Summer 2010

I didn’t intend to abruptly abandon the blog for the summer. But, as it turns out, that’s what happened! So, where have we been all this time?

Lydia and I arrived in Kansas City exactly one year from the day that we landed in Hong Kong to start our around-the-world adventure. While we loved being in Hong Kong last summer to get acclimated and see our new home, I was thrilled to be back in the USA for 8.5 weeks of a very non-HK experience.

We planned a lot of very familiar activities that were guaranteed to be good – dance/acrobats class at Miss Maria’s for Lydia, work a few days a week for me, a pool pass to the local pool, etc. The big wild card for the summer was our housing arrangement (we sold our house before we moved last year).

As it turns out, furnished apartments are hard to come by - not many decent places are interested a short term renter. Generous friends and family members offered their extra rooms, but I didn't feel right about being a house guest for that long. Being at an extended stay hotel all summer sounded downright depressing. So, what did I do?

I rented a house by posting a "housing needed" ad on Craigslist.

Seriously.

After having lots of crazy and creepy people respond to my ad (like a group of 60-something-year-old men who wanted to rent me a room in their house) and beginning to believe Extended Stay America might just be our summer home, I connected with a person in old Overland Park who wanted to travel for the summer. Following much correspondence with the owner, along with some background checking, I decided it was worth the gamble...but, of course, I made sure the contract had a termination clause!

It turned out to be a fantastic arrangement. We got a 1930s cape cod that was in the process of a complete renovation, along with a fenced back yard that had huge trees with swings and a large garden. Lydia had a cool two-room loft-style bedroom above the garage that she loved.

Cute house:

Me using not-so-good judgment trying to climb the rope swing:

Relaxing backyard (with a little nephew playing in it):


While it might seem that finding a decent place to stay is really no big deal, I think it enabled us to have a “normal” Kansas living experience: we had enough space to have people over, could go straight to the garage for our car (what a novelty!), and could spend lots of time outside to enjoy the clean air and clear skies. We couldn’t have been happier with the arrangement!

So that’s where we've been…I’ll do a post or two on WHAT we did this summer (I promise to hit only the highlights – I will spare you the play-by-play of the greatest Target shopping moments), then I’ll get back to the purpose of this blog: our lives in Hong Kong!