Our downtown summer

We had to pack out and leave our house on Yangmingshan, so they could prepare it for the next family, but they moved us to a downtown Taipei apartment. Kind of like a vacation pad.

Pioneer Day--kids decided to dress in "pioneer" clothes and make a covered wagon out of the furniture

Major benefit of living downtown was being within walking distance of a rec center and public library

We finally rode the gondola on one of our last days. We love the Cai sisters!

Can't say goodbye to Taiwan without eating mango ice!

view of Taipei

We continued our day of water fun by a last visit to our community pool on the mountain. The view was the clearest we had ever seen it. You could even see Taipei 101.

Water fight!

Our final activity with our ward here was their annual water fight.  The youth filled up the baptismal font with water balloons, which all had to be carefully transferred outside. When the starting gun went off, it was a free-for-all. There were a few rules, like no faces, and no making people cry, but no one minded getting soaking wet on such a hot day.

swim lessons

We had to make a move downtown for our last month in Taiwan. Although moving twice is a pain, the big advantage has been that our downtown apartment is right next to a big rec center where the kids took two weeks of swim lessons (an hour a day).  They all made terrific progress!

east coast

In a last ditch attempt to burn some of the gas in our car before we shipped it, we took a spontaneous road trip east, to see some of the beautiful coastline of Taiwan. We definitely didn't get to explore all we wanted to in a year, but hopefully, we'll be back!

Primary Class

We will surely miss our teachers and friends in Primary! What an accepting, loving group.

saying goodbye to the beach

What a perfect day for the beach.  It was our last weekend with a car, so we had to go. The waves were a bit bigger this time, and the kids jumped and jumped.