Our Triumphant Travels (Days 1,2, and 3)

I wish I would have blogged our travels south. I seemed a bit busier traveling this time as compared when I traveled alone back in May. Anyway, here I am. Here we are. I have only written once since my last blog 22 days ago when we had stopped for the night in Portland, ME. That was half way to my parents and it had taken us 10 hours to get there. There were no issues crossing the border. Our new RAV4 performed spectacularly and I was pleasantly surprised at how well it did on gas. We could drive for five hours before having to fill up!

Along the way we paid some respects with a moment of silence:

The boys were in awe over the bridges we crossed – The Tappan Zee and the Delaware Memorial.

Now, on to the good stuff. We arrived at Nana and Pop Pop’s house shortly after 6pm on a Wednesday.

What a welcome sight! Finally here!

They were keeping tabs on us through Waze – a navigation app for the cell phone. (That, in itself was fun. It gave us directions and warnings in the voice of Arnold Schwarzenegger. If he warned us of “danger” he would follow it up with “GET DOWN!”. Naturally, Bang would make us duck each time.) We arrived to hugs from Nana and Pop Pop, my brother- Uncle B, sister in law- Aunt Sara and their two kids O and KK. Inside, they had taped off the doorway with streamers for Crash and Bang to run through and tear down, which they did in glorious fashion. O and KK had even made a sign “Welcome home family”. Then we sat down to a spaghetti supper followed by minion cupcakes for dessert!

Crash and Bang were excited to see their cousins. They hadn’t seen Crash for 5 years (O was only 6 months old last time) and no one other than Nana and Pop Pop had met Bang. So naturally, they got to stay up late. By 10pm all the kiddies were finally asleep.

Thursday morning Pop Pop made us all waffles for breakfast. Then we headed to the park. It’s the same park I played at 25-30 years ago except it received a major overhaul since the last time I played there. It was a beautiful park with some really neat equipment for the kids (myself included) to play on. It had cushion foam matting for flooring, too! Unfortunately, it wasn’t made quite level with the ground surrounding it. Nana stepped off one piece of equipment and rolled her ankle. When she tried to catch herself with her other foot she overcompensated. She heard something crack or pop and she fell. O saw her and said “Aaaand, she’s down”. Sara had gone back to the house to get my parents truck and upon her return Nana was taken to get x-rays.

Meanwhile, the rest of us continued to play on the playground and take a bit of wiffle ball hitting practice with the kids. We returned home for lunch and we heard from Nana and Sara – it was a spiral fracture of her fibula. She came home in a boot and on crutches. We spent the remainder of the day hanging around the house, preparing for supper and playing with nieces and nephews we hadn’t seen for five years.

It was so great to be home. It was the first time we’d had the whole family together. Five years ago we hadn’t been complete. Now that we were, it was pure joy to have us all together. Even if one of us had a broken ankle.

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P.S. I’ve been out of blogging action for 3 weeks now. In that time I have still been receiving comments and followers. For this, I am grateful. I am grateful for and appreciate all of my followers. However, these eight have chosen to follow my blog with the assumption that I will return. They have liked what I have written enough to take the gamble on my return. I thank them. The rest of you, I welcome your return with an open blog.

Island Traveler
SVEGLIATI CARA
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Fashionable Librarian
S. Robert Cyre
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jodaley
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