1500 miles...

David and I spent over two hours on Skype talking to Andy and Kira tonight, and Ethan joined us for a while at the end. We got to do a three-way conference call. It was pretty cool. The unfortunate thing about this is that the conference calling isn't free. I'm not sure yet if we all have to pay for it, or if just one account is needed. I guess I'll have to check this out.
I google mapped the driving directions from Andy's apartment to the Phoenix Zoo and the miles they quoted me was 1570 miles. That is one heck of a long ways apart, but through the miracle of technology, we were all able to see one another. We were even able to take a screen snapshot, and I just may have to use it as our Christmas cards. Both kids took us on a tour of their apartments by walking their laptops around with the webcam capturing their everyday lives.
I really thought I was taking their absence quite well, considering that this is the first that Andy has lived away from home, and Kira and I did tons of things together when she was home. I realized that wasn't true two weeks ago at choir practice. We were singing a Christmas song, 'Gloria in Excelsis Deo' and I got to that line and couldn't sing anymore. I was immediately transported to one of the pews in the front of Parkway UCC, on Christmas Eve, standing with Andy to my right and Kira to my left and we were singing that song, and the lower part of my mouth started to quiver and I got tears in my eyes. Geez, I'm not certain that I will be able to sing any of the Christmas Carols. Thank God I don't have to sing 'O Holy Night', because even though I sang it as a solo several times, the duet that Kira and I sang was very, very special, not to mention, really, really fun to do. This will be a year of change for the Christmas Eve service. We have a new minister, and taking out 'O Holy Night' and maybe the pageant will be something totally different, which I think needs to happen. We'll come up with something quite special and beautiful and meaningful to give people peace and comfort. I'm looking forward to hopefully being able to brainstorm some ideas for a superb service.
Andy's plane arrives Christmas Eve morning and of course I will be at work. I won't get to see him until he walks into church that evening, unless of course, he stops by the hospital to say hi on his way home from the airport.
We plan on Skyping Kira Christmas Eve, if I had an iPhone, I could Skype the church service too, maybe Andy could!!