A Visitor-filled Month of May

We have been so blessed to have many family and friends come and visit us...and May was filled with lots of visiting, touring, swimming, picture-taking and laughing.

Our first visitors of the month are dear friends from Delaware that we have known for over twenty years.  Jeff and Katy Geshay have been instrumental in our lives our entire marriage.  We got to know them through Young Life connections before we were married and Jeff has been formally mentoring And pretty much ever since.  We have leaned on them many times as our family has grown and as big decisions have come down the road...including Hong Kong.  We were so pleasantly surprised when they told us that they wanted to come and see us.  It was an amazing visit...right from the start!  Andy picked them up from the airport and drove them straight to the school, where Grace's choir concert was taking place.  They walked in just as her show choir was taking the stage...good timing.  And somehow, they were able to stay awake for the rest of the show.

One of the sweetest parts of their visit was the amount of time they got to spend with our children. Usually, it's only Andy meeting with Jeff, or sometimes we will go out to eat as couples or we started to establish a "pizza night" at their house with the family when home for the summer, but our children don't know them as well as we would like. It was an intensive time of reading books, playing games, and showing us why they are such great grandparents to their own eleven grandchildren.  By weeks end, they were Grandpa Jeff...and Katy:)

Checking out the Peak tour

Of course, it was also great to have some adult time.  One day towards the end of their week, Andy took the day off and we went to Lo Ping and the Big Buddha. Andy had never done it before and we had great weather. We even made it up the 200+ stairs, and had a great gyro at Ebeneezers.

Just after the Geshays left (I literally took them to the airport and came home to our new guests) the Cannelongos arrived for their second visit to HK.  Two years ago we had the privelege of hosting their entire family as they had just journeyed to Beijing to pick up their daughter, Gianna.  This time, just the boys (Brian, Ethan, Ashton and Jo's dad, Dave) came to pick up their son, Hudson.  What an amazing thing to witness.  Our entire family has been so blessed to walk alongside them, following their story, and then getting to meet their children in such early stages of transition.  It has been inspirational and, I can't help but think, impactful on our own children's future.  They did a little sightseeing (the Peak) but mostly hung here for the few days, getting a little rest time before their last leg of the journey home. We did lots of swimming, lots of laughing...and our older children got to practice their Mandarin since that was the only language six year old Hudson spoke.

Enjoying the pool

Sarah and Hudson made fast friends

McD's after church

Piggy back rides are the best

Last leg...at the airport!

Finally, the end of the month brought our friends, the Gehrmann Family, to our house.  They are in the mission field in Thailand and needed to be out of the country for their visas.  They hosted us in the fall when we went to Chiang Mai, and we were so excited to be able to repay the favor.  They were pretty independent, which was a good thing because of the crazy time of year, but we were able to show them some of HK ourselves, which was fun.  One day we took them to Sai Kung so Miles could see the big fish.  It also worked out that Mr. Softee was there, so Miles and Sarah got to have an ice cream cone, too:)

Yummy ice cream in Sai Kung

It has been a year full of visitors...and we marvel at the sacrifice people have made to come and see us in this home.  We already have some visits on the calendar set for this fall...but we are always open to more:)