15 July 2012

We dropped Sofi off at the church on Wednesday morning to go to Girls' Camp.  Our Girls' Camp is short, but packed with quality.  Sofi had a fantastic time.

 It's been hot this week.  Helen, Abe and Gibson cooled off by wading in a creek.

Helen has been working through the Harry Potter series this summer.  She's nearly finished with book 7.

Brandan spent Friday at Girls' Camp.  With Brandan and Sofi gone, the rest of us had our own campfire and roasted marshmallows.

Sofi came home late Friday night from camp and we dropped her off at the airport Saturday morning.  She is part of a school group going to China for 2 weeks.  She'll be home July 29.

This is what 24 students, 2 chaperones and assorted friends and family looked like at the airport.  It's very unusual for our small airport to be this crowded.  This was a good day to get to the airport 2 hours early.

Sofi will be spending most of her time in southern China in a city named Guilin, marked with a pink arrow on the map below.  She's participating in a sort of Chinese summer camp hosted by the Chinese government.  Her group is staying at Guangxi University.  They will be studying Chinese language and culture.  The last 3 days of their trip they will be in Beijing and will see the more familiar tourist sites.  Sofi has studied Chinese the past 2 years at school and we were super excited for her to have this opportunity. 

Saturday night our family watched a "scary" movie (Charade with Audrey Hepburn and Carey Grant-- highly recommend it.)  Abe, Gibson and Helen decided to sleep together on the upstairs landing afterwards.  Luckily, no one had nightmares and no one rolled down the stairs.  The landing is a tight fit for 3.