Where to begin...

I feel like I have so much blogging to catch up on I don't even know where to start..Summer is over, home was wonderful, we're back in Beijing - together (hallelujah), my sister Leslie has been here visiting for the last 3 weeks, we visited a million sites, went on 2 vacations with her, baby is growing great, classes started yesterday, A's working full-time and loving it, that's all. Can I be done? No. I know I can't. Best part of being home - friends and family!

I'm just gonna go chronologically, cause the last 3 weeks have been awesome but summer was too wonderful not to mention it. So summer - it was blissful. We so wish that A could have stayed at home for longer, 3 weeks just wasn't long enough! The morning we were flying home we woke up to Neil Diamond, "Coming to America," and I can't even count how many times we said, "God Bless America," while we were there. We arrived in the end of June and I left in the end of August. I cried over the 4th of July parade and Bowman's grocery store, and was an absolute basket case when A left. Literally, I stood outside the check-in and security gates bawling the entire time. In my pregnancy, time at home was week 12 to week 20 which was a great span of time to get over my sickness. It ended up being the perfect timing for lots of different things in our lives and we're so happy that we could spend the time there.

It was so nice to catch up with family and friends and just be in a place where we feel so comfortable. It was surprisingly not-weird to be there, only a couple things caught us off guard and made us say, "Oh man, we really missed this." The first load of laundry we did through the dryer was one of those things, our clothes were so soft! We've been line drying for the last year - literally drying on a line stretched from one wall of our apartment to the other - and totally forgot how glorious it was to have soft clothes! It was really really nice to not be stared at for a second. The grocery store was absolutely glorious - relaxing really. Major highlights from the trip include family, nieces and nephews, dear friends, cousins, 4th of July, Cafe Rio, Olive Garden, a week in Bear Lake with my fam, visiting USU, gender ultrasound, baby shower, Zuppa's...I could go on and on.

Our week in Bear Lake with my family was glorious! My parents rented a house there from Monday to Sunday and we had everyone there but my sister's husband. Big lesson we learned from the week is that Hales love good food, we all like the same food, and we all think we're feeding 30 when we're actually feeding 15! The fridge and every cupboard was STACKED full with goodies and we ate like kings! Perfect weather, great house, family, water - thanks mom and dad for a great vacation!

We're so grateful we were able to spend the time and are looking forward to more fun summers in America to come. Next time we come home to visit, there will be 3 of us!