Valentine’s Day is on a Tuesday – a school and work day. Our friend, Scott, was organizing the group for a romantic dinner gathering at Stiller’s. Stiller’s is own by our friends, Yoshi and Stefan. We would have love to celebrate with friends, but children’s schedules did not allow it. Emersyn had volleyball from 3:30 – 5:30pm. Eleri had tennis from 3:30 – 4:30pm. Emersyn had her first open dive meeting at 7-9pm. There is not enough time to go home between volleyball and open dive. Therefore, we went to the Blue Frog as a family to celebrate Valentine’s Day. We decided to go to the Blue Frog at the Kerry Center since it is so much nicer than the Green Leisure in Jinqiao. However, with rain, traffic was slow even with Mr. Nie making all kinds of illegal turns. We had a quick, but lovely 45 minute Valentine’s dinner – it was happy hour. Emersyn had to do her homework before the food arrived.

The girls did start the morning off with a chocolate heart. Finding good chocolates in Shanghai is always a challenge…and comes with a price.

On Sunday, Emersyn and I made cupcakes for her class. We made chocolate cupcakes with white frosting. I don’t normally make white frosting as my favorite is the chocolate frosting. But, they were still tasty and she sprinkled them with red and pink. Being a middle schooler, there are no parties so it is nice to bring some fun to the day.

Eleri being a elementary student had a class party. We made valentine’s over the weekend. I cut and traced the hearts. Eleri wrote her fun sayings on each heart and then taped it to a lollipop. She used the word “heart” in all her sayings. She loves to make and she had fun making Valentines.

In school, Eleri made a card for us.

In art, Eleri had fun with colors and a heart.

It was a lovely Valentine’s Day spent with the people I love.