This summer vacation flew by so fast – Maddie blinked and it was gone.  There were so many highlights which is great, but Maddie has found herself wanting more and more of the highlights.  Gee, life is hard.  Everything is so good and we just want more of it!  It was a year ago that we moved into our new condo and Maddie sat there singing a song at her reflection in the tv.  Now she sits and ponders…  in her words, she loves America better than Shanghai.  Why?  Because, in her words, she gets to love her grandmas and grandpas and brothers and cousins and, and, and.  She gets it.  She really gets it.

For this reason it was really, really difficult to leave home this year.  She completely understands that we are going back for Christmas and she is excited for it to be cold in America, but she’s also aware of what she is missing.  So, we head back to Shanghai with a slightly heavy heart.  Maddie is resilent though.  Once she is in school and gets back into a routine, her world will start clicking once again.  I will do my best to share all of her experiences this year.  Perhaps she’ll share more of her own.

We had dinner at Grandpa Earl and Grandma Barbara’s house on our last night in Portland.  Barb had the coolest edible flowers and Maddie couldn’t get enough of them!  Amelia bobbled all around the house, trying desperately to climb up any and all stairs.  Maddie hung on out and we all felt like we were at home.  That’s the good stuff!!!

See ya next time Portland!

There’s a park near our house!  I knew there was a park, but I didn’t know how close it was until Maddie, Amelia and I went out for a walk to feed the ducks.  Who knew that feeding ducks could turn out to be so funny!  It was just a beautiful day full of sunshine and light…  make sure you check out the video below to hear what we heard from Amelia!

Beautiful…

Travis and Julie’s wedding was beautiful.  The birds were singing, the wind lightly rustled the leaves of the surrounding woods… it truly was wonderful.  Attached are a few of the photos…  you did a great job Maddie!!

Maddie, Harley, Hunter, Travis and the Groomsmen

It’s hard to believe that we’ve only been in Tucson for five full days.  What can you accomplish in five days when you are still jetlagging a bit and it’s hotter than blue blazes outside?  Well….  one can accomplish a lot – especially if your name is Madeline Anna DeCardy-Torris.

Tonight was our last night so we decided to take Maddie out for a steak dinner and there just happen to be a balloon man at the restaurant.  Now, you must know how shy Maddie has been most of her short little life.  Tonight was just another example of how she has grown so much this year.  She looked “Ballon Man” square in the eyes and answered his quesitons about color choice freely.  She said “Thank you Balloon Man” about 100 times and even approached him a second time after she broke part of her butterfly hat.  I love this kid…

On the way out, we found a sign with various school supplies taped to it.  We decided to go ahead and donate 10 dollars so that Tucson children could have supplies for school just like Maddie has in Shanghai.

While we were in Tucson, Maddie learned all about the record player.  My mom has kept most of my records for me so we had a bit of fun going through my favorites and singing along with the LPs.  Teaching Maddie about the needle on the record player was the most interesting.  She wanted to keep placing the needle on the records and taking the needle off so she could do it again.  Can you hear it?  You know… that sound of the needle running across the record??? 

The girl is flying A LOT! This summer alone, she will have earned over 27,000 miles with United.  She knows that clouds are beautiful and they look soft, but they are super bumpy and make the plane jump.  It’s a rare sight to see a rainbow though and she knew that… see below – apparently she couldn’t believe it.

The day after we arrived in Tucson we made our way to the Westin La Paloma which is a favorite hangout during the summer.  We were there for the 4th of July so we swam, ate great food and of course watched fireworks.  It was a really good time – relaxing for us all!

One of my favorite photos is of Amelia eating corn on the cob.  We ate the corn, but she enjoyed the cob and enjoyed making the mess that went along with it!

Maddie fell in love with mom’s dog, Bear and loved heading to the barn with Grandma to feed the horses…

Andy and I made it down to San Antonio this year for the NECC conference and we decided to go down a day early so that we could take Madeline to Sea World.  Man, is this kid lucky or what?  In the matter of just a few months she gets to go to Disneyland in Hong Kong and Sea World in the States!

What’s cool about this trip is that Grandma Dotty picked us up at the airport in San Antonio because she drove out to Texas from Tucson.  The very next day we made it to Sea World where the heat was very hard to beat.  We bought some sun shade hats though and made our way through the theme park.  There were so many highlights for the day, but I do think that Maddie’s favorite was the dolphin feeding tank.  She joyfully stood in line just so that she could buy some fish and then she held each and every one of those fish in her hands over the tank to woo the dolphins over to her.  The dolphins were so gentle and calm… they saw the food and gentley rose out of the water to gulp it up long enough for Maddie to put her other hand out to pet their noses.  She was suprised at their softness.

To cool things off a bit we made our way to see the infamous Shamu and sat on the edge of the splash zone for Amelia’s sake – she slept her way through the entire show but Maddie was in awe over the giant whale.  It then was time for some serious rides… after the Space Mountain incident in Hong Kong, I thought for sure that she would have nothing to do with anything slightly scary, but she saw the water and went for it.  The Journey to Atlantis ride was her absolute favorite which was a good thing because the lines were such that she could get off the ride with me, grab dad’s hand and get right back on again.  She made new friends that said “y’all” alot on each ride and even convinced Grandma to go on the ride with her once.  The Texas Spashdown was next which was almost as cool, but the fun came for us when we left Maddie and Amelia with Grandma and hit the big kid rides!   Sea World – still magical – it still draws you in – and it’s easy to spend 8 hours there without even realizing it!

Over the next few days, Maddie spent time with Grandma while Andy and I enjoyed the conference, but we were able to hit in lots of walks on the Riverwalk and of course, join Jeff and Daneah for one last episode of Gourmet Geeks.  Maddie met new friends at that taping and swam to her hearts content.  She just had fun being a kid!  The River Cruise was the funniest moment of the all though.  As Maddie Anna waved to all the people walking by on the Riverwalk, she shouted Ni Hao, Ni Hao over again.  They were far enough away and probably didn’t have that word in their vocabulary so they said, “Ain’t that cute?  That little girl is shoutin’ Yee-Haw ’cause she’s in Texas!”

We love you Maddie – hope you had a good time!