Bittersweet Symphony

So the title of this posting says it all (although it could have been called "Free Falling" and you see why at the end.)

Last week was an amazing week and a crappy week all in one. The Inauguration was just thrilling to see. But as many of you already know, on that historic day we received the news that Lance was going to be a part of the next round of layoffs at his company. This was not entirely surprising given the state of the global economy and the fact that he has survived some half dozen of these in the past three years. And, it's not terrible that Lance will be leaving this company, as it was a very different company than it was when he joined and we've had many conversations about when to think about looking elsewhere, but the timing could have been better for sure (I guess no one ever thinks the timing on this type of thing is ever good). So, the "sweet" part of the equation is that we are heading home early (March instead of June)! With this comes a mixture of emotions as we are excited to be coming home to our friends, family, home, neighborhood, etc., but we are sad to be leaving under these circumstances. We will have been here about seven months and it has been an adventure that we will never forget. We are very lucky and thankful that LPS (my employer) has a spot open for me to return to work and the kids to return to day care due to the excellent timing of my good friend Jen's pregnancy (guess someone was looking out for us, somewhere)!

In addition, a few days after finding out Lance is being laid off, we received some news about a close friend who is going through a tough time and I wonder if this is one of the many reasons why we are coming home (we are needed elsewhere). I am very thankful that I will be home to help her get through this latest challenge. The week ended with us playing a five hour game of "it's not our problem call the other company" with both US Airways and Lufthansa, trying to plead with them to change our ticket (as we have already commenced travel, they are both refusing and we're looking at having to buy new one-way tickets home), which only ended because we had to take a trip to the Nimes hospital once more (for those keeping score at home, that's now Cole: 1, Ellie: 1). Ellie took a tumble on a set of 400 year old stone stairs that put a nice little cut on her chin. We hemmed and hawed about how bad the cut was but in the end took her to the hospital so they could put a stitch in her chin and hopefully avoid a bad scar. She'll always have a little scar by which to remember France and her free falling escapade.

And that was not the only time that day that one of our kids bled from the face. Earlier in the day Cole was standing on a chair and tipped it over backward.  He broke his fall with his face/nose for a nice little nose bleed in the library (a very dangerous place, of course). Man it was a bad week!

At the end of the day, while we're disappointed to be leaving a bit early, we can certainly look back and appreciate everything that we've seen and learned during this adventure. We sat down the other day to make a list of things we want to do/see before we leave and it wasn't that big a list. There are many things we would have enjoyed, certainly, but we've already packed so much into this short time that we'll have very few regrets. Of course, the adventure is not over yet and I'm sure there will be many more stories to tell (so stay tuned!).