"Glad came back"

Our first day home from our trip was really nice.

On Monday, we saw sunrise at Big Ben and the House of Parliament in London, then took a 10.5 hour flight home and saw sunset at the new (and almost finished) house. Whew. It was a long and tortuous day, but we went to bed at 9:00 and slept until 9:30 on Tuesday morning.

We picked up the kids from Michelle's house late on Tuesday morning and they were so happy to see us. They gave us big hugs and told us how much they missed us. We missed them too. They told us all day, about every 30 minutes that they loved us. William told us in his admonishing voice, "Mom, Dad? I missed you for 11 days!!"

We went to lunch together in the new shopping center by the new house. It has a WhichWich and cute little play area with a hedge maze, a nice sitting area with an outdoor fire place and some very nice public restrooms with particularly spiffy hand dryers. The kids and I have been several times in the last few weeks and they wanted to show Daddy all of the fun things to do there. They gave him the grand tour and then we walked over to the dog park to watch the dogs from outside the fence.

We left for a family trip to the grocery store and then headed to the new neighborhood for our pre-closing walk through! :-) The house is almost finished and it looks terrific. I'm so pleased with how it is coming together and we are on schedule to close on the 25th. :-)

At the apartment that evening, we dispensed souvenirs (puzzles, wooden tops and a horse) and they got to sleep in their own beds for the first time in about 2 weeks.

This morning, as Robert sat on our bed, he leaned over to hug me and said, "Glad came back." I had a hard time understanding him, but once I figured it out, it was so sweet to hear him spontaneously tell us how much he missed us and that he is happy to have us home. Kids are so sweet.