So Long, Farewell

The house is too quiet. We just dropped off Sarah, Fiona, and Emma at the airport after a fun day. Sarah and I made a roast for lunch in honor of that being Emma's favorite meal, as well as today being Sunday and Easter, although I don't think we really needed an excuse to eat roast beef and potatoes! Emma helped us make the food and quite possibly ate the most, too! I know there were 4 potatoes on her plate and I think she did eat them all... :)

After lunch we drove to Reston Town Center as I realized we hadn't visited my favorite gelato shop, Pitango Gelato, and could not possibly allow family to leave without tasting one of their many delicious flavors! Gelato is different from - and I think superior to - ice cream. They also serve sorbet in lots of fruit flavors - all in-season. Here's what we chose:
Sarah - cardamom
Emma - orange chocolate
Fiona - coconut
Joshua - pomegranate
Daniel - chocolate chip
Alison - hazelnut, tangerine, and pomegranate (couldn't decide...)

Stuart chose not to have his own gelato but "tasted" everyone else's and "helped" those who couldn't finish (Emma) because they had eaten a massive lunch!

After a walk around Reston Town Center with the mandatory fountain visit (I think Sarah took pictures - I was too busy trying to keep Joshua out of the water...) we drove to Reston Nature Center and took a lovely walk along the shady paths. Temps reached the mid-80s today so shade was a must!

Then we drove to the airport and spent a good 10 minutes saying our goodbyes and sharing goodbye hugs until a policeman on a segway started segwaying our way to get us to move on. Really.

We will miss our wonderful guests! We had so much fun visiting places together, watching the kids play and learn new jokes and games from each other. They are going to miss each other tremendously but we're already looking forward to summer 2012 when we will be visiting England for the first time in 4 years!

Here are some miscellaneous pics from the last week. Click the photo to view the whole album.

So Long, Farewell