The Roads Home

Patrick and Shelby were the first of the travelers to move on. They left Tuesday around 10 AM.

They'd brought one of their cats this year, but the only time I saw him was on his way out the door!

Shelby left us with parting gifts: Homemade face masks! She'd made one for Shane that had shoestrings instead of elastic for the ears to make it more comfortable if he had to wear it at school. Any other year, it'd seem an odd gift craft. This year, it could be life saver.

They went home to power problems, work, and summer classes.

Dennis and Melissa were the next to say farewell. They made their exit Tuesday around noon.

Kyle stayed until Wednesday.

The boys went out on the porch to see him off.

It's always a blast when the clan gets together. It's a challenge to make schedules fit, but we all do what we can. It's one of the ways you know it's important to all of us.

Shane and I headed out Friday at noon. I didn't want to hit traffic and tolls like last year.

Our first bit of drama hit only 5 minutes away from the beach house! I got a low tire pressure warning. I stopped at not one, not two, but three gas stations. The air pumps were broke at the first two places. I didn't want to go inside, but I had to if I wanted my quarters back for whenever I found a working pump!

I was able to find a mostly working pump right before we hopped on the interstate. The pressure gauge stuck and didn't read right, so I don't know which tire was low. I put enough air into all of them the warning faded and we were on our way.....right into traffic.

Thankfully, the roads cleared up after the tunnel. We made a pitstop for gas near New Kent and made it home with a little less than an hour added to the journey. We finished our book The Great Treehouse War somewhere near Richmond.

Shane got to meet the surprise kittens after we hugged Carrie.

They were curious about him.

I stayed outside (achoo!).

Loki was really happy to see us. Carrie said that he stayed glued to her side the whole week.

Carrie celebrated our return with sukiyaki for dinner. She was frazzled and exhausted from the week and us being away, but happy we were home.

The animals were happy to see us as well! They were all around as I cleaned up.

And so another beach trip ended. There were some "Hey, you all feeling healthy?" texts a couple weeks later and I'm happy to say everyone was fine. If anything, Carrie is talking about coming with us to visit Nana and Pop in SC later this summer!