final preps

Wednesday we were out of the house almost all morning - I dropped a bunch of kids at a friends house and ran some last errands.

Then we picked up Kayleigh and Zeb for a sleepover :)  The original plan was for an afternoon bike ride but it rained all day long.  ugh.

so the kids played indoors (I went out with Alisa to celebrate my birthday) and after dinner all 9 of us enjoyed a massive game of Team Skip-Bo.

This morning the ground was wet but the skies were relatively clear.  I took the little guys to school and then we launched our bike ride :)

All too soon it was time to say "goodbye" and "see you in August"...

There have been some sad goodbyes.  But also plenty of anticipation about our summer in Colorado - these kiddos are ready to roll.

Luke and John Paul have both visited the States only one time, and were too young to really remember much at all (Luke 2 and JP 3 when we left).

Isaac and Lydia both have two trips to the U.S. under their belts and are a little more America-savvy.  I'm really looking forward to watching Isaac engage this time around, he is a voracious reader and has devoured stacks of biographies from the Childhood of Famous Americans series.  Can't wait to see him realize that we are "in" some of the places he reads about (and we do have a little side trip to Mt. Rushmore too!)

And Julianna, she's my America-pro.  Four trips already!  One short trip when she was 6 months old. Again (a year later) for Lydia's birth.  And then two 6 month stints in the States.  She's looking forward to re-connecting with some friends in ND, and she's constantly asking about prices of things in America... so curious about so many things.

Tomorrow is my big packing day.  Gotta get those bags zipped and ready to go.  Matt is off work for the whole day so between the two of us we should be able to crank out a lot of trip prep. In an ideal world we would be mostly done by mid-afternoon so we can just relax and enjoy our last hours.  We head to the airport Saturday morning for a short trip.  Should land in Denver less than 24 hours after we leave!