Welcome, everybody! I am recording from the lovely town of Port Angeles, Washington. We are just returning from a quick trip to Utah. It was quick in the sense that we didn’t stay that long. But when you are driving 1150 miles each way, it really isn’t that quick.
Well in today’s show, I share some thoughts on the changes in my life and the times and seasons. So let’s get to it.
This past week we went down to Utah to take our daughter Emma to Utah State University - GO AGGIES. She graduated from high school and chose to go to USU. She’s really smart, she has good ideas, she’s beautiful inside and out, and I am really going to miss her a lot. Our daughter Camille who is 12 is really missing her as well. Of course, we are all missing her, even our little Yorkie Poo named Minnie is wondering where she is.
In addition to Emma going to USU, we now have our daughter Julienne at BYU-Idaho and our daughter Maggie at the University of Utah. Half of our children are grown and out of the home! How is this happing?
We still have three at home, Gavin is in high school, Camille is in middle school, and our X-man, Xavier is in elementary school.
This parenting thing is hard. You put all your love, sweat, and tears into raising these children, and then poof! They move out. I got to admit, I’m grieving a bit.
This isn’t the first time we’ve had a child move out of course. Our daughter Julienne served her mission in Nebraska. When we dropped her off to the MTC in Provo, we said our goodbyes over by the Provo temple, took pictures, gave her lots of hugs, etc. But driving away from the MTC and watching her walk away with her suitcases, realizing that we wouldn’t see her again for 18 months, was tough! We were all silent in our van. All of a sudden there was a vacant seat in our 8 passenger van. It was tough.
With our daughter Maggie, it was kind of a soft transition. She left and went to the Ukraine to teach English. It seemed more temporary. But she soon came home and then moved out to go to college. She just transferred from Utah State University to the University of Utah. Go Utes!
As I was driving home after dropping off Emma at Utah State University in Logan Utah and Julienne at BYU-Idaho in Rexburg, Idaho, I looked in the rearview mirror. It seemed kind of empty. Now there were 3 empty seats in our 8 passenger van.
Tune in to hear the rest of the show!
