And there he goes.

It's 8:30 am.

I slept maybe an hour and a half last night.

I woke up at 3:00, dragged HP out of bed, and he picked Elsa up out of her kennel to say goodbye. She knew something was up, as it was 3am and he never picks her right up out of the kennel. And she's no fool - she's known something was up for weeks now. She clung to him, scrambling up onto his shoulder with a panic that read "something is going on I don't like it what's happening OH GOD" and refused to relax like she always does when he holds her.

This, of course, did not ease any of the anxieties he had about leaving.

I kid you not, this is exactly what her expression looked like.

We stopped at Walgreens for wedding prints (which was an adventure in itself) to show to the kids and his family, then spent the drive to the airport chatting about this ridiculous thing we were doing and watching the sun rise.

I had made it through this whole experience without crying. But when all of his bags were unloaded and he kissed me goodbye, I will totally own that I broke a little. I was exhausted, this whole ordeal was intense, and I still had a long day ahead of me.

When I got back to what was left of the apartment, Elsa was awake and pacing. I grabbed a box of clothes and the necessary dog supplies, tossed them in the truck over my moving boxes, and took her out to pee before the trek to RI.

Seriously, I'm surprising the hell out of myself with this newfound stamina. Two days of information overload, packing and no sleep, and I still managed to complete three one-hour car trips. And am still fairly awake, if unhappily so. Badass level of stamina, people.

Maybe I should grow a beard.

I couldn't find her car harness, but Elsa knows how to ride in a car. She sat obligingly in the passenger seat, but was visibly nervous. So when she inched over to ask for affection, she got it, and alternated between staring out the windows and sleeping with her head in my lap. It was the first time she'd really asked for reassurance, and while it did freak me out a little bit, I was super impressed that she understands car manners enough to know to ask rather than bulldoze into the driver's lap.

She was super ecstatic to arrive at my parents' place, as it's the land of Grandma and Grandpa Have All the Best Parties. She ran around in their huge gardens, scaring moles and bees and being a general terror until I brought her inside and kicked the cats out of my bedroom. In went her kennel, litterbox and toy bucket, and somehow she just knows that this time was different. Instead of tearing through the house like she normally does, she only went a few feet beyond the bedroom door before ducking back in and crawling into her kennel. Even now, the only time she's spent out in the living room (previously her favorite place to rampage) has been velcroed to my feet and being extraordinarily clingy.

Maybe she's just tired.

Or maybe she understands a lot more than I give her credit for.