Birthdays, Boston and Business Trips

In spite of most likely "missing the window" of timeliness of posting, I'm going to anyway ...

We've had a fun series of busy weeks. I really haven't blogged properly on China, probably because I'm still ruminating on the many ways the trip was important for me and my oldest girlie ... We've had Bei Bei's friend party ... belatedly, but not without lots and lots of six and seven year old energy ... The girlies are playing academy soccer again this fall, MGJ {just} finished up her scholastic bowl, and EHJ is taking a cool equestrian focused art class ... This weekend we hosted MGJ's class for her thirteenth birthday party. She has {so far} lived up to her name and gracefully entered her teen years. We celebrated her coming of age cinco de mayo style with streamers, and tacos and a kiddie version of the wonderfully refreshing citrusy lime and minty mojito ... Mr Johnson seems to be living with his roller case and hanging bag packed. He's been to Deutschland again, and makes other trips around the Midwest more frequently lately. He flew into Beantown the last weekend in April where he met his Tai Tai and girlies for a fabulous long weekend in Boston and beyond ... It seems like it's hard to catch our breath sometimes with everything that is going on, coming up and needs to be done. {Now that I've attended to the laundry that managed to reach the first story laundry chute door in the kitchen, I feel like I can take two minutes to do some quick updates!}