Sadly, my brother’s family leaves to return to Minnesota today. It has been one of the best visits ever. After days of tournament style croquet with matches lasting well past darkness and finished under the illumination of car headlights the score between teams is dead even with all players having reached rover status. Rory and Nicolai in particular have made some truly unbelieveable long distance snipes to keep their respective teams in the hunt. As time runs out we convince the boys to settle for a tie and to resume the competition on their next visit. We have all enjoyed Sophia and Rose but none more than Maya who was both big sister and mother to them for much of the week. We all missed Mark and hope to see him on our next gathering.