Friday, September 25, 2009

The Beginning of an Emotional Weekend

What a fun week! I have spent this week running a few errands and having lunch with my girlfriends every day. It was so nice to have fun things to do and fun people to hang out with every day!

Today was the last day of school for the kids. They had a great day to say the least! Ben's World History class had a little good bye party in class for him. At Prince of Peace there were cookies and celebrations for everyone.

I went up to school at 2:30 and packed up all their books and belongings in the new rolling backpacks. It was fun visiting with the teachers and the kids. One girl asked if Abbie could be her sister and stay here while we were gone. I told her I could not live without Abbie, so she has to go with us.


Lots of hugs (and tears from Abbie) as school let out. 


Trey told me that everyone in his class was going to miss him. His teacher made a huge effort to have all of his school work for the year ready for me to pick up. She also gave him a little book and game for the plane ride. Natalie had quite a group of friends walking out with her at the end of the day. Our principal gave us a Prince of Peace duffel bag with a note that says "To the Gartland Family: Through all of your travels remember Prince of Peace is home." As if we could ever forget that! The kids are going to miss their friends but they sure left today feeling loved and part of a wonderful community. I felt the same way as I said good bye to all my mom friends in the parking lot! We dropped our sweet little carpool boys off for the last time this year. One tried to get away without giving me a hug (didn't work!). We will miss them lots and will look forward to seeing them soon after we get home in the summer.

Tonight is the Aquinas homecoming game. Ben is helping the freshman football team set up all the tables and serve the alumni before the game. He has assured me that he has everything out of his locker. He is bringing just a couple of textbooks from school. Our home school program has all of the textbooks he needs, but after looking through them we wanted to supplement with the Aquinas Algebra/Geometry book and the Aquinas World History book. We want to make sure he is very prepared to come back as a sophomore next fall.

Tomorrow is Natalie's last soccer game. She does not know it, but her team is planning a little going away thing for her after the game. She has played with this team since first grade and they are a great group of girls who are sweet as can be off the field and warriors on the field! She will return to this same team next fall.


Sunday morning we are going to Mass at 10:30 and I imagine that will be very emotional. That will for sure be the last time we see all of our school and church friends. From there we are going to my parents' for lunch and then to the airport.

I am anxious to have our family together! Myles has been gone for two weeks. It would not have worked out well for us to have gone earlier since he had orientation for 10 days in Poznan. But two weeks is a long time and we are all ready to be together. He is back in Gdansk now. He braved a Polish grocery store today and his description was hilarious. I think we are in for some interesting adventures! I think my next post will be from Gdansk...We will arrive on Monday at about 5:30 p.m. Gdansk time. That will be around 10:30 a.m. central time.

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