---

Where does the time go?
My mother used to tell me all the time, "As you get older, the time goes by even faster."
Back then, when I was still wet behind the ears, but considered myself way wiser than my mother, I thought she was feeding me a line of malarkey.
Today, I know she was only speaking the truth.
Birthdays come around before you realize you just celebrated your last one.
Christmas seems like it happens once a month when you hit middle-age.
And time sure flies by when you host a family of friends for a mere two weeks.
It seems like it was just yesterday when I was sitting at Baggage Claim 12 waiting for our friends to get off their plane from Wales. Well, actually they arrived from Wales via Pittsburgh.
What a whirlwind two weeks it has been.
When Gwenno and Gwion and their adorable daughter, Anni, planned their trip, the one thing they wanted to do was help with harvest on our farm. Well, Gwenno wanted to milk cows too.
Who could ask for better guests?
Every morning at 5 a.m. sharp, either Gwenno or Gwion would show up to help us with the cows. Geez, if they had stayed just one more week, Steve and I could have slept in for a few days.
Gwenno, of course, is familiar with milking. She learned that valuable life skill when she spent the summer of 2004 with us. It also helped her win the Welsh reality television series Farm Factor milking competition. She now drives around the curvy roads of Wales in a new Isuzu pickup truck.
I tried convincing Gwion to move the entire family to America the first morning he helped milk. He knew how to drive the skid loader and loader tractor.
Steve even let Gwion load bales on the semi-trailer from the field.
"He's an old pro," Steve said.
I wouldn't consider Gwion old. He is, after all, only 30 years old. He has the work ethic of Steve. Drives both me and Gwenno crazy at times.
One day, we took our visitors to Sleepy Eye for a field demonstration put on by Miller Sellner Implement. They took all their biggest, shiniest tractors and implements out to the field and let non-red driving people test drive the tractors.
Naturally, Gwion was not going to purchase a massive tractor. I mean, these tractors would practically cover an entire field in Wales in two passes. If you were to meet one on a Welsh road, while driving your blue Volkswagen Jetta, you could consider yourself a pancake.
Gwion and Anni were all smiles as Gwion drove the larger-than-life tractors up and down the field.
Kudos to Miller Sellner for teaching Gwion how to drive one.
Anni has been such a delight to get to know. Yes, even though she is entering her Terrible Twos and starting to demand a little independence, she can still win over anyone's heart. Those big brown eyes just obliterate a person's resolve.
For instance, people always tell me, "You could ride that dog," when looking at our Great Dane, Lilly.
Well, Anni did just that. Lilly was lying on the floor all content and happy. Little Anni sat on Lilly's back, grabbed the collar and started hopping up and down on the dog saying, "Gigi." (That's what she calls horses. I never did ask if it was the real Welsh word for horse.)
And here it is, just days before our familial friends head back to their home country of Wales.
I have already shed a tear when we talked about how close Monday morning actually is from today.
I know it's going to be a while before we get to sit at a table and share food, laughs and stories.
And that makes me sad.
Time just moves way too fast.[[In-content Ad]]

---