Garrett in China and Together again

Family,

It has been an interesting couple of weeks.  Garrett left on Mother's day and spent 12 days working in China.  It was a good experience for him and he accomplished a lot while he was there.  We of course missed him like crazy and lived for our Skype calls.  It was fun to see how excited the kids would get when they would hear the Skype call coming in.  We actually were able to connect with him twice a day everyday but two and then we still connected once.  This was much better than we have done on his trips to Europe.  The kids got a kick out of the time difference.  When Garrett would call at 7:00 a.m. and Garrett would tell them "Good Night" because it was 10:00 and he was getting ready for bed.  Then he would call at 4:00 p.m. and he would say "Good Morning" because it was 7:00 and he was just waking up. 


We had some fun with out Garrett but mostly we just make it through each day.  Things have slowed down and that has been good.  We have our "pretend sisters," Sophie and Anna Walker coming 4 days a week to play.  Their Mom has quite a few days off and so they only came one of the weeks that Garrett was gone.  Here is a couple of pictures of fun things we did while Garrett was away in China.

 Public Works Field Trip for Preschool

  

This is the whole gang on the field trip

 This is one of the latest "forts" that the kids have been enjoying.

Yes, that is the couch upside down. 

Making play dough and playing with it too!

Garrett got home this week on Thursday evening and has been home playing with us all the rest of the weekend.  We have been really enjoying some good family time.  We have wrestled, had fort night, played soccer at the park, watched a movie, gone on a bike ride and hiked a mountain. 

This was our first hike this year and it was so much fun.  We hiked up Spencer's Butte and it is a good little hike.  Ryder made it all alone and we were so proud of him.  Everyone did really good and we have some strong little hikers.  (I even made it, which was a little rough after my 12 mile run earlier that morning.)

We are so glad to have Garrett home with us.  We love him so much and miss him a lot when he is gone.