Summer's End!

All good things must come to an end and so we had to say good-bye to our third summer of living out of a suitcase! This has been a wonderful summer with many, many memories made! For the first time, I think the kids were hesitant to come back to China. They had such a good time playing with their cousins, being with their grandparents, and cramming in all of the fun things we have at our fingertips in the midwest! They realized that America is exciting and an easy place to live. This is all well and good for our transition next summer, but I realize that we will have to shake some of the expat out of our children for them to fit in socially!

On our last Saturday before we left, we went to the sweetest winery nestled in the middle of nowhere!! Danny and I both went with very few expectations (I mean the midwest weather is not exactly grape growing weather), and had one of the best nights of the summer!! Some of my aunts and uncles and cousins were there, so we were able to enjoy a beautiful night under the stars, listening to music, and drinking wine with them!! There was a small lake that the kids and I walked around. It reminded me so much of the lazy days of my summer - we picked cat tails and stared up at the stars, just mesmerized by the beauty of it all (I probably appreciated it more than them!!). Once the band started playing both Eens and Coop took turns on the dance floor with me - I love twirling their smiling faces around! (Eens just asked me this morning when we could go back to the place where we went dancing!) It was a perfect summer night!!

A couple days before we left, we headed back up to Danny's parents. On our way up we stopped to visit with our dear friends from business school! If we could, we would move right beside them - we all get along so well and there is always nonsense occurring thanks to our 7 children!! We braved the obvious fact that we were way out numbered by children and walked to downtown Glen Ellyn to eat dinner! The kids were fantastic (and at a separate table) and we got to catch up! Thanks for having us Fenske's!!

Once we made it to Danny's parents we took advantage of a beautiful day and went to the Brookfield Zoo. There was a new bear exhibit that we wanted to see! I always forget how big the zoo is - it takes hours to walk all around! We ended up skipping a few exhibits, but the kids were super excited to touch stingrays and eat ice cream and slushies!!

Trying to find the animals!



Mixing their own slushies - quite a treat!

After such a wonderful summer, it was not easy to get on the plane, but we were all looking forward to getting back in our own home and beginning our third year in China!!