Countdown has begun!

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Well, this school year has officially ended for me, but is still going strong for some of my siblings. Jade is continuing being homeschooled by Mom, Micah is finishing up his AP history and English classes, and Christian is completing his junior year at Union University. David spends most of his time in his office in the basement and is still working on getting into Officers Training School for the Marines. I do not have much to say about the oldest three couples, but I can say that they are enjoying life. Dad is working hard at his job in Atlanta, and Mom is working hard with her job at home (homeschooling and running the house without me).

I don’t know what everyone else has planned for the summer, but I know mine is going to have a great start kicking off with a 20 day tour of China! During the first semester of college I was given the opportunity to audition for a spot in the University of Michigan’s Symphonic Band. I was one of two harpists accepted and have been looking forward to this trip all year. The first/last/only time I have been to China was when I went with my parents a few years ago to pick up Jade, whom we adopted. I was 15 and had never experienced such a severe culture shock. Even though I learned a lot and had enjoyed my time there, I said I would never go back. 4 years later, I was ecstatic when I found out I would have the chance to go back and see various new historical landmarks as well as revisiting many.

Our trip starts the afternoon of May 7th when we board a plane arriving in Shanghai at 3:40AM China time. For the next 20 days after that we will complete 10 concerts 6 cities, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Xi’an, Shenyang, Xiyuan, and Beijing. We will then head back to the U.S. and stop by LA for a few days to recuperate and perform our final concert and at last arrive back at the University of Michigan the evening of May 30th.

I won’t have access to my gmail account and won’t be able to make any calls, so if you want to follow our trip, check out this blog and the China Tour blog. I will hopefully be able to update this blog daily, but if for some reason I am unable to connect to the internet you may just have to wait a little longer. The China Tour official blog with have more information about concerts, performers, repertoire, and blog posts by the group: http://moore.music.umich.edu/chinablog/.

Thanks for reading, check back soon!

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