A few good lasts: Church, swim friends, PTC bridge

Sunday was our last Sunday in our ward (and our last Sunday at church for a while since our ward in Doha will meet on Fridays). Nothing too far out of the normal happened, except our primary children were each gifted a rather large bag of leftover Easter candy (which they were thrilled about).

Zoë and Benjamin went over to the Fitz's house after church (along with the rest of the ward youth) for a last hurrah with their church friends. 

This morning I went to my last orthodontia appointment (here). I have the rest of my aligners in my possession so can literally see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Then we went to the pool to play with Zoë's friend Eva (and her siblings) for the last time. Here's Zoë sandwiched between Eva and Norah:

Eva and Norah are triplets (with Lucas). Zoë's not not friends with Norah or Lucas (she's definitely friends with them), but she and Eva were like best friends (and as you can see they are twinning today).

For Family Night we discussed airplane etiquette (this list is a good start if you curious about the types of things we talked about). Our children largely don't recall ever being on a plane so we thought it was good to give them some idea of how they should behave, especially since we won't be able to sit by all of them all of the time (just given where our assigned seats are).

And then we went to the Town Green (sometimes confused with The Forum) to play at the playground there one last time. Phoebe has tried to get up in the PTC playground bridge for as long as she can remember and has chickened out every time. She nearly chickened out today as well, having made it up three of the four levels to get to the bridge...but she eventually did make it to the top. You can kind of see her peeking through the bridge here (in a pink striped sweater):

Here she is (with Alex) hopping around on these stepping-stone balls (that truly are quite fun to hop around on):

This roller slide is always a hit:

Look at all those kids queued up so nicely!

We did take our little neighbour Evelyn with us since she came to see if the kids could play just as we were getting ready to go. I didn't want the kids to lose any time playing with her...but we also wanted to make sure we got to the things on our bucket list...so she got permission to come with us:

She and Zoë have been thick as thieves the past few years. We are really going to miss her!

And, of course, after playing on the playground version of the PTC bridge we had take one more walk over the real PTC bridge as well! It was good we had E along with us so that she could take this picture of our family!

And here are a few of the kids being goofy:

Here's a view of the bridge all on its own:

It was such a controversy when it first was being built (it opened in 2020), but it is one of my children's favourite landmarks. People were really up in arms about the colour for some reason, but I think it looks just fine! 

Here are the kids running off into the sunset:

I've never stopped to read the sign about the bridge fully, but I did today and my favourite line was the description of the original inspiration for today's bridge being "dismantled for profit by a group of charlatans" in the 1940s. 

Those pilfering rapscallions! Utter scallywags, they were!

A few thoughts here:

One—I truly believe I have encountered more hyperbolic, overly emotive signs in the south than anywhere else in the world. Charlatans...really? Such a juicy word.

Two—I just now learned that scallywag (or scalawag) was a term used derogatorily to refer to white Southerners who were in favour of reconstruction after the Civil War (which meany signs in the south refer to as The War of Northern Aggression...). I had no idea before just now when I decided to look up its very meaning (quite interesting). 

A third thing that I thought I'd mention is that the original bridge, of course, went over the river. This bridge obviously goes over the road (we have other bridges that go over the river now). I appreciate being able to cross both things.

When we got home the little kids all gathered to play kick-the-can in the cul-de-sac while Benjamin and I went on a walk. We ran into Luna who was very happy to get to stay hello to Benjamin (her boy). I could hardly get her to stay still for a picture (she was bent on jumping all over Benjamin):

It's possible he'll get to see Luna a time or two before we leave for good, but...I think these two are going to really miss each other!