RV/SV drive to New Orleans to meet Melissa and Alex for his birthday on July 5th
A week later Russell meets his father, Karol, for his 89th birthday in Bowie about halfway between Dallas and Walters, OK.
The next week Alex comes to the Dallas area for a workshop and stays long enough to travel to Walters, OK with Russell and Sylvia for the Vardell family reunion. And we take a test drive there in a TESLA (a real challenge looking for a charger!).
The church Daytrippers group goes to Waxahachie for a visit, including the "Munsters House."
Sylvia started the month with a Junior High Gal Pal weekend away to Canton in East Texas 
Afterward we head North to Kansas for a visit and to help Emily and Brenda hold a garage sale; Sylvia stays a bit longer, but has to deal with our misfunctioning 1999 Plymouth Grand Voyager on the drive home.
At the end of the month we joined Emily and Brenda in Las Vegas, where Emily was teaching a course for her university. One evening we went to a Diana Ross concert 
then for an off day we took to drive to beautiful Zion National Park!
At the end of the month we attended the Dallas Symphony Orchestra playing the music live for "The Empire Strikes Back" while showing the movie. We are getting ready for the Star Wars movie in December!
Sylvia's mother, Ingrid, visited friends in Tennessee the first week of the month, while Sylvia visited Kansas the next week.
At First United, a passionate group once again assembled school kits for Lutheran World Relief after gathering generously donated supplies over the Summer.
Then, Sylvia and Russell head for China! 
Sylvia is the USA representative for IBBY, which met in Xi'an for about a week, so we added extra days on either side. We flew nonstop from Dallas to Beijng and returned on a nonstop from Shanghai. Some highlights included:
(Yes, we were those tourists!) 
Russell tried to explain to some enthusiastic Dairy Queen workers that he worked at Dairy Queen in his youth too!
We had to squeeze in a visit to Shaghai Disneyland too! 
While in Shanghai, Russell tried to locate the place where two of his uncles were held as prisoners by the Japanese military during World War II. This seemed like the likely location. 