Avie's goodbye

Jarad and I just took a trip to Anchorage Alaska to visit our good friends Katie, and Matt and Jen.  We left the kids with Mummi and Ukki for 10 days, which is the longest the kids and I have been apart.  Prior to this trip, the longest that I had left each of them was 2 nights.  It was quite the jump, but the trip was amazing and the kids had a Grand adventure of their own.  More about the trips in future posts. This post gets a little long, so if you don't want to read it all, skip ahead to the paragraph before the numbers.

I was quite nervous to leave the kids especially in the week prior to our departure.  I knew Mummi and Ukki would do great with them, but I was worried none the less.

Before we left, we explained to Avie that we were leaving.  The first thing that she asked us was "How long we'd be gone?"  What a cool kid with just the right questions.  We tried to explain 10 days by saying 10 bedtimes.  Avie was so cute listening and hugging Daddy while we told her (as seen in pictures above).  Then we told Avie that Archie might really miss Mommy and she said "I'll be Archie's Mommy while you're gone."  It was too sweet!

We decided not to tell Archie and opted to just give him a a hug and a kiss.  It was almost bedtime when we left for Mpls, so we told Archie that Mummi was going to give him a bath and he took off saying "bye bye."  We found out later that he did go around looking for us later that night when Mummi explained that we were gone but we would be back.

As we said goodbye to Avie, we gave her hugs and kisses and then she ran up the stairs for her bath too.  She stopped at the top of the stairs and starting saying lots of goodbyes to us.  I wish I had a video tape to remember all the cute things she said.  But here are a few:

1. Bye bye
2.  Have fun
3.  Don't get into Trouble
4.  If you push someone, make sure to say you are sorry
5.  Okay, you can go now (as she waved her arm at us to leave)

 I did tell Avie that I didn't think I'd push anyone, but she went on to say "but if you do, you should say you are sorry."  Funny thing is that I did end up pushing someone.  I ran a race in Anchorage while I was trying to get Jarad's attention (as he was supposed to be watching for me), I looked over my shoulder and started running sideways and bumped the women next to me.  You'll be happy to know that I did say I was sorry! :)