Hangzhou, China, here we come!

As you may have seen from one of our previous posts, we are moving to Hangzhou, China for a year!  Hangzhou is supposed to be one of the "jewels of China" in terms of its beauty, and the country's top tourist destination. 

According to our travel books, Hangzhou originated in 211 B.C. Marco Polo is said to have passed through the city in the 13th century.  In AD 610 it was linked with the "Grand Canal", a waterway that is the world's longest man-made canal that once meandered over 1800 KM! 

Hangzhou is well known for its silk, its fans, teas, and of all things, scissors!  If you come  visit us, perhaps you'll be lucky enough for a visit to the scissor museum :)

You'll notice West Lake as a prominent feature of Hangzhou, in this small town of 6.2 million people! 

As of this writing, we have about 40 days left to prepare for our departure.  We are all very excited! 

Guests in Prescott

We've been lucky to have guests the past few weeks and I haven't had a chance to get to our blog!  First, we had Matthew, Dana  and Benjamin down from Seattle.

We played in the pool and had a great time!  Unfortunately

Ben ended up getting "Prescott's Revenge" and was throwing up!    His wonderful mother nursed him back to health however and he left healthy!

 

Here are Matthew and Ben in the pool.

 

 

 

 

 

Next, we had Bob, Amy and Andrew Maher down. 

Finally, my sister Cara and her boyfriend Shawn came down for a few days! Here they are with my sister wearing Jack's black cowboy hat!