I have all these lovely thoughts in my head from the last of
our 4 stops in US. Now if I can just
find the time to finish!!!
Thankfully, when we left the Calisoff’s house (see previous post) we
didn’t need to get on another plane for our next stop. We were off to spend time with the Quinn
Family who live about an hour outside Chicago in St Charles. St. Charles is super cute and spread out and
has a wonderful shoe store that was so great I purchased 3 pair despite an
upcoming trip to NYC!!! (shhh don’t tell Chris ;o) Yes, it was that good! I digress.
The Quinns graciously picked us up and toted us to their
beautiful home on a HUGE piece of land.
I have a tendency to get quite ‘green’ when I see that much grass. We have been condo living for the kid’s
entire life so it’s wonderful to see them run around on the grass. I couldn’t wait to enjoy it myself as I
promptly laid down in the soft grass and looked up at the amazing blue skies
that one grows to appreciate immensely after living in Asia.
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| From left to right: Indigo, 'little' Sara, Grace, Helaina, John, & Katie |
Sara and I met during the Chicago 3 day 60 mile walk and
have been great friends ever since. She
also has 4 children (must be something in the Illinois water). Sara and her family have come to see me in
Florida, Hawaii (twice), and California so I was more than excited to visit
her.
Her youngest is 11 and her oldest is 17. Truth be told I was a little worried that the
kids had gotten older and might be bored with my little ones after then novelty
wore off. Shame on me as I should have
known better. Her children are the type
of kids that prompt you to say “Lord, please let me children turn out to be that
great.” It is no exaggeration that they
are all super smart, competitive, respectful, happy, patient, kind, (not to mention good looking), thoughtful
and they enjoy hanging out with their parents. You know by meeting their kids that Sara and Mike must have to look at each other and say we do great work together.
If you have ever met Sara you would want to
hang out with her too! I refer to Sara
as the same kind of crazy as me -- the good kind of course ;).
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| Onion chopping |
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| One more of the million times Sara cracked me up |
Their kids (and Sara) entertained my girls all the way! There was frog catching, Polly pocket
playing, swimming, sand box, book reading and a whole slew of things that kept
them happy and entertained. We also lay
in the hammock, took bike rides and went to the zoo. Like our previous hosts, Sara and Mike made
us feel more than appreciated and special for coming.
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| Big pool |
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| little pool |
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| Safety last |
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| random gathering of children |
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| Sushi. Helaina and Indigo pretty much ate more then all of us. true story |
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| Indi was quite sweet on John |
What a sweet visit. Again, we are incredibly blessed to have such wonderful friends. Now if only I could only convince them to come over to China for a visit.
Hey Laura, it's been forever since I sat and read favorite blogs but just got caught up on yours. Always a fun adventure to say the least, and your words describing things just seem to fly off the page. You had quite the travel in the US! Say hi to Meg and give her a big hug for me will you?
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