Departing Hong Kong

It is so crazy to think about the past few years in the Sandness family. We were blessed with an amazing experience of living overseas in Hong Kong and meeting some amazing people and making some wonderful friends. When we first left Minnesota for Hong Kong in the dead of winter on January 1, 2009, a two year assignment in Hong Kong felt like an eternity. At the end of two and half years, I feel like it flew by so fast that I didn't have the opportunity to do everything I realized I wanted to do. And with the short notice of our change in locations, there was just no way to try and fit everything in before we were going to be moving again.

And Craig can't say enough about how much he enjoyed his job in Hong Kong. He thoroughly enjoyed working with the people in his office and will clearly miss them greatly!

Although the kids must once again develop new friendships in new schools and in a new community, looking back I am so grateful for the experiences for our kids. It's pretty cool for them to say they were living in Hong Kong. I came to the realization that Tyson had nearly all of his schooling in Hong Kong. I always think of us as an Eden Lake Elementary family because I felt so ingrained in the every day life there before we left. But as I was filling out all the paperwork for the kids to register for school here in California, I realized he only had 1/2 of his Kindergarten year in Minnesota. Weird to think about.

The photo I've included (of Trey and Kyra) is of the kids' last night with a couple of their closest friends. It was a hard goodbye but we gathered with their parents (our closest friends and Mexican night out partners in crime) at our favorite Mexican place for one last night out. We will miss so many great people that we met there, but we are on to another new chapter in the Sandness Adventure of Life. Stay tuned, I have no idea what we are in store for!

The other picture is Keely with our helper, LaiLai, whom we all miss dearly. She was such a blessing for our family while we were in Hong Kong. Keely became especially close to her since the other kids were in school all day. Keely got most of LaiLai's love and attention and is truly sad without her.

I'm trying to get caught up on the "goings on" but the physical moving from Hong Kong to California, with a brief summer stint in Minnesota has put me behind a bit. I'll get there!!