Terrific Kid and Terrific Nana

Issa received the Terrific Kid award yesterday for good judgement:

We are super proud of her--we always are--but the past few weeks have been a little dicey as her class has transitioned to a new teacher. We have been so proud of the way she has handled it and the choices she has made in spite of some pretty serious peer pressure. She's going to be just fine in middle school.

What I love most about this picture, though, is I didn't take it. We got word Wednesday afternoon that Issa would be recognized Thursday morning--awesome. Brad had his first meeting with his first client for his newly-launched company. I had committed to leading some professional development at a school in Raleigh. We couldn't reschedule either thing on such short notice, so I sent Nana a frantic text. She jumped in as Issa's person and sent me the picture.

We made it for a lot of years without family around, but we just keep asking ourselves how we did it. This week Mom came over to borrow a pot. I stopped by for a cup of coffee. It's just become so normal.

This is the first weekend she won't be around, and it feels so strange. We are already counting down the days until she is back...