A Much Overdue Summer Update!

Many apologies to our blog friends for the much overdue update.  We have had a busy summer to say the least.  In the midst of everything we made some special memories and I wanted to share a few photos from the months of June and July.  

Family outings. . .

In July we were able to take a fun 2 day trip to Dali - a city about 5 hours away.  We hiked in the mountains, saw several waterfalls, shopped and enjoyed lots of yummy food!  Our friends the Major's came for a visit but since they visited last year they had already seen everything our city had to offer so we decided to take a road trip.  Here is a photo of our family at a waterfall and riding the ski lift up the mountain.  The ski lift was 30 minutes one way!!!!  I was a bit nervous with wiggly Judah but he did fine and we did not loose any children.  

 

Here we are overlooking the Maekong River.  When we lived in Thailand we were only about 15 minutes from the river - now in China it takes about 2 hours. 

Judah Growing Up!

One thing that kept us busy this summer was the renovations that were done on our house.  Judah greatly enjoyed going over and checking out the work that had been done each day.  As you can see he has gone to work in the sand and brick pile.  It was fun to see the difference between Judah and the girls when we were walking through the construction zone.  The girls would pick up wood chips and manage to find a "mommy" wood chip, "daddy" wood chip and "baby" wood chip and sit contentedly and play.  Judah would look for the biggest power tools and pick it up and start making drilling sounds.  

Some more fun pictures of Judah - "Spider Diaper" as he modeled his spider man mask; Judah with a butterfly he caught, and Judah reading a book.  I am so pleased to find him reading in his free time - even if the book is upside down.  

In June we were able to spend a weekend in Kunming visiting our good friends Joe and Carolyn.  We had lots of errands to run, so Joe and Carolyn were good to accompany us.  Here is Joe introducing Judah to telly tubbies and below, Judah is sticking to his 1pm nap time even though we had many more things to buy.  

More reading time. . .  Henna likes to invite Judah into her arctic tent to read with her.   Also, one day I was preparing lunch and thought the children were too quiet.  I was so pleased to see Judah reading with his sisters and not just pulling their hair as usual.  

These pictures are from a dinosaur park about an hour outside of Kunming.  Judah is figuring out what a crater is.  Below he is examining an exhibit explaining how dinosaurs have evolved into chickens - hmmmmmm.  

Manon and Henna's Summer Adventures!

Here the girls are drawing on their new easels (a gift from Uncle Scott and Aunt Tina).  They were illustrating "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader."

Henna and her buddy Nathan on the 4th of July.  

Manon being such a big girl pushing the stroller at the dinosaur park.  It was actually funny how we ended up there.  It is something the girls and I have always wanted to visit but often felt that our trips to Kunming were too fast.  As we were driving from Dali to Kunming, Manon said she needed to potty.  I asked Monty to take the next exit (which happened to be the dinosaur park).  Monty did not really feel that we had time to spend the day there playing and told me three reasons why we could not: 1) no sun screen (which I had in my purse); 2)no stroller (which we rented for $4); 3)the admission was too high (but they let two of our children in for free).  After everything seemed to be in place he agreed.  I am so glad he did!  Since our children love dinosaurs it was a fabulous day learning and playing.    

There was even a river raft ride!  Everyone was soaked after it was over and unfortunately the water smelled like sewer water so we decided to call it a day and continue to drive down the road to Kunming for a shower.  

Here is our special friend from the summer, Miss Emily!  She came over to help our friends with home-schooling etc and they were so wonderful to share some of her time with us.  We found Emily to be wonderful at everything - helping us choose paint colors, tiles, babysit, home school, organizing etc.  She is the oldest of 4 and often commented that she could see so much of herself in Manon.  I tried to pick her brain often to get better parenting ideas.    

Above:  Manon at the waterfall  in Dali; Henna busy at her school work - measuring the table with connecting blocks and below: Manon racing around the house on the roller racer. 

Here are the girls presenting their favorite books to their literature class.  Manon told the story of "Rikki Tikki Tavi" and Henna shared "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe."  They did a fabulous job!

And still time for one more party!

We moved back into our house 4 days before the children and I left for Thailand.  The next 3 days were busily spent unpacking and then the night before I left we had a party for our Wa friends.  It was great having lots of people over and not feeling squished.  

In case you are wondering - we are still waiting for our little boy to arrive.  As I was having a few contractions yesterday I thought I better get the blog ready.  But, in reality I think we still have a week or so before his arrival.