The Drop Off

Well the day Mendis and I have been dreading for 30 years came and went. We are officially empty nesters. Maybe we have been since Sept when Jeff and Hayden went off to college but we still saw Hayden every week when we went up to his football games. So it didn't feel so empty I guess. So we are down to no kids left at home just 4 mighty fine adults that come and go occasionally.Getting Hayden packed up and set apart was exhausting after the action packed couple of weeks we had. It sure went by fast. Here we are trekking up to Provo to the MTC. No surprise that Hayden was exhausted. He didn't sleep much the night before he left in the motel too I guess. He was excited and anxious to get going.

His last night we went up to the SLC Temple since he had never been. It is always wonderful to go to that Temple but it seems like these occasions are always milestones for us: Ashley's endowment, Jeff going on his mission and Hayden. Makes for quite an emotional session but we all held it together pretty darn good! We decided to ask to see the sealing rooms so we could see where Jeff would be getting married and they nabbed us for sealings while we were there too. So we spent the whole evening there meanwhile Christina was waiting for us in Provo wondering what the heck happened to us. We also popped into the Joseph Smith Building while we were there and put a deposit down for Jeff's reception and checked out the venue. Awesome- it's going to be Awesome!!
So met up with Christina and headed to dinner. We wanted to take Jeff to that fab steak house but we were so late it was closing so we settled for Olive Garden.

So with this new drop off procedure you have to take your pictures before you get into the MTC so we went across the street for a couple of quick pics.

All the pictures look off centered because if you look closely you can see the MTC behind us and to the left.

The Official Start of the Missh...

So with one last look at the MTC Hayden decided it was time to get going. True to Hayden we arrived 10 minutes early. The drop off procedure is so much kinder than it used to be. Literally within 2 minutes we drove up to the curb, unloaded the luggage and gave him hugs and kisses good bye and off he went. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and didn't look back. Looked just like a real missionary!