A Qingdao Bay Boat Party

 

The beautiful month of May was filled with birthdays! One of those birthdays was our friend, Sonny! You may remember us mentioning Sonny here. He's a great guy. He's incredibly generous, hilarious and humble. We love any time we get to spend with him! For his 40th birthday he decided to rent a boat and take his friends out for dinner and some Qingdao Bay views. 

The birthday boy and his brother and sister in law. 

 

Once every one was on the boat, we set off for the sea, and the waitors, chef and bartender Sonny brought from the hotel, started shaking, pouring and bbqing things up. There was also lots of fresh fruit and veggies.

 

 

The views were great but the boat was really rocking over each wave! It was hard to hold our plates, drinks and hold conversations. At some points we had to grip the table so as not to fly out of our chair.

People were even falling over! So they decided to turn the boat around and go back to the dock to enjoy our lunch and cake.

Zachary and Ash tried to catch a few fish while we were docked. One guy on the boat actually caught one and immediately stuck in on the barbi down stairs. He was super excited!

The Mosby Man and I

Some of the best birthday cheese cake I've ever tasted. After we ate we headed back out to the sea to enjoy the last hour with the boat.

Our view as we headed back in for the final time-tons of Chinese people taking pictures of us and the Olympic torch.

Happy Birthday Sonny! We had a great time! Thank you so much for having us!

Catherine's Baby Shower Invites

My sweet friend, Catherine, is having a baby this summer, and I had the great privilege of hosting her baby shower. Hosting her shower, of course, got me super pumped for baby!  I couldn't imagine a better way to celebrate his coming than to throw a party for him and his momma! I LOVE throwing parties and Baby E coming was more than an excuse to throw one. Apart of every good party, are the invitations! They are the first things people see & set the tone for the rest of the party! When people saw Catherine's invites, I wanted them to get excited about the shower and, of course, come! 
Thankfully for me, picmonkey.com exists. Without pic monkey I would have literally been clueless on the invites. Or I would have resorted to writing them on scratch paper or something. Yes, yes,  I know, I could have just sent out an Evite, but being in China, I feel like I want to cling and recreate anything that reminds me of home. And at home baby showers often equal cute invites! 

^The front of the invite
The back of the invite^.
I whipped these up (Whipped, I use lightly, as this did take me quite a while, I'm no expert!) on Picmonkey and purchased the elephant JPG's and PNG's from igivelove on Etsy. I bought those here.  I loved these elephants! They fit the colors, patterns and theme perfectly!

In the invites I also (created on Pic Monkey) included a map, 

and a taxi card, business card size, for people to show their taxi drivers on the way. 

Thankfully, everyone found their way! 

Also, on Pic Monkey I was able to create these labels, that I then cut out, pasted elephants on, and used as food toppers. 

               

Included with each invite I also printed "Baby E's Wish List" and wrote a personalized list, based on Catherine's wish list, on what Baby E needed. 

I had the the invites and taxi card printed at a photo shop on photo paper and everything else I printed and cut at home. I glued the front and back of the invite photos together, piled everything up, clipped them with a paper clip and tied it all up with a ribbon. 

The final product. 

Over all I was really pleased with the final product and hope Catherine and there other ladies loved them! 

An Art Show

This past weekend we attended the Young Artists of the Year 2014 art show. By attended, I mean we went to, by Young Artists of the Year, I mean really young! There was art displayed from ages 4 to 18. There was even noodle art on display, super cute!

 

 The whole event was put on by our sweet friend Bruna for one of the local international schools. The exhibit showcased their students work to be judged by a group of judges. All the proceeds from the event went to a Chinese orphanage. We bought a few of these raffle tickets once we got there.

 And.....spoiler alert: We won all the above!! :) We are super excited! I know cans of soup, peanut butter and cereal may not look like much to you Western readers, but let me tell you, this is hitting the gold mine here.

 I loved these little taxi books that YCIS (the International school) made! They are filled with local attractions, restaurants and stores with their English and Chinese name & address to show taxi drivers. Such an awesome idea as a welcome gift for people who are moving overseas!

 Dave, Bruna's husband, giving Zachary the verbal tour of the art work.

 Dave, from the States, and Bruna, who put on the event, from Brazil. 

Zachary and I really loved this piece of art. It's about taking exams but we think it would be awesome if the book was instead in the shape of a heart with God's love & redemption type words, the hands were pierced, and the stuff running down was blood with lists of sins. Maybe we'll have to recreate it!

 Loved this, a sketch of all the different main attractions in major Chinese cities, Qingdao's May 4th Square tornado at center.

 Such a beautiful picture but dark. I really love the eyes.

 Nicole, Erin and Rosanna rocking the event by helping Bruna work the booths.

 Qingdao and Street food

 Bruna made these delicious bon bons for sale.

There were a bake sale booth with tons of goodies with all the proceeds going to the charity.

The children who attended the even got a real treat! I was a little jealous I'm not gonna lie! They have tons of fun colors, paints and glitter to create a masterpiece on their own square of canvas.

Fracasse de frango! Delicious Brazilian food was available for lunch! I'm definitely going to look for the recipe online! It was awesome.

The little guy was all ham. He kept coming over and playing with Zachary, when he saw Zachary was interested in playing, he ran away and came back quickly, decked out in glitter and glasses for Zachary's viewing approval. So cute!

We had a great time! Thanks Bruna for all the hard work you put into this and for your huge heart for Chinese orphans!