our days & our ways: Purple

Purple. I never used to even care for the color, but now I love it... because my sister does! After spending 12 days with her, I want to like purple too! My mom and sister Natalie and her baby Silas had a great time together. I'm so thankful for their visit and all the fun we had. This is a picture of the kids the day after they left. We didn't want to stay in the house and mourn, so we spent our time at the nearby track, building castles and digging rivers. It was just what we needed.

4 years ago, we dedicated Caedmon to God at First Free in Wisconsin. Every year we take a picture (in the same t-shirt) and celebrate that special time!

The day my family came (10pm ish), we went to visit Josh's teacher in the hospital.

This is why... she tripped and broke a bone and now has metal in her ankle! Here, the hospital doesn't provide food, so the family members have to bring it to the injured person. After finding this out, I was glad I had some warm homemade soup in our bag along with some freshly baked bread. I hope it hit the spot!

This is the place to go if you have diarrhea. The sign says, "Communicable Diseases and Diarrhea." Good to know.

Happy Birthday Josh!! I meant to get this out sooner. And to add more pictures. The idea was: 30 pictures, each with 30 different items, so the kids could get an idea of how big of a number 30 is. Well, one picture made it to the blog with Hadassah holding 30 water jug tickets. It's the idea that counts, right?

Where's Rae & Natalie?

(If you look real close, you can see them pulling their luggage.. yeay!!)

The exciting reunion over pictures from the kids since it was way past their bed time to come to the airport.

Surprise #1: GG and Auntie Nanny are here! Surprise #2: Two suitcases full of goodies!

THANKS Mom and Nat!!! What a blast!!!

Caedmon's Finds

GG bought this for Cade when she was here. Auntie Nat graciously helped Cade put it together. After it broke for the tenth time in five minutes, Caedmon decided her prefers imported toys from now on :) ...

... unless it's a sword.

Fun to see what struck Mom and Nat as funny. I guess I got used to personal sized bread bags.

(I have no idea why one is sitting in the salad bowl)

I'm sure GG had flashbacks of what it was like taking care of twins all day.

(Sy and Viv are a week apart)

Mom and I had a nice time over some new fall drinks at the local Chicago Coffee.

And thought about a little snack, for less than a second. Nahh.

Shopping was a hit. Each time mom has come we have given her a little chinese bunny (if a bunny can be chinese). She left this time with two keepers (wooden of course).

Nat got Cade and her Sammy a cowboy hat... and on the way home we saw a man wearing both kinds we just bought, at the same time. Interesting.

Dassah's Smiles for GG

Where's my hat?

Momma Rae buying pillows for friends

Mom and Nat risking a trip out on their own! They did awesome. (Given, the store was right out our back door. But still. :)

Riding on the che (3 wheel e-bike).

Mom, Nat, Josh and big kids checked out this Tibeten restaurant.

They all came back smiling, so I don't think it was too bad :).

The kids' friend Nathan had a birthday party outside, so mom and Nat had the sweet chance to meet many of their friends.

(mom's photography skills)

What a precious moment

The theme was Construction and all the kids came home with a homemade tool belt full of goodies.

Construction Man Cade

Handy Hadassha (with some help peeking over the bar)

Life-saver Lily

The kids "dug" this party!

Can we fit? Yes we can.

(caption inspired by Bob the Builder)

We took mom and nat to the park on their first day here to keep them awake.

Panda Bushes

Who's who?

(hint... one mom is carrying her respective baby (boy))

Nat and I got an awesome 15 minutes at this gorgeous look out spot. Nat didn't get what the big deal was, but I was thankful for a rare chance to sit and rest with no buildings or cars or people in sight.

Goldfish for sale!

Snacking on... corn.

Dassah relaxin on dad's shoulders

Lily loving every moment with Grandma

The huge ferris wheel no one wanted to ride after just getting off a really long flight.

(I don't know how I didn't think of that)

Here, we switched babies. Just kidding. Or did we?

A day at the beach; forecast: cloudy blue skies, again.

The secret pool we found a few months ago when our friends folks were in town for a visit.

Nat & Sy guy ( I confess I had to look at the suit to know who it was... both Sy's and Nat's!)

GG with her little angel

While Nat and I went on a get-away with the two babies, Josh spent the weekend with the Mother-In-Law. :) They had a great time. At least they said they did, ha ha.

Josh took them to this big mall, half indoor, half outdoor.

Here is E-Kids Island. A favorite spot.

Street Vendors selling.... ???

I'm sure this was a bit of a relief to see!

Green Lake. Rightfully named.

I'm glad I wasn't there. These huge bubble, wheel thingies make me feel claustrophobic.

Lily, Cade and Dass considered this fun!

One of Mom's goals this trip was to get pictures of people's faces. She did an awesome job at it. I think we uploaded between 800 and 900 pictures... many being Chinese people's faces.

So beautiful.

Now take in the serenity of where Nat & I spent the weekend. It was awesome.

We swam in this clean and pretty mineral water.

There were around 200 women in attendance. My friend Xiao Li came with us to help with the babies.

Here was the Room of Delights & Treasures. Many ladies brought fun give-aways. We could just walk through the room and take what we wanted! We found some matching friendship bracelets.

The landscaping was gorgeous. I'm so thankful we have such nice memories of life together.

The last day of our visit we were all pretty wiped and the sky didn't look promising. But despite that, we decided to venture out to the "Minority Park."

In the first hour we got pretty wet.

So we went inside one of the little shops for some warm tea.

And then the weather cleared up for more exploring! Caedmon decided to go by horse.

After about a half and hour of debating whether we should rent the electric car or the pedal bike, we decided on the car. Then found out the bike was our only option, so here were are. 8 people on a 4 seater. It ended up being a blast.