The Farewell-a-thon

The only thing worse than having your kids leave home is having the good-bye go on for days. Last week was happy/sad/exhausting/too fast.

It started last Friday when Grandma, Grandpa and Gus (who is for some odd reason not in this picture) flew down for Edge's farewell. It's always great to have them in town.  Grandma is a sport and spent one entire afternoon reading books to Ivy and painting her fingernails all sorts of glittery colors. 

The Nelson's also came from Washington.  Mike is one of the missionaries who taught me the discussions (and I betcha after being introduced like that a thousand times on Sunday he hopes to never hear himself described that way again.Sorry).  It was so fun to have them here and get to catch up a little bit.

On Sunday Edge gave his farewell talk, while his parents sobbed in the congregation, then massive amounts of brownies were consumed at our house.  By me. Everyone else ate the pasta salad.

~

Edge's friends spent the weekend letting him know how much they're going to miss him.

Then yesterday morning we took him to the airport where they ripped out part of my heart and put it on a plane.

When he landed in Salt Lake, Mark, Grace,Gus(who did make it into this picture), and the grandparents (who traveled at the speed of light to get from here to there) picked him up and delivered him to the MTC for us.

We're proud of Edge and his decision to go on a mission. We know that he's doing what he should be doing and he's 100% confident in his choice, but we sure are going to miss that kid like crazy.

We have set up a separate blog to keep track of Edge while he's in Columbia baptising the masses.

Elder Lunt goes to Columbia

 

Yesterday was the best of days and the worst of days......

......poor Eli was forced to attend the traditional "Human Development" presentation, a rite of passage for 5th graders around the world.  As you can see, as much as he longs to be an Old Spice Man, he's not all that happy that the presenters thought they could buy him off with a deodorant sample.  "They could have at least made it a full size!" He told us that at the end of the presentation they were given a booklet entitled "If You Want to Know More", which he threw away because he doesn't.

Edge had a better day than Eli.  In the mail box (just over a week after submitting his paperwork!!!) was his mission call. He was sooo excited. On June 23rd (OF THIS YEAR!!!!) Edge will be going to Barranquilla Columbia to serve his mission.  (well technically on the 23rd he will be off to Provo to the MTC, but you get what I'm saying).