The girls don't come home until Thursday next week but I am watching them pack their suitcases now on the webcam.  They are so excited and anxious to come back home that they are working hard to get all their things organized and packed more than a week in advance.

As for me, I got up and left home at the time that Cici and I will be leaving for school each morning (except those marching band mornings, which are an hour earlier).  I was practicing, I told Cici.  Crazy Papa, she said.

Ping just showed me a very large poster board photo of Cici as a little girl.  She is holding a Japanese umbrella and is dressed in Japanese clothing.  She looks to have been about 6 years old at the time.  It is too big to bring home, Ping told me, but I am thinking that it might roll up and fit in one of those round cardboard carriers.  I sure would like to have it here.

So the girls of summer have jumped to autumn with no sadness about leaving China behind.  They just want to come home.