All Of The Lasts

Phew!  We made it:)  We arrived to our home in Haiti around 8:00 on Sunday night.  I do want to share about our week so far but first I want to post about all the events that went down in the last weeks before we moved.  There was A LOT.  It was good, but it was busy and tiring and emotional and draining and... but definitely good.  It took me nearly a half hour to get all my pictures loaded and when they finally did get onto the blog they were in the wrong order.  So rather than take another half hour to fix it, I'm hoping you'll just bear with me.

The last Sunday we were in church before our actual move day was our sending service.  My immediate family had planned on coming, but also some of my extended family came out too for a nice little surprise!  It was really special for me to have them come.  We had the lead ministers from our sending church, my home church, my brother and Danny's brother all take part in the service.  We really appreciate all of them and I am looking forward to listening to the service again when I don't have Summer and Sawyer sitting at my feet demanding attention!

We had supper at our house (along with a DQ cake for my mom's birthday) and went to hang out at one of our favorite parks.  I got a little flak for wanting to take everyone to the park but once they saw it they agreed it was pretty cool:)  Danny was also in a wedding on Sunday so he wasn't able to be with us on Saturday night.  Now.... hold that thought....

A couple weeks BEFORE the sending service weekend, we headed up to the lakes.  Danny's parents go for two full weeks and since he was done with work, we were able to spend a little more time than usual up there.

Tucker Joseph enjoyed himself:)

Sawyer turned into a huge weenie and didn't want to go on anything that went in the water.  Plus, he doesn't like loud noises and spent his ride on the jet ski plugging his ears.

He rather preferred sitting in a five gallon bucket full of water!

Best frenemies.  There is a LOT of personality in this picture:)

Tucker would spend half an hour at a time just splashing in the baby pool.  He loved it!

Built in besties:)

More built in besties!

A double date mini golfing with Aaron and Cass.  There was a slight miscommunication on what to do with the golf clubs.  But a good time was had by all!

Oooohhhhh this kid.  Though he gives me the most gray hairs, I could just smooshle him!

Summer had been talking about "fingernail paint" for a very very long time.  Much to her delight, her older cousins had some at the lakes and Darci painted her nails for the first time in her life.  She was so excited!

Coolest zoo ever.  If you're looking for something unique to do in Shipshewana, here's an idea!

Where else can you feed and pet the zebras?

I mean, seriously.

Watching this deepening friendship and knowing it's about to change drastically made it a little harder to think about moving!

Okay.  That thought you were supposed to be holding from before the lakes pictures?  Time to go back to that.  So our sending service was during morning church because the wedding Danny was in had already been scheduled for the afternoon service.  Ideally we would not have done them both on the same day but that's about the only option we had.  My family all left at lunch time, taking our kids with them.  I went to the wedding and reception, then I drove to Illinois to spend a few more days there.  It was the most peaceful drive going out that I've had in a long time!

I would have loved to see AAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL the people out there one last time but that was obviously impossible.  But I did pack in just about as many as I could!  Along with two lunches from Caleri's, of course!

Breakfast with these two, complete with about three hours of uninterrupted conversation around the patio table.

Pedis, Mexican, Target, and Uncle Bob's ice cream with this crew.

Catching up with a long lost friend over some delicious pizza that she lovingly prepared for me, followed by a walk, followed by more catching up while kicking up our feet in her cute little house:)

Cramming in a whole lotta cousin time!

A quick shot with my bro "in front of the brown doors".  That's ALWAYS the place mom would tell us to stand when we were taking pictures for something.  So it was only appropriate for us to get a picture there again:)

I went back home on Wednesday right after lunch.  Thursday and Friday were spent getting the last of our stuff cleared out of the house before our closing on Friday afternoon.  Thursday night when I shut out the lights before bed I had to just stand there and have a little cry while I soaked up some memories.

Friday after we had it all cleaned out, we brought the kids over one last time to see the empty house and to say goodbye to it.  Sawyer fell asleep on the way- I guess he wanted one last nap in his room!

Saturday night we actually had potluck!  We wanted to be able to say goodbye to people so we just went for supper and then left.  We went back to Danny's parent's for some good family time before saying our goodbye's to them.

Also, Friday night (told you these were all out of order!) we had a little get together with our advocate team.  We very much so appreciate the friendship of this group!  They sent us off with some prayer time and a little bit of singing.

Then on Sunday we got up a little before 4:00 in the morning and we were on our way!  Next up- our travels and first week!  Basically it can be summed up with one sentence that Summer said the other night around 3 in the morning.  "Mom, I'm COVERED in SWEAT!!"

Love you all:)