F Minus 22 Hours and Counting....

22 years ago today, Mitch arrived into our lives and turned me into a mom.   Has it really been that long?  Ugh. Makes me feel old.  Who am I kidding? I AM old.  And now, in just 22 hours, my second born is leaving for France.  She has been planning and working for this for a long time now.  Her departure always seemed "out there", in the future, and now, all of a sudden, it is upon us. Time for a new lesson in long distance parenting.  A new adventure for all of us.
We have been cramming a lot of family time into the last few days, as if we can store it up. Like somehow we will miss her less if we spend more time with her now.   I don't think it works like, that, but we have had some good times since September started.....


Introducing Hair Wars....

The Objective: To be the sister with the longest hair in 9 months time.  Can they go that long without a trim???? Alisa is starting with a small advantage.  Audrey opted for the layering strategy.  Time will tell who the victor will be....

It's just a friendly little competition between sisters.  Ignore that evil glint in Alisa's eye.  She was fishtailing.  Thats all. Not plotting anything at all  with the scissors.

Hiking up to Dog Lake, sans dog.  I don't know if Maggie could have made it, but she sure would have had a great time if she did. Dogs everywhere.

Where did all these tall kids come from anyway?

And then it was Birthday Party time!  Mitch was such a good sport about sharing his party with Alisa.  Especially since he made last minute plans to spend his actual birthday in Bear Lake with friends, and we wound up crashing Alisa's going away party with birthday cake and presents.  It was a good time.

I believe this is the last year the number of candles on his cake will correspond with his actual age.  22 candles takes too long to light.  Not to mention we had more candles than cake!

Grandma and Grandpa have hosted Alisa all summer.  They were kind enough to host her "TTFN" party as well.

Where's Will?

Does this even look like her?

And today's her last day IN COUNTRY as they say.  It seems like your last day in a country should be spent doing something momentous.   The reality of it is she is probably going to spend most of the day packing and cleaning.  And waiting.  Just waiting for her new life to start tomorrow. Probably tonight we will all be waiting for  sleep.   I don't think we will be getting much. We have to be at the airport at 5  o'clock in the AM tomorrow- her flight is at 7.  And yes, the plan is for ALL of us to go to the airport and send her off en masse with a good old fashioned Metcalf family circus act.  Oh, she is going to miss us.... (insert evil chuckle here)