Harris 4th of July Party

After my work conference was done, I picked up the kids at the airport from Grammy and Aunt Gretchen who were flying on to London, then we picked up Olivia from Dale and drove to the Harris' for the weekend. They had their annual 4th of July party and it was a perfect weekend to spend on the lake. A lot of people came and there was a lot of catching up and kids playing together. Tons of activities like the bounce house, the bounce sprinkler slide, a mobile petting farm at a house down the road, and of course tubing. We had such a good time this weekend! It's been fun looking back at the pictures. Makes me realize how lucky we are to have good friends.

Cronley Visit to Shanghai

While the kids and I were gone, Cronley came through Shanghai and was able to keep Kirk company for a while. I think he just likes to visit us because he likes Xiao Zhu to do his laundry for him :).

Florida

Summer for the kids started in Florida. I flew them directly there and dropped them off for a little over a week while I had to attend a conference. They loved swimming with Max and Pop Pop. They did all sorts of fun stuff while recovering from jet lag. They even tried out their new bikes there.

Huangshan (Yellow Mountain)

This was another one of my very favorite weekends in Shanghai. Since Jeri was here, I wanted to go somewhere for a weekend with her that I wouldn't get a chance to go with my family. We chose Huangshan or Yellow Mountain (Huang=Yellow Shan=Mountain). Ronda Owen Uhl just moved to Shanghai from Korea so she also came. Another GMI reunion!

We flew from Shanghai to Huangshan on a Friday afternoon. When we arrived, we were met by our tour guide April. We drove to our hotel, dropped our stuff, and drove into the small town near the hotel. Here we walked along the small streets and did a little shopping. The town was cute and has not been overridden by tourist or fake bag sellers.

The next day, we drove to the base of the mountain. Here we could take a gondola to the top or climb. We opted to climb. We hiked about 6.5km that morning while April took our bags to the top via gondola car. We were advised to bring snacks and food since everything on the mountain is expensive. Everything comes up by men carrying it...food, laundry, you name it. What a sight to see.

We made it partially to the top where the gondola stops and met up with April to finish walking to the top. We saw some truly spectacular views. We also saw the locks that were on Amazing Race.

That night we stayed in a hotel at the top of the mountain. 4 star which in Chinese means 2 star to us Westerners. We at dinner (dismal chinese) and had a bottle of..yes...dismal wine and then like old ladies went to bed.

The reason we went to bed so early is that we planned to awake at 4am to see the 5:30am sunrise. You ask....why would you want to wake up so early? To beat the other 1000 tourists to the best spot. The weather was looking poor. We decided that if it was raining and cloudy, we would pass. Ronda was the guinea pig to get up at 4am to walk outside to see if it was okay. She came back and it looked positive so we woke up, bundled up in hotel provided parkas and started our trek up the mountain to get a good spot.

We had no idea where to go. It was pitch black and we had one small flashlight. We found one location where there was a big rock overlooking the canyon but there were already people there and they weren't so friendly. We kept walking and found a good spot. We sat down and spread out so that we could get some good photos. After all was said and done, we and at least 100 of our closest other Chinese tourist friends snapped some great photos. I think Jeri was going to knock one of them out at one point because she was inching into her space.

After this, we hit the breakfast buffet to fill up for our long hike down the canyon and then back up. This is China's version of the Grand Canyon, although with not so many safey precautions as there would be in the US. There were some points where my stomach dropped off as we were so close to the ledge and there were no railings. However, it was truly beautiful.

Our legs were very sore after that trek. We finished the trip with some shopping back in town and a tea ceremony and then flew back. Great weekend.