Leavin' on a Jet Plane

It is August 10th. Store racks are covered with fall fashions. Labor Day is fast approaching. Though the minor league baseball season has four weeks left, I am closing my scorebook. McKenzie and I fly home to Arizona on Thursday, leaving baseball and hotels and travel in the jet trail.

There are a lot of things we won't miss: moving in and out of hotel rooms every 4-6 days, doing laundry in the hotel laundry mat, cleaning a hotel room for two hours after checking in, pouring drain cleaner down a hotel drain (yes, I did), and constantly creating ways for McKenzie to use up energy.

There are lots of people we will miss. We have an amazing network of friends and family on the East Coast. No matter where we went, we always had someone we could call. McKenzie's summer has been filled with loving friends and family and I am so thankful for that.

More than anything or anybody, we will painfully miss our Daddy. We are absorbing every minute we have with him, laughing, playing, dreaming. Many baseball families don't have the opportunity to be together for the entire season, but God has blessed us with that privilege for the past 4 seasons. This year unfolded in a way none of us anticipated and it has been particularly sweet to press on together. Distance will change that slightly once McKenzie and I go home, but thanks to modern technology we will be able to talk and see each other everyday.

It will be a fast four weeks. Josh will be on the road most of the time, McKenzie will be busy with her Arizona friends and starting a Jazz and Tumbling class, and I will be busy getting ready to move into our first Arizona apartment, not to mention preparing for the arrival of Miss Harper Leigh. I may shed some tears along the way, but praise God for Skype. Daddy won't be more than a click away.