Good-bye and Hello

I know the term bitter-sweet is so very redundant.   But I can't find other words that express the sentiment of our experience over the last couple of weeks any better than this little overused phrase.    Life lately has been a whirl-wind.    Peter left Stuttgart the day after we returned from Greece.   The girls and I stayed another five days.   Those days were spent packing and shutting down our apartment and shipping our car and saying our last good-byes to friends and a city that we have called home longer than any other since 2008.    Sarah Avery was still very sick with fever for most of those days so to say that it was a tough week would be an understatement.   But we persevered (Thank you to everybody who prayed for us.) and we arrived in the good ol' US of A on Friday afternoon.   Here are the pictures of our last Stuttgart memories.   And the first few photos of our first days in the States.

Last piggy back ride up the hill from Marienplatz

One night before we left for Greece, we had a little good-bye dinner with our closest neighborhood friends at the playground.  

These 4 girls will miss each other terribly.   We actually have a skype date scheduled for tomorrow.

We are trying to convince Mike to find a job in DC so we can be neighbors again.  

This was Susannah's last Sunday at our church.   And the kids happened to be singing in big church.

"Oh Happy Day!"

Mr. Kingsley was Susannah's beloved sunday school teacher.   He organized a little good-bye party for her.  

She made this tie for Peter for Father's Day.   Unfortunately, he was on a plane to the US and hasn't seen it yet.  

That afternoon, the church across from our building had their annual summer festival.   SA was super sick, but I let Susannah go down with Mathilda.   They ate sausages and did some crafts.  

Susannah spent another afternoon with Sophia, her other little bestie.

And of course, we had to have a picture with Susannah's very favorite teacher, Frau Pfeiffer.

And we had to have one last scoop from our favorite ice cream spot.

yum.

And before we knew it, the week was over and it was time for Susannah's last day of German Kindergarten.   

This was her first day.

I remember this first walk to school so well.   

And I will remember this last one.

And I will treasure every single day that I had the specail privilege of this morning walk with my girl.   Susannah's little school was such a blessing.    She has grown so much there, blossoming into such a confident, curious, kind and independent person.   We are forever grateful for her years here. 

Needless to say, I was just barely holding it together after dropping Susannah.   So SA and I went with our friends  Karolina and Phillippe to our favorite bakery for one last warm pretzel.

These guys were buddies and will miss each other.  

That afternoon Susannah was so brave and poised when she said goodbye to her friends and teachers.   Tang and Leonie are two friends that she will definitely miss.

We went to Kantichen for our last after school snack.   Susannah was quiet.   I could sense that she understood the weight of the day.   But she kept her chin up and her smile in place all afternoon.  

Sophia and Karolina stopped by after dinner for one last hug.

And then the next morning we were up and out the door to catch our plane.   The girls had the very last german pretzel while we waited to board.

Peter was awesome and bought us the bulkhead comfort seats.   This was the first time SA had her own seat.   It was heaven having all that extra space. 

The girls were all snuggled in before everybody had even boarded.   They did really well on the flight and managed the first few days of jet lag like champs.    

SA did pass out one night like this.   But today is day 3 and we are all three in full eastern time zone mode.  

Yesterday Mimi took us to chick-fil-a to play and eat a few nuggets.

And pretend to be a cow.

 Shoo Shoo has been a wonderful hostess.   She and Susannah have been bird watching and reading together.

Poppy took the girls on a little shopping spree today and then we had lunch at Charlie Joseph's.

The two Sarahs.   

We are so happy to be home, but also so thankful for all of the wonderful friends and memories we made in Stuttgart.     We hope to see all of you that we haven't seen yet very very soon!