Henry turns 11!

Henry turned 11 on October 13th while his mom was in Beijing. We celebrated the following weekend with a simple party at the house. His celebration included his two best friends in Shanghai (Austin and Ola), video games, Papa John's Pizza, a homemade chocolate cake made by his Dad, and a sleepover.


It's incredibly hard to believe that we are parents of an 11-year-old!

Disney ELL Grand Opening October 15th 2008

Other October news was the official opening of the first Disney School. It was very exciting to have Eric's vision come to fruition!

World Congress of Psychotherapy in Beijing

In mid-October I attended the World Congress of Psychotherapy in Beijing. It was a huge international conference sponsored by a UN Non-governmental organization. In addition to many Chinese psychotherapists it was attended by therapists from all over the world. I stayed in a Chinese hotel adjacent to the Bird's Nest (pictured above from the window of my room). I was able to go running through the Olympic village every morning.

The conference opened in traditional Chinese fashion with a lion dance and acrobats.

I was able to see and visit with one of my favorite graduate school professors, Nancy McWilliams pictured next to me below along with another Rutgers student of hers who is on the faculty of Peking University, Ping Yao.

It was very exciting to see in person two of my CBT idols, David Clark and David Barlow.

More Fall Photos

Finally I have a child interested in tennis!

Flower Arranging Update

I have continued to take flower arranging class every Tuesday.
Some of my fall flower arrangements.








In October, my mother's good friend Poppy Wurtzburger came to Shanghai on a business trip with her husband. I arranged to bring her to flower arranging class. We had a great time together.

Poppy with her flowers.
Poppy getting some instruction from the teacher.


Poppy's finished arrangement!

December Update

Still very behind in the postings and trying to catch up. I'm still posting from October and it's already December. It's gotten cold here. The Muhlheim family will be in Los Angeles from December 25th until January 19th and we hope to see as many of our LA friends as we can during that time. Also, the kids will visit Turning Point on January 9th and do some presentations to their classes!

Hoi An

Our final stop in Vietnam was Hoi An, where we stayed at a beautiful beach resort.
We also visited a local market and took at Vietnamese cooking class.

More Halong Bay Cruise

Eric and I finally got to try tai chi (on the deck of the ship). We also went to see some huge sea caves.

There were "peddlars" in fishing boats, residents of the fishing village who came to our boat to see us snacks.

Vietnamese Fishing Village in Halong Bay

We went on an excursion to see a fishing village. They live in house boats on the side of the hills.

Cruise of Halong Bay (Vietnam) Aboard Junk Boat

One night we stayed on a 25-room junk boat that sailed out on Ha Long Bay, a cluster of maybe 600 rocky islands that were long ago carved out by the glaciers. Odd, as the feel was so tropical when we were there. The landscape was beautiful.


Picture of our boat.