CRYSTAL AND ISABEL This is a weblog for Crystal Sun Zhao and Isabel Sun Zhao. As parents, we'd like to keep the records for them as much as we can.

On June 7th, Crystal, Isabel and their girls soccer team attended a 5 schools’ girls soccor tournament. They did pretty well and SCL1 won the second place in the tournament.

Following are a few events happened in May 2014.

First, Crystal is in Grade 5. She will grade from elementary school after one month. Many of her classmates will leave SCLS. Following is a picture of class 5(5).

On May 1st and 2nd, we went to 崇明 to have a short vocation.

On May 10th, Isabel attended Shanghai School Sports Association, 3km Cross Country Race.

On May 24th, both Crystal and Isabel attended Shanghai School Sports Association, Track & Field Meet.

On May 30th, SCLS School the 4th Art Festival was held at 上海大剧院.

Because it’s 油菜花开的季节, we decided to make a trip to 江西婺源 since it is the most famous place for 油菜花.

We left to 江西 around 3pm after the girls finish their school on April 4th. After 9 hours driving, we arrived at a hotel under 三清山 just before the midnight.

Normally, it is very crowded at 三清山. It might takes a few hours to wait in the lines to buy the tickets and get on the 缆车 to the top. But we were lucky that day. Since April 5th is the first day of 3 days’ vocation, not too many people have arrived yet. After only one hour, we were at the top of the 三清山 already. We started one day of hiking about 9am and finished until 4pm. We walked a very big loop. The whole distance is about 20km by my guess. Up and down all the way. At the end, everyone is a little bit exhausted.

During the late afternoon, we left 三清山 and drove to 婺源. We stayed at 婺源清华镇 for one night. Unfortunately, this week is a little bit for 油菜花. The view would be much more better if we could come one week earlier. But still, the view in the villages is still very nice.

Along the way, we visited 江西婺源里坑村.

After we left 里坑村, we kept on driving to 江岭. We found many beautiful views along the road. On April 7th, we drove back home.

On March 29th, both Crystal and Isabel attended SCLS Athletics Tournament.

On March 23nd, Isabel and I went to 常熟 with Tongtong and her parents.

Since Crystal and Isabel joined the SCLS girls soccer team, they become very fond of this sport. Their skills keep on getting better. On March 15th, their team had a few maches with other teams. They won the third place of 7 teams and one player from their team won the MVP of this tournament.

During the 2014 winter vocation, Wendy and I took the kids back to Canada.

On Jan. 17th, we took the flight from Shanghai to Toronto. We stayed at Dajun’s home for 3 nights. Dajun’s two boys, Andy and Daniel, played along very well with Crystal and Isabel.

On Jan. 21st, we took the kids to Toronto downtown. We visited many old places we studies and lived before.

On Jan. 22nd, we went to Niagara Fall. Although it’s very cold, Niagara Fall still looks very nice.

After the lunch, we drove all the way from Niagara Fall to Ottawa. We arrived at Ottawa around 7pm.

The second day, on Jan. 23nd, we visited Parliament Hill and National Gallery.

About 3pm, we went to the Rideau Canal, the world’s longest skating rink at a length of 8.54km. This is the first time for Crystal and Isabel to try the real ice skating. They did very well. Crystal skated 10km by herself (5km one way). Isabel skated 5.6km (2.8km one way).

On Jan. 24th, we arrived at Montreal and stayed at YanFeng’s place for 2 nights. YanFeng took us to a couple of places: McGill University, Mount Royal, St. Joseph’s Oratory and Montreal Biodome.

We took some pictures with YanFeng’s family and Naonao.

On Jan. 26th, we went to Montreal Snow Festival at Notre-Dame. Crystal and Isabel had a lot of fun there while I stayed inside a camp to stay away from the coldness.

In the late afternoon, we left Montreal and took the flight to Calgary. We stayed in Calgary for 8 days. We met Doudou the first time.

In Calgary, we skied a lot. During the week, we skied at a resort inside the Calgary city. At the weekend, we went to Lake Louise.

On Feb. 3nd, we took the flight again, from Calgary to Vancouver. We stayed at Jody and Sam’s home for 7 days. Crystal and Isabel got along very well with Jody, Sam, Amber and Oliver. During the stay, we went to UBC, West Vancouver, North Vancouver and many other places. All of us love the place and we will choose Vancouver as our next stop.

On Dec. 19th, SCLS held the Christmas Concert 2013.

On 2014 New Year’s eve, lots of people came to the bund to count down and celebrate. I took Crystal and Isabel to here too.

In November 2013, Isabel became 8 years old and Crystal became 11 years old.

On Oct. 12th, Isabel attent the 3km cross-country race event. After the event, I took the kids to 辰山植物园.