As many of you know, Malina’s last day in our home was Thursday, June 14th.  Her mom flew in last week, and spent some time with us and the boys.  Malina took her around to show her some of the sights, and meet some of the people who’ve been a part of Malina’s year.  Yesterday was our last day.  We gave her a parting gift, a photo book of her year with the boys and all the fun things they’ve done together.  She gave the boys some pictures she’d drawn, and each of them a Max Schnell (the German car from the Cars II movie).  We were planning on heading down to ride the Duck, then the monorail (because they are our boys, afterall), the Pacific Science Center, and then a nice good-bye dinner before dropping them off at the airport in the evening for their red-eye flight to New York City.

Well, that was the plan, but things went a little awry and we had to drop Malina off much earlier.  After we dropped Malina and her mom off at the airport later that morning, we had our fun Thursday regardless.  The boys loved the Duck tour, and the silly man driving the Duck.  When we got home, they immediately went to their legos and re-enacted the whole tour.  We had our Monorail ride, and explored some of the Pacific Science Center, before returning home for some peace and quiet.  Of course, now three of us have colds and Nic had diarrhea, but like I said, there’s always lots of poop involved, so such is life.  On Sunday, Grandma Crick and Grandpa Don arrive, and the boys are very excited.

We have quite a lot of plans over the next month or so, before our next Au Pair arrives.  Her name is Michelle, from Denmark, and she’ll be arriving on July 20th.  I’m long overdue in writing a post about her, so I will try to do that soon.  We very much hope that she’ll be as excited to be a part of our family as we are to have her join us.  I promise, Michelle, we’re not a mean family!

For now, though, it’s time for me to go to bed, and get some energy back so we can have some fun tomorrow.  Katie is headed off for the baby shower for the very-pregnant Nurse Heather, so I get the boys all to myself tomorrow afternoon.  Hopefully, after some sleep, that prospect will be a little more exciting than it is terrifying.

-Joel