Goodbye, Natalie!

Well, this is only about 2 months late. We brought Natalie to the airport for her return to Germany at the beginning of June.  My morning sicknes kicked in on the ride home from the airport so I haven't had the motivation to write a thorough post on here until now.

We absolutely loved having Natalie as a part of our family and it was hard to let her go.  There were many tears at the airport and afterwards.  Poor Sam doesn't do well with goodbyes and he broke down several times throughout the day, saying "Why did Natalie have to go???" 

When we ask Elena if she wants to get another exchange student someday, she says "No.  I just want to get Natalie again."

Here are a few pictures from her last days here.

We made her a "German" chocolate cake for her birthday - delicious!

All the cousins have been missing Natalie as well. We had a big going away party for her the night before we left for the cities. Most of Seth's family made it so she got to have one last night surrounded by our huge family in a small town before she moved back to her huge city full of small families (she knew very few families in Germany with more than 2 kids :)

We decided to spend our last weekend up in the cities and, unfortunately, the whole family got sick except for Natalie. Doubly unforunate was the fact that we didn't all get sick at once, but took turns so it was drawn out over 3 days.  During one brief period where we were all relatively healthy, we were able to visit the brand new fire station where Seth's brother, John works.  The kids loved getting to see the big firetrucks up close.  They even got their own fire hats.  We were so worried that Natalie would come down with it on her flight home, which would have been miserable.  I guess all that hand sanatizer worked, though, because she managed to escape the bug.

Sam hopped in by Natalie for a cuddle on her last morning in the US.

The Phases of the Moon - by Sam

Sam pointed out the moon to me last week, explaining that it was a half moon.

After a minute, during which time I assume he was pondering how the moon goes through the different phases, he said: "Mom, I think maybe a rocket man flies up to the moon with a knife and cuts it in half."

I tried explaining how it actually happens with the moon reflecting the light of the sun and the Earth blocking the light.  Sam came back with, "But how does the moon get cut in half??"

I think we'll stick with the rocket man theory for now.

Our First Camping Trip of the Summer

We had our annual DeCock camping trip with Seth's mom's side of the family last weekend.  I was fortunate to have 2 days in a row where I felt pretty good and we had air conditioning in the cabins so there were no complaints all weekend.

I failed to take any pictures of the weekend, but Elena brought along our old camera.  The battery only lasts about 20 minutes and it frequently loses the pictures you take, but it keeps her happy.

So here are some highlights of the weekend as documented by Elena: