Lily's 6th Birthday

My little girl isn't so little any more!  We celebrated Lily's sixth birthday with friends from school and the class mascot, Ollie the Orangutan. The princess bash was a huge success, Lucas and Charlie headed to the Wild Insect Kingdom for some boy time, while Jane, Ayi, and I watched over seven princesses.  The girls were amazingly good, they played with Lily's princess castles and dolls, colored, and played with the kitchen.  They took a break to fuel up on sandwiches and goodies before ripping into the gifts.  We ended the party with a pink cake and seven happy girls!

Lily's class is the orangutan class, hence Ollie, the orangutan mascot.  Every Friday Ollie goes home with someone, and since it was Lily's birthday he came home with us and enjoyed a busy weekend.  Saturday we took everyone to the kids favorite place in Shanghai, the Ocean Aquarium, and spent an hour enjoying all the wonderful sea animals.  Ollie even found a long lost cousin hanging in a tree and posed for a picture to put in his journal.  Of course he also graciously posed for pics with the birthday girl too.  After the aquarium it was time for lunch and then a quick trip to the market where Ollie got a prime seat in the basket.  After such a busy day we headed home for naps.  Ollie and Lily snuggled together and got in a nice nap and feeling refreshed we headed out for dinner at The Blue Frog.  By the end of the weekend Ollie had a lot to put in his journal but, since he can't write Lily helped him out.  We pasted pictures of his weekend and then Lily wrote all about what we'd seen and done, finishing it off with a lovely drawing of Ollie.

More recently we spent some time exploring Puxi.  Sunday we headed to a breakfast place called Egghead Bagel that had, wait for it... bagels!  OK, it had more than bagels, it actually had an impressive menu that had many classic American breakfast foods.  Lily and I stuck with bagels, while Charlie and Lucas opted for a hot breakfast.  After out yummy breakfast we went to Tainzifang, a pedestrian shopping area.  This little block is a warren of alleyways filled with cool boutique shops selling unique (Beijing mask fruit forks) and some not so unique things (cheesy magnets). There was also a cool candy shop where we could watch them make candy and, yes, we brought some home.  There is also a variety of restaurants, but one in particular caught my eye.  It's called More than Toilet, and it is themed all around toilets.  The seats are toilets and you sit at a glass covered sink, and the food is even served in mini toilettes.  Oh yes, we will be going back to try it!