Wednesday, July 2, 2008

A Goodbye to Blogging

WOW!  32,000 page views on this blog so far!  Before I started this great blogging experiment, I estimated perhaps 10,000 by the time we returned, a gross underestimation!  Thank you so much for watching and following our travels, and a double thank you to all of those who commented and emailed us.  It was so nice to have emails from home while we were so far away.

Coming down the driveway to our house is such a different experience than hiking up the 94 stairs was to our Hangzhou apartment!  We have fallen back into our cars very easily, and we have to, as the nearest store is about 10km away.  We miss the public transportation, the walk across the street to the little convenience store, and the smiles of "Grandma and Grandpa" the building managers at Qing Gong Lo as we went out every day.

Arizona; Peter 010

However, everything here is so big and convenient, and the air is so clean and clear!  We have left this sign up  that was made for us for the past couple of days.  Looks like a few cobwebs - a couple of spiders have moved in since we were gone!  They'll have to pack up their bags and move somewhere else now.
Arizona; Peter 007

Peter and his friend Danielle, hanging out in the pool.  The kids have been having their friends over and are just loving being social again!  The hardest thing about China was missing their American friends, and finding Chinese friends their own age to communicate with.
Arizona; Peter 003

A warm, sunny day in Arizona.  It is so inviting to be outside - we really missed our outside space in Hangzhou, but this forced us to get out of that apartment a lot to see so many beautiful things in China.
Arizona; Peter 004  

To all of our western friends - Thank you again for all of  your support and encouragement during this adventure, we really had the time of our lives!

To all of our new eastern friends - we miss you dearly and we will try hard to keep in contact with you.  Though we're sad to be so far away from you, we feel very happy that we have made lifelong friends on the other side of the world! When you visit the U.S. our door is always open!


I'll continue to post to this blog occasionally as I think of things, but I will surely miss writing nearly every day about our breathtaking, fascinating times in China.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome home! We agree - it's a great feeling! We too, have been wondering "Where is everybody?!"

Keep in touch.

Your CCC friends (formerly GACE in China), now GACE@Home,

Gustavo, Ann, Carlos & Elena

Anonymous said...

Glad you are back home and enjoy your "normal" life again!

We are sure to keep in touch with you and miss you!

Rebecca

Anonymous said...

WELCOME HOME LEWIS FAMILY!
LG IN KY!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations Lewis family! What an accomplishement and a lifetime memory for all. I love every picture and commentary. So much you did, now what? :)
Love, Held family Woodinville

mimifrancoise said...

Thank you so much for your awesome blogging during your year in China. No you need to teach us about Arizona.
Fran in Fort Worth TX (grandmother to Zoe and Maya adopted in China)

Anonymous said...

Hi Tim, Sue and KIds!!
I don't know if the message I just posted was saved, so will try again. So glad you are home and having great time seeing everyone and all the things you missed. We know you will dearly miss all the friends you made in China and so glad you will continue to blog now and then so they can still feel in touch with you and also so that we can read what is going on with you all. Love, Dad & Bonnie.