It's been an actual whole year and 2 days since my last post from China--the move back post. I am writing from Louisville, Kentucky, our home for the past 10 months. It's been a great almost year in this fantastic city. We've really loved it here, though we miss Chicago. I am back to working full time, the kids made it through a somewhat rocky first year of school of public school, resulting in our decision to move to private school next year, but we are all well and happy. We've made some great friends, reconnected with some long-time friends, and have managed to stay in touch and connected to our friends and family all over the world through all of this change. How fun to be back here and ready to report again as Mark ... read more

I couldn't decide if I should list this under Shanghai or Chicago...but since it started with Shanghai I went with the China listing. The final day in Shanghai it rained and rained. Big huge drops. Our friend Ting came over in the morning to say goodbye. She said Shanghai was crying because the Slavens were leaving. I appreciated the rain more after that. Felt appropriate that the skies were crying as we were also quite sad and emotional as it was really time to say goodbye to Shanghai. Our ayi also came early. She arrived with her husband to collect a load of furniture, dishes and other things we had given her. Watching her say goodbye to Emily was just heart wrenching. She and Emily have become quite close over the past two years. When Emily ... read more

I thought of my title within minutes of entering the first line of many at the Expo. Before I begin my play by play, I have to say my expectations were exceeded and the kids, Mark and I all thought the Expo was impressive, worthwhile and interesting. We powered through our 1 day at the Expo. We had always intended to go, we had also always intended to wait for a bit since the initial reports we heard were not so glowing. The lines were bad at the pavilions but as for crowds, it was not the sea of millions I had feared. We could walk freely, find benches upon which to rest, easily buy food and water at stands and restaurants around the grounds. We arrived at about 9:30am, having failed to leave earlier as ... read more

Our second annual journey to Phuket has been a wonderful break from the final weeks in Shanghai. We have been all systems go for months, really, and this week in paradise was everything we'd hoped for and more. I have several key memories that involve trying to recreate great trips or experiences and failing miserably. This attempt, however, was a success. We returned to the Indigo Pearl, an oasis of tranquility in Phuket. Despite the troubles in Bangkok, we did not have any issues flying through Bangkok en route to Phuket. It was a smooth, easy trip. Oh I did accidentally have a pair of kids' scissors in my backpack (used during end of school, class mom related activities). They were confiscated, a notation was made by hand in a log book and my passport number ... read more

Two years, 180 published blogs, 191,149 words (present blog excluded) later, I am nearing the end of documenting our great China adventure. Officially one month to the big move, less than a month until we ship our stuff home. I wrote a repatriation article for City Weekend, and now I’m living the best practices I outlined in my research. I will share the article once it’s published. As stressed out as the article made me—they always stress me out—I am pleased that I took it on. It’s another moment, milestone, marker in this journey that I wanted to record. A final published article feels like a fitting part to this last chapter of our time in Shanghai. We have lots of lasts going on—in direct contrast to the many firsts that happened exactly two years ago. ... read more