How to say goodbye

Leaving Arizona has been been a serial: leaving the house, the church, the neighborhood. 

Unfortunately, the cousins will be next.

On the Friday before my final exam, I vagabonded under this tree for 5.5 hours, mainly studying and waiting for the kids to get out of school. 

After my final, I felt free, so there was a hotel playdate with swimming,

cartwheels on the the way to walking to the Dollar Store

and jumping for joy on the way back.

On the plane on the way to LV.

I have dozens of pictures similar to this one on my phone. 

Iris found this creature, named it bug, and played with it until that night when I told her she was probably starving it to death. She had researched it and told me he only needs to eat once a month, but ended up freeing him anyway.

He kept them busy most of the day

For me, saying goodbye to a place is best done during a run. 

Running and reminiscing are easy companions.

Saying hello is also done with a run, 

in this case, a trespassing trail run up a hill close to out LV home.

Despite the fact that most of our house is unfurnished, 

the most important first purchase was the following:

The second most important purchase was a king-sized bed, 

something I've wanted since the beginning of time. 

Here's Iris' virtual violin concert. I made sure to angle the camera away from the clutter we still hadn't organized.

A nurse's pinning ceremony is the culmination of hard work at the end of her studies.

Lesson from Wikipedia: "A pinning ceremony is a symbolic welcoming of newly graduated or soon-to-be graduated nurses into the nursing profession. The history of the ceremony dates back to the Crusades in the 12th century. Queen Victoria awarded Florence Nightingale the Royal Red Cross for her service as a military nurse during the Crimean War. By 1916, pinning ceremonies had become an established tradition."

Lesson from Covid: Spit on tradition.