Table for Five: Family Day

A week ago this past Saturday the facilities where Jamie works had their second annual family day celebrations. Because Jamie's group physically sits at one location, but is managed by people in another building, we were invited to both events.

It was so much fun and a little bit normal-feeling, like something we would have experienced in the States. There were activities for the whole family and our girls loved the bouncy house and paddle boats. I was really impressed with how Jamie's co-workers were willing to participate in all of the games. Of course there were prizes and that was a nice incentive, but they really seemed excited about doing things together. I'm not sure we would have seen the same participation level in the Sates.

LBean as Ariel

One of the group games

A place to rest under the tents

Getting our goodie bags with water, a Diet Coke, snacks and a fan

LBean designing her kite

Getting a little help from one of Jamie's co-workers

LBean mid jump in the bouncy house

I just like this picture!

LBean driving her paddle boat

What a cutie pie!

I have no idea what I'm laughing at, but I love this photo!

The festivities were interesting for the workers in the lot
next door, they kept climbing up to take a peek.

LBean the boat captain, driving a friend around.

One of the funniest things to watch watch was the fish pond. Everyone could grab a pole and try to catch a gold fish to take home. But, the fish were smart and all huddled together in the middle of the large inflatable pool. All the adults took turns throwing things into the middle of the water, splashing the sides of the pool and any thing else they thought might get the fish to swim out of the middle. Later in the afternoon we walked back by again and the adults had finally given up and rolled-up their pant legs and just walked in to catch their fish.

We had lunch at the facility too. I had chuckled when Jamie and I had to pre-order our lunches a few weeks before. There was a traditional Chinese meal, which we weren't sure if it would include fish and the girls would not have enjoyed that or McDonald's. McD's sounds reasonable enough, right? Well our options were chicken, chicken or chicken, but that's not the funny part. It was what different kinds of chicken did you want. Between our family of four I think we were given 2 chicken nugget meals, 4 chicken drumsticks, 2 spicy chicken sandwiches, 2 regular chicken sandwiches and 4 tarot root dessert pies. No sides, just lots of chicken!

By early afternoon we were hot and tired and headed back to our apartment for a rest. Well, Jamie and I napped, but the girls didn't, go figure! We headed back to Wuxi in the evening for the other facility's family day celebration. We arrived in time to go through the buffet line and sit down to watch all of the different employee groups perform on-stage showcasing their talents. There was quite a range of abilities. Some sang, others performed puppet shows, a group did tai chi and there were even a few actors in the group. It was a fun night!