Friday we bid a fond farewell to Liz and the kids. They had a plane to catch out of Charlotte to take them to their new home in Arizona. It felt pretty lonely without them. But Before they left, we had one more special activity. Four years ago when we were visiting in Boston, Oma got all the grandchildren together and they acted out this cute little play about Mother Earth and her flower children. She decided to do a special encore performance for us on Friday. She had even brought all the props with her from Kentucky! Amelia spent the morning painting everyone's faces (she is really talented) and then they got in their costumes and entertained us. I must say, it was super cute watching all those little wriggling bumps underneath the blanket waiting for their turn to pop out of the "ground". What lucky grandkids to have a Grossmama with so much energy and fun ideas.
To ward off the disappointment of some of the cousins being gone, Adam and Oma took the remaining older kids out on the lake in the canoes again. They all wore their swimming suits and had a blast splashing in the water and riding on the floating mat behind the canoe. The lake was not very deep, since we were at the tail end of it, so the kids weren't in any real danger. They had a great time and came back all smiles.
Then I took them up to the swimming pool at the resort and we hung out there for another couple of hours. They had this lazy river you could float in if you had an inner tube, which we did. We all took turns being lazy, and it was very relaxing. This was the day we could remove Noah's cast, so I did that before we went swimming. At first, he would hold his arm tight to his body and refused to use it at all. This was in direct contrast to earlier in the day when he had been clonking people with his cast. Yeah, you're fine, buddy. The doctor even said, "You'll know when his arm is better, he'll start using his cast as a weapon." Yep, you were right, Doc.
By the end of our swim time, he was waving both arms around, splashing and having a blast. No one really wanted to leave, but they were all starving and I was not going to buy them all $5.00 dollar hot dogs from the concession stand. So off we went back home to eat and begin the great ordeal of packing.
All this shopping we had been doing needed to be sorted and packed away in what luggage we had with us. The problem was we had more stuff than luggage. We packed in what we could, and used all those plastic bags they give you to hold the rest. It was also nice that there was a washer and dryer in the house, so I didn't have to pack up a bunch of dirty laundry. That night the kids stayed up a bit later than usual watching the Olympics Opening Ceremonies. Nicholas got to stay up the latest, as he was the oldest. The first part was very interesting, but the parade of all the athletes walking in was just too boring, so he didn't complain when I told him it was time for bed.
I stayed up til rather late in the night packing up all the luggage. We dragged all our stuff out into the living room, so we didn't disturb the kids who were sleeping in our bed. I think I got to bed around 1 am, but I slept a lot in the car the next day, so it was all good.