Playing Catch-Up: Berry's

Same old story...."it has been a long time since I last blogged..."  Sorry about that.  OK, so my goal is to make-up for having not posted in a while.

So after our trip to Xi'An, our wonderful friends Brandon and Kristi came to visit and brought along their precious children--Abi and Grayson.  We mostly just hung out and enjoyed each other's company.  By the time they arrived in our city we were finished with homeschool, so we had most mornings free.  But we tried to give them a glimpse into what our life is like on a daily basis--including the heat.  :)  They went to classes with us at the Chinese elementary school and went to our classes at the factory.  But we also found some time for fun together!

I am including several pictures from their trip here.  They truly were a blessing to have in our home, and it was hard adjusting back to washing dishes after they left.  They were like our live-in nannies while they were here--always cleaning up and going above and beyond what we would have expected.  I really think I might have washed the dishes once while they were staying with us.  The kids played great together, and we were all sad when we had to say goodbye (I cried as usual). 

For those of you who don't know Brandon and Kristi, they are our friends from college.  We all went to OBU together.  I met Brandon and Kristi my first semester--before I even met Joel.  I would have never known in that freshman English class that we would be such close friends and share so many memories together.  Brandon and Kristi were already friends with Joel, but I did not meet Joel until our second semester.  Once I met Joel and we became friends, I was surprised at how many mutual friends we had.  It was very natural that we would all hang out together.  Along with several others, we became best friends and hung out on a regular basis.  In my senior year, Kristi became my roommate and we really enjoyed our time together.  The four of us were in each other's weddings and even though we haven't kept in touch as much over the years as we'd like, when we get together--it is just like old times.  We can't wait to see them again stateside!