Last night Wendy and I took Taylor out for dinner. It our bon-voyage celebration as Taylor prepares to move “across the pond” to Edinburg, Scotland to study for her master’s degree in Arts Management at the University of Edinburg.

It’s been a whirlwind of late with helping Taylor move her worldly possessions into storage and having her jetting around the country to visit friends and family before she heads off for a year. Last night’s dinner was a blessed moment of quiet together. We caught up. We pondered some big life things and laughed about trivial things. We ate more than we should and shared two desserts between the three of us because we won’t have the opportunity to break bread together for a long time.

We dropped Taylor off, got out of the car, and group hugged for a good, long time that I wished had been even longer. I prayed for her and for us. As Wendy and I drove away the tears were streaking down both of our cheeks. We have said bon-voyage to both Taylor and Madison so many times in their young lives, yet I find it gets emotionally harder as time goes on.

C’est la vie.

I’m so proud of our girls, their courage and confidence, their sense of possibility and adventure.

Speaking of adventure: Yesterday as we spent time saying good-bye to Taylor, Madison was somewhere in the skies above us doing her in-flight training as a Flight Attendant for Sky West. She moved to Chicago last week and is based out of O’Hare for now. She’s hoping for a transfer back to Colorado before too long.

At the beginning of the summer Madison called and told me she’d applied on-line to become a flight attendant. It seemed like a random thing in the moment, but within a couple of weeks she was hired and whisked off to Salt Lake City for a month of intense training. Now she’s in Chicago. Wow, what a difference a few months make.

At least the travel perks mean we should see Madison more often in the weeks and months to come! She has already begun to take advantage of the free flights to surprise her grandparents with an impromptu visit. Wendy and I are looking forward to more impromptu visits! And, Madison and I have already begun to contemplate the opportunity to run into one another when I’m traveling on business. I hope the day comes when she’s a flight attendant on one of my flights! 😉