Saying goodbye to Rachel

Yesterday was a painful day of waiting. 

The day had come to say goodbye, but the hour was not yet at hand. So we just...went through all the motions of having a regular day...which was really anything but ordinary...and yet was entirely ordinary.

I convinced all the kids to come to the pool with me, in part so I could take our traditional "end of season" pool picture. Although it's not the end of the pool season yet, it is the end of an era:

(Zoë apparently taught Phoebe and Ireland to make peace signs in pictures, so they've both been trying to do it since.)

The other reason we wanted to swim today was because Benjamin had been wanting to get together with a friend from swim team, but his friend went on vacation after county and got back on Wednesday...and then Benjamin was leaving for Utah on Thursday afternoon (essentially). So we met this friend at the pool on Thursday morning. 

I didn't mind too much that Benjamin was playing with his friend instead of spending time with Rachel since he's doing the whole road trip with her, so they'll get plenty of time in.  

Phoebe got lots of time in with Rachel though, convincing her to play "Fishy in the Basket" and "London Bridge is Falling Down" and all sorts of games with her over and over again.

The time these girls had together (in my home) was so short. It breaks my heart that Phoebe will have to grow up with out Rachel here. 

July 8, 2022

July 31, 2025

Ugh. 

Anyway, after the pool, we went home to finish getting everyone packed up for the trip. And then—after saying goodbye to Rachel's trusty car:

—we drove to Grandpa and Darla's house. They live north of us, so it made more sense for us to drop the kids off up there than for Grandpa to drive down to pick the kids up. We had so many back and forths while planning how to take Rachel out there.

First we planned on a big family road trip. But that ended up being too much to handle this summer, with the amount of sickness we had, and we didn't think we'd be able to fit all of Rachel's college stuff plus everyone's travel stuff, plus everybody in the van. 

So we thought we'd just fly Rachel out there all by herself. 

And then Grandpa decided that perhaps he would drive Rachel out, and take a few other grandkids with him. We looked up dates for the organ workshop at BYU and they aligned perfectly with when we were looking at Rachel heading out. So, it was arranged that Rachel and Miriam—and Benjamin, who will be doing some woodworking with Uncle Trevor—would all ride out with Grandpa. 

We headed up to Grandpa and Darla's in the early afternoon, enjoying a splash in their pool before having a barbecue (in a terrific thunderstorm). We got about an hour in the pool before it started thundering.

It's GG's birthday month, so we celebrated early with her. She'll be 90! GG is Darla's mother-in-law (Darla's late husband's mother) and she's the sweetest, most hilarious person. Her name is Marion and when we're all together she and Miriam are often never sure who is talking to whom.

Here's Benjamin lighting the candles for us (he also was the grill-master with Grandpa):

I wish I had recorded us singing. Phoebe was belting out the lyrics at the top of her little lungs; it was very cute.

Marion didn't want to spit on the cake when she blew out the candles, so she invited Alexander to do it for her (which, as Uncle Patrick pointed out to me just about guarantees that the cake was spit on anyway):

We played a few rounds of Swoop:

And then it was time to say our dreaded goodbyes. Darla took a few pictures of all of us in front of the house:

We're all looking a little pool-bedraggled. Rachel lamented that in all of her farewell pictures she looks like she just crawled out of the pool. The church youth had a big back-to-school/end-of-summer/farewell-to-Rachel bash at a pool on Wednesday, so all the pictures are post-pool. And then all our family goodbye pictures were post-pool. 

That probably just an occupational hazard of making your departure in the middle of summer when it's too hot to do anything else.

At least the thunderstorm had mostly passed before we had to say goodbye. The drizzling storm matched our drizzling faces.

Alexander was rather stoic while saying goodbye to Rachel. He noted that he felt sad but couldn't seem to cry like everyone else. He also couldn't seem to stop glomming on to Rachel, however.

Here are a few pictures of Andrew and me with Rachel:

Here's me with Rachel (I'm still taller than her—the driveway is slanted!):

Here's Andrew saying goodbye to Rachel:

Here are the kids saying goodbye again—the very last time they'll all just be...kids:

Zoë had a hard time letting go:

But we eventually peeled her away and convinced her to get in the van. Here's Miriam saying something like "I know!" when I said, "Why are you crying? You're going with her?!" or something like, "I don't know?!" 

This dynamic duo—it is entirely unfair that they are getting split up. But I'm sure they'll each blossom in their own way—and will remain wonderful friends. That's the dream, anyway.

We discovered that poor Alexander, who had found himself unable to cry earlier, was buckled into his car seat absolutely sobbing, so Rachel opened the back hatch to give him one more hug.

He cried the whole drive home, the whole time he was getting ready for bed, and right up until the minute he fell asleep. It was a lot of crying.

And here's my last shot of Miriam and Benjamin as we pulled away:

They've been having a great roadtrip. They're already well into Kentucky.

Here at home we've been going through all our drawers, preparing for the Great Room Switch of 2025. Nearly everyone is shuffling around. Zoë's moving in with Miriam. Alexander and Phoebe are going to share for a while. And Benjamin will have his own room. 

And then we'll reevaluate room sharing dynamics again when Miriam leaves in a couple of years...