kitchen.  They had small and large fish, shrimp, eels, and snails.  We had fish and shrimp, and eating the shrimp was a challenge  as they were small shrimp and not peeled.  Andy was able to place them in his mouth whole and remove the meat and then discard the head and shell with very little problem.  John and Ray had to end up peeling them by hand before eating them.  Because of this, Andy ordered peeled shrimp for our evening dinner, making it much easier for John and Ray.  During lunch we overhear an American at an adjacent table talking about St. Paul and the Twin Cities.  A small world when a person eating lunch in a small, family run restaurant along the river outside of Shanghai is from the same state as you.

One of the shops along the way had some skinned ducks hanging on a large rack and buckets full of crabs of various sizes.  It is always interesting to see the food hanging out without refrigeration.  Across the street was a shop having cages and cages of live birds, but these were apparently for pets, not food

2012-12 Dinner at the Spicy Fish

While working in Shanghai, I went to a nearby restaurant called the Spicy Fish, even though we didn't know anything about it, it was crowded and busy, so figured it had to be OK.  I didn't have any locals with me, just another American.  As we were going to the table, I saw the hot plate built into the table.  We sat down and got our menu.  Fortunately there were a lot of pictures and English words, so ordering was pretty easy.  We ordered yellow catfish, noodles, vegetables and dumplings.  The cooking pan came out with tomato soup on one side and spicy broth on the other.

I started to put some vegetables in the pot and the waiter stopped me.  They would be doing the cooking.   A basket came out and when he opened it, it contained our fish--still live.  They were bringing them out for approval.  The fish were about 6" long.  They returned to the kitchen and gutted them, bringing them back out in a bowl, still wiggling a little bit.  The waiter motioned for us to hold our napkins up to our necks.  We weren't sure why he was asking, but we did it.  He then brought an oversized, clear, domed cover to fit over the cooking pot.  He proceeded to add the fish to the pot and they splashed around for about 10 seconds making a mess under the dome.  Once they settled won, he removed the dome, and had us put our napkins down.  He told us they would be done in 5-6 minutes.

After the fish was done, he placed them in out bowl and we ate them with our chopsticks, pulling as much meat off them as we could.  As we finished the fish, the noodles were then cooked.  After the noodles we had our vegetables.  The soup broth was very spicy, and made for a very good meal.  It was a good place to try and another interesting experience.