Our last trip home.....

We had a quick trip home for Easter and it was like a whirlwind.  Trying to juggle seeing our kids, grandchildren, and friends proved to be difficult in just 10 days.  Throw in a holiday and some birthdays and it really gets tricky! Time was precious and the calendar was full.  But this was our last trip home and we knew that some things would have to just wait til we were home permanently in July....

Highlights of our visit......

Easter began with coloring some eggs with Ava and Katelyn

......and then an egg hunt and Easter dinner......

....Easter dinner now fills two tables!

Six of our seven grandchildren....what a feat getting them to all sit for a picture!  Ava is holding brother Jude, Anna with brother Emmett, and Katelyn and sister Amanda

Patrick and Tanya arrived a few minutes later with Tyson

But the week was full of many other grandparent moments, with Lyle putting together a bike for Anna, celebrating missed birthdays with Amanda and Katelyn at the Mall of America Nickelodeon park...

and going to the circus for Ava's upcoming missed birthday....

The week was full of other fun times with our own kids, family and friends, but it wore us out just a bit (an understatement?).  Three of our kids are in the process of moving, which involves their putting up places for rent and sale.  With sadness I will be coming back to Minnesota with one son who has moved to Lincoln for a job change.  That will be a huge change for me!  I guess that's why I tried to spend so much time with them while I could....

So we left the wild turkeys in our yard, heading to the pigeons of Paris, for one last trip back.  The next few months are already getting filled with small and huge (Greece!) trips out of Paris.  But we are also going to savor each and every day that we have here, trying to take in the cafes, a few museums, and walks through the neighborhoods.