five days away

In just a few hours Matt and I leave for a five day leadership retreat.  We are incredibly thankful for the opportunity to participate.  

But it is really hard to leave our children.  

I wanted to help them track the days we are away, and I wanted to do a little something special, soooooo, I came up with a plan.  

I left a little 'gift' for each child for each day we are away, and part of the gift is a photo.  And  then I made a poster for each child, with a spot for each day's photo.... as a way to "count the days" til Mommy and Daddy come home.  

In theory, as they open their daily gift, they'll stick the photo on the appropriate slot, and visually watch the days go by.  We just hung the posters on the wall above each child's bed.  

Even Isaac has a poster, though he doesn't know what to do with it.  I did laminate the photos to try to make them as 'Isaac friendly" as possible :) 

We also made a little video to accompany each day's set of gifts - one segment for each day - the video is mostly us talking to the kids, explaining the gifts, showing them the photos we selected, etc.  Xiao Li is all set to give the gifts and show the video after lunch each day.  

I won't be posting to the blog while we're gone, but I did set the photos to post each day, so if you're interested, you can check in.