I'm back!

In more ways than one.

I hadn't realized that it was so long since I posted, wow.  Skipping over lots that has occurred since then, I do want to highlight a few points.  In May, my Jerry's oldest grandchild graduated highschool and is now starting college.  Oh my!  I remember nine year old him, coming over to help PawPaw by picking up around the yard, fallen limbs and branches, raking together trimmings from the hedges, and hauling it all to the burn pile.  Obviously, he's grown lots over the past nine years, but wow...it's amazing to see where he is now in life, the person he has grown to be.

Over the summer, Jerry's youngest came to stay with us for awhile.  She's graduating college this fall and usually takes most of her classes online.  But there are times when she takes some in the classroom.  This summer, she took a couple classes and we got to spend time with the youngest grandchild, who turned two in July.  Talk about changes!  A baby's growth truly is mind blowing.

Also during this summer, we went to visit Jerry's sons.   His youngest son is in the military and his family was getting ready to leave Florida and move to Virginia.  It was great to be able to spend a few days with them and to see how their toddler has become a little girl.  Today, she turns four!

Jerry's oldest son and his family are in their new home on the coast; far enough inland to survive most of the storms' flooding, I think.  His wife is due to deliver next month, a lil girl, which will be a bit different for them as they've had almost nine years with their son.

A few weeks ago, we visited with my husband's daughter in Portland.  While there, I met up with a college friend from back in the day, whose daughter is a senior in highschool.  *sigh* It feels so odd to be in this age bracket {"welcome to my box", I think as I check off the appropriate category on surveys}.

It's great to know that everyone is doing fine, for the most part, in all aspects.  Sure, there are some things that can be better, there always is.  But there are many things that could be worse.  And for the most part, I think everyone is happy and healthy.  So that's awesome.

The other way that I'm back, is because we just returned home from a three week long, 7200 mile trip.  It's the trip I want to focus the next few blog entries on, so get ready for some stories, some pictures, and plenty of good times.

A few months ago, when we began planning our trip; we started with listing a few sites we wanted to visit, places to go, things to see, and used this to help us map out our trip.  My Scenic Drives has lots of neat features, some of which I relied on while planning and some I used heavily afterward.  And it's free, so yea!

We also used airbnb for finding places to bunk down for the night, or in a few cases, two.  We were able to find exactly what we wanted, where we wanted, for the price range we wanted.  We also learned a thing or two about our preferences {private bathroom, please} and what works for us {flexible check in and check out times}.   Overall, we were extremely pleased and recommend the service to others; we'll be using it again, for sure.

So I'll probably either do each day as an entry or post various portions of the trip together.  But here's a general picture of the overall trip: