Well, this summer has seemed a bit strange thus far.  For the last two weeks our Norwegian neighbors, the best friends we have made here in China, have been packing up their apartment.  They are moving back home for another year at least (they’ve already been gone a whole year already!) and it is not clear to us how/when they will actually return to China.  Since we next return to the States in May we are not sure when we will see them again.  In a few days their family of five will be moving in to our home (with our family of four)  It will be cozy but fun.  You might remember that we lived with them for about 3 weeks when we first arrived in China; they helped us set up our home.  Now the tables have turned and we are hosting them BEFORE they depart, helping them tear down their home.  It’s peculiar how life works.

Anna and Sarah finished school this last week.  Since our friends came back to pack up and since the girls are no longer in class Christa thought it would good for her to also forgo (i.e. skip) the last few weeks of class.  I am the "last man standing" in terms of attending classes and hope to cram a few more lessons in before the semester "officially" ends in a few weeks.  We’ll see how it goes.

Before we move down south in August, we hope to take a train down to Chengdu for a few days as a family.  This will be our "summer break" before we start learning and experiencing many new things in the countryside.

The weather has been weird lately.  It has rained every week for the past month or more.  We have even had a few thunderstorms and it has made the environment greener than ever.  I am not complaining, but it just doesn’t seem like Xining very much.

Here are a few summer photos–mostly of Anna and Sarah:  Click here…

In the next post, I’ll put some pictures up of our 2nd Murder Mystery Dinner that we hosted/took part in last night.  It was a riot!