david's big move.

Well, it's official... our first child left home yesterday.  Whew... I feel emotionally exhausted!  

As parents, you know in a sort of abstract way that part of your job is to grow your kids up and send them on their way when the time is right.  Well, the time is right and he is ready.  So that abstractness became reality for us these past few weeks as he made plans, found a place to live, bought airline and bus tickets, and headed out on his new adventure.  And it occurred to me that since I was the oldest child in my family, I never experienced what it was like for the family to get used to life after the child leaves the nest.  I guess maybe it would be different anyway, being the mom rather than a sibling, but it was sort of an interesting observation.

So I thought I'd post a pictorial account of our past several days...

New wreath for the front door, just in time for David's going away party... a great find at Goodwill. :)

Marissa did a lovely job decorating the house for David's party & helped a ton with pizza-making during the hustle & bustle of everyone being here.

I should not have assumed that the Sam's Club bakery folks would know which direction the Upper Peninsula should have been placed on the cake!  They tipped it onto its west end, and the girl who took my order referred to it as a "continent"!

We made a LOT of homemade pizzas and fed everyone.

Did I mention we made a *lot* of pizzas Saturday?  Oh, and after feeding about fifty guests besides ourselves, we still had lots of leftover pizza fixings.  Needless to say, we've eaten a lot of pizza in the days since then.  :)

How many people can you fit onto one sofa?  They were laughing at funny pics on Pinterest.

Heading out Monday morning for a "surprise" and to spend time together as a family.

The surprise was meeting someone I found on Craig's List to buy this guitar case for David... it has backpack straps & lots of pockets so he can bike around Marquette with his electric guitar. :)

Big brotherly love. :)

On Tuesday evening, David bought Joshua & Jesse a Lord of the Rings Lego set as a going away gift.

And he got Naomi a girlie Lego set as a going away gift.  She loves it!

Building the Lego set together.  This was almost more than I could bear, and I had to blink back tears. :)

Parenting in the current times... Matt checking out David's new roommates on Facebook before he leaves.  (It's actually a pretty cool situation... he's going to be living with two other Christian guys in a house next to a church in town.)

Playing an online game together before heading for Michigan the next day.

And a family shot before heading to bed... we had to get up at 4:00 a.m. to take him to the airport the next day!

In the airport parking garage at 5-something-ish yesterday morning.

David, checking out his boarding passes before heading to security.

Wishing we could go through and hang out with him at his gate, we sat for a few minutes before he headed through security.

Took a few family pics before he headed through security.  This wasn't the only crazy pic. :)

Off to the first chapter of life on his own...

And, one last shot of him heading into security before he slipped out of sight.

So he's in lower Michigan now, visiting with family before taking the bus to the U.P. and arriving there this weekend.  We are so thankful for the age we live in, with the technology of texts, Facebook, email and Skype!  It was great to text him yesterday & then later on to see him via Skype and to chat a bit about how his day of traveling and visiting was.