goodbyes

My younger brother, his 2 sons and wife, left yesterday afternoon on their 16 hour drive back home. It was nice that they didn't have to leave at the crack of dawn. They went to church with all of us and then we ate lunch at my sister's house. Then they left. I've never liked to be 'left' - I would rather do the leaving, if it has to be done; but I like to have visitors. My sister's youngest son was feeling 'too many good-byes' yesterday. Will announced that he and his family will be moving to Virginia, his cousins were leaving that day and his older brother is going back to boarding academy Monday. That is kind of rough. [In the spirit of Will's words, although goodbyes are not pleasant, we can be happy for the time we've had together and remember that most.] We came back to our house and I was missing my brother and family already too. We began occupying ourselves with things here and my sister called and said they were all missing my younger brother and family - so we all decided to get together again. They all came over and we played table games at Ed's recommendations (his family did this frequently as a child but my family did not). We have a box of many games - most I have never played in my life. We played 'Scottland Yard' 3 times, 'Probe' (a word game - my favorite kind of game) one time and then we played 'Clue'. We ate a lot of popcorn, hot chocolate, oranges and apples and a little candy. It was fun!

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I am still sore from swimming on Friday. It's crazy how sore my arms and back muscles are from swimming around a bit.