Adios For Now

Well, the time is upon us. We are officially headed back home tomorrow. I realize now that I had not written anything at all about these plans. I think I was in denial. The kids and I are going back to our home in Oklahoma so that Lula could go to school in her old school. When we arrived here in March we put her into a preschool and she did not adjust well at all. We were worried, but thought things would get better. They didn't. So, we decided to go home so she could have stability and routine. The bad parts are that we have to leave CJ here to finish his work and we have to leave behind our good friends Muffy and Elle that I told you about the other day.

CJ left yesterday afternoon with all I could cram into the minivan and arrived this evening. 1282 miles in 1 1/2 days. Yuck. I hate that he drove across the country by himself. I called him every few hours just to make sure he was ok. Still, this was a better alternative to the kids riding in the car for what would surely would have taken us four days if had done it that way.

It has been a hard week full of dread for the inevitable. Muffy and I tried to get together nearly every day (not that that is a new occurrence) and we had lots of fun.

Tuesday night we went to dinner at Muffy's. My gal cooked a fabulous meal of BBQ pork, hash brown and corn casseroles and a broccoli salad. She also made a "dump cake", which was also DEE-LISH! I can't wait to serve it at my next book club meeting!

I made Muffy's daughter Elle a photo album of the summer's events and gave it to her Tuesday. I hope it helps ease the pain of goodbye and to keep her feeling connected to Lula so they can remain friends. I also gave Muffy a photo in a "Friends" frame of the two of us, hoping for the same result. I gave her one of those musical cards, too. She opened it and heard the first three notes and turned red in the face and the tears flooded her eyes. It is Michael W. Smith's "Friends" song. I wrote a heartfelt message inside, but she didn't get to read it because Elle took the card and began opening and closing it so all we heard over and over again was "Friends are friends forever, if the Lord's a Lord of them". It became torturous! We were both crying, but laughing at Elle's fascination with the card at the same time. Thank God for four year olds that lighten a mood!

Today we spent the entire day together and had lots of good food, laughs and eye rolls at our daughters' fits of who would be the leader and who wouldn't take turns with whom. We did some shopping and let the girls play at the mall play area. It was a good day. We stayed at their house until LG was about to meltdown mode due to tiredness(I neglected to allow him to get a good nap today in order to stay w/ the girls).

Saying goodbye was agony. We both began crying about ten minutes before we actually even started out to the car and it was downhill from there. We have vowed to stay in touch and get together when possible. I hope we do. I have two other friends in the world to date that I would hold to this caliber of friendship and I feel truly blessed to have found a third.

So with all of that said, I must bid you all ado for now as I will be without Internet for at least two weeks. Sorry for the lengthy post tonight, but sometimes there is just a lot to say.

Please check back with me in a couple weeks as I am sure I will have some eventful story to tell about the trip home! Flying by myself with a four yo and a one yo should be verrrry interesting!! Take care ya'll!