Scenes from Summer

I usually don't blog about our summers, but since this was our last as "visitors" in the USA, I thought we should take note of it....

Two days after we arrived in KC, we hopped on a plane to Sanibel Island, Florida.  It was the destination of choice for my 40th birthday - I couldn't think of any better place to celebrate!  It didn't disappoint...

Hours were spent like this - hanging out on the beach, looking at the shells we collected.

We hoped we'd get to see a beautiful sunset; our wish came true!

Celebrating Father's Day with my dad at the Mucky Duck in Captiva. 

Shortly after Sanibel, Lydia, Dave, and I spent a fun weekend in Hutchinson.  Our nephews love fishing, so we joined them on an outing.  Lydia is totally in her element in the outdoors and was super excited when she caught her first fish of the season:

I loved being outside and casting out, but honestly I'm on the side of the fish - I spend my time hoping that they're smart enough to not bite (swim away little fishies!).  Unfortunately, I caught a turtle who apparently wasn't so bright.

A couple of weeks later, Lydia went back to Hutch to go to a week-long day camp at Dillon Nature Center.  There, they fish, canoe, do outdoor exploration, and have a lot fun. It was Lydia's second year at the camp - despite not knowing a soul there (and everyone saying "WHERE did you say you go to school?" when they do introductions), she could not wait to go.  This year she won the "best archer" award, which made up for not catching any fish at camp.  She's already asking about going back next year!

Later in the summer, Lydia went to Girl Scout Day Camp in Kansas City - somehow I took NO pictures.  Maybe that's because my brain was slowly frying in the heat the two days I attended - it was a blazing 105 degrees and we spent each day outside, then rode home on an non-air-conditioned yellow school bus.  After the first day, Lydia told me she'd rather go to Nebraska Furniture Mart (there's more to that story) than go back to camp.  Fortunately, it got better after that and in the end she said it was "too short".

Meanwhile, we had a few things going on at our house...the biggest of which was we decided to gut the kitchen and start over.  We knew that this project was in our future, but it moved up on the project list - with all the other things we're doing this fall we knew it would be an even bigger eye sore.  Dave fled the country (okay, he went back to work in HK) just in time to miss the action.  Poor Lydia got dragged from store to store, looking at appliances, hardware, lighting, paint, and carpet samples (for the rest of the house).  One epic trip to Nebraska Furniture Mart took 2.5 hours.  I assured her that it wasn't my idea of a good time either. I don't think she believed me, pledging that she would never, ever go back there with me again. Anyway, was kind of hard to imagine our big project coming together when the tear out looked like this:

Despite the home improvement projects,  the fun marched - or I should say trotted - along for Lydia.  She went horseback riding with one of her cousins - it was like a dream come true since she'd just read Black Beauty and became very interested in horses.  I had fun riding as well, but I think the clear blue Kansas sky and the peacefulness of the ranch were the highlights for me.

Lydia and "Red".

As is tradition each summer, we got together with Lydia's "China sisters".  This year seven of 10 families made it.  It's such a joy to see them all together.  This year, we got a tour of the Missouri capitol building (our host works there), including a trip all the way to the top of the capitol dome.  Here are the girls after the trek down.

And what has also become a tradition is a long series of birthday celebrations for Lydia (boy, will she miss this in the future) - these are just the ones that I took photos of; there were more with grandparents and cousins!

She went skating with her best buddies in Kansas City, had dinner at the restaurant of her choice, then wrapped up the day with a trip to the pool.  Here they are at the skating rink:

(Truth be told, summer was actually one long playdate for these girls and they never tired of each other - it was amazing!)

Her Hubei sisters marked the occasion:

And another one the night we returned to Hong Kong:

Armed with birthday money (before we returned to HK), Lydia made her biggest purchase ever...an American Girl doll.  Interestingly, she never expressed that she wanted a doll - even when directly asked.  She later said she had just wanted to buy it with her own money.  We can hope that this will hold true when she wants a car someday!

Thanks to our friends the Staleys we had furniture to sit on this summer.
Like the multi-colored paint samples in the background?

And, less than 24 hours before we left, our kitchen project was about 95% complete - hooray!

So that's summer in a nutshell!

Though we did lots of activities and checked lots of items off of our to-do lists, reconnecting with our favorite people is absolutely the best part of summer. We saw lots of other friends and family members who aren't captured here, too.  We appreciate everyone welcoming us back and dealing with the quirkiness of our stays.  Yet, there are many more friends we wanted to see but didn't. We're looking forward to making up for some lost time in 2013!