the end and a beginning (we got our girl back! and school is starting!)

(Ok, actually now it’s already started! Yikes! But we’re backing up to keep track for a minute…)

Welp, just like that, Claire is home from the Netherlands. It may not seem like she’s been gone for long from the casual observer, but we have MISSED this girl of ours!

This is the story of her reentry back to the USA:

Dave and I got back from Denver (last post). Our friend Meg (who had been staying with Lucy), brought her to meet up with us at the airport and we switched around luggage, Dave headed out for his last week of his global management graduate program (woohoo! more on that soon) and Lu and I took off again for Wisconsin (doctor visit time, trying to get one more visit in before she has to start missing school for those appointments again). For more about these doctor visits click HERE, and more about Lucy’s clinical trial click HERE.

We made that long drive through all those green fields, loved that we got there early enough to have that whole drive in daylight this time…

• 

• 

• 

Lu and I were enamored by that triangle building up there.

…got a few card games in before sleep, got blood drawn, visited doctors, all that good stuff the next morning…

Then took the long drive and flight back home through the puffiest of clouds.

• 

Meanwhile, Claire was over in the Netherlands, taking her pre-arrival-in-the-US-Covid-test, wrapping up the end of that amazing adventure (so much more about that soon…I’ve been looking through the pictures and I can hardly believe it’s real that she got to do that)…

…and boarding her flight home.

By the time Lu and I boarded our own flight home, she was on her second flight (layover in Philadelphia). We knew we were getting in near the same time, but could you get more perfect timing than this??

• 

We were both a little early and landed MINUTES apart.

As Lu and I looked up the details of which gates we’d both pull into, we found that we’d be coming into gates right next to each other!!

I’m telling you, that excitement as we got of the plane and ran to the next gate was pretty palpable. And before too long, out walked our girl.

• 

Oh man, we were HAPPY people right there hugging as tight as we could!

Claire could hardly contain herself and has been spilling out stories after stories ever since.

She brought us back all kinds of beauties like this:

• 

• 

• 

(I collect salad tongs from all over the world and are those dutch china shoes the cutest things you’ve ever seen…they’ll be added to the travel wall cubbies, and oh boy, that chocolate…)

We went out to dinner at her fav. place, and we have been soaking that girl up I tell you! (We are all dying that this reunion happened while Dave has to be doing his cumulation of school out-of-town week, but thank goodness for FaceTime!)

Soaking her up in the midst of one day for school prep.

Lucy worked on walking her schedule and learning how to maneuver that huge school with her mobility specialist:

• 

• 

We did a little school shopping:

It was quite amazing to have Lucy with us, that girl is NOT a shopper, and does NOT want new clothes (sensory, change is so uncomfortable). But she braved it out and even got excited about a first-day-of-school outfit, thanks go Claire. This may seem like no big deal to some, but believe me, it is!

My sweetest friend dropped by the most thoughtful pre-school things for the girls:

And of course, Claire got home too late for her own night-before-school pics, but she was sure excited!

I am thinking of them so much today as they are maneuvering that school, can’t wait for our “cookie chat” to talk through yet another “new beginning” when they get home!