see you real soon

it was a chaotic scene last night.  27 rubbermaid totes lined ed and nancy's living room as erin attempted to sort and fold and fetch last minute things that needed to be tucked away and packed into the sienna (it's no odyssey, but we love them anyway).  kids ran around pretending to be olympians and handing each other gold medals.

at one point libby came up and introduced us to gabby douglas and informed us that she was her coach.


we ate papa murphys and cleaned up a busted pipe (!) and toby even wrapped up a brand new pair of undies for his aunt mandy (long, but true, story)

chloe came and said "him need one more paper, cuz him in our class".  i walked out to find this scene.  those three became the best of friends this past month.



ashton and chloe squealed when we finally went ahead and let them take a bath together and here they are modeling the new quilt we scored from grandma's storage closet. never-mind the smudged fireplace glass. 



we gave lots of hugs, watched michael phelps and the men's medley relay clench the gold, read "just one more book" and finally, around 11:00 decided we better head for home and say goodbye to this precious family who just happens to be our family.


you wouldn't believe how great kady is with ian.  she played with him and taught him things and oh did he love her!


they have a few more in-state trips before they fly far, far far away from here and we are so thankful for the concentrated time we had with them before they go on this adventure of a lifetime.