Bittersweet Musings from VA

Well, it hasn't been a full month yet since I've been here at the blog.  I'm on a roll!

We've been a tad busy since we returned from our summer up north, tending to our Oyster Haven rental house and visiting with my mom and other relatives who still live in the NY town where my husband and I grew up and met in high school.  We've been to some grandkids' soccer games since we got back, helped one of our sons with his basement finishing project, done a bit of babysitting...in a nutshell, we are right back in the swing things.  Such is our life here in VA, and it is a good one.

We stay most of the summer in my husband's childhood home just down the road from Oyster Haven, which he and his seven siblings put into an LLC in 2009 when their mom died (their dad had passed away in 2003).  They all wanted to hang onto it, because not only is it a big, lovely house, but Lake Champlain is right out in the back yard.  The location is almost too good to be true.  And it's such a great meeting place for the far-flung eight siblings.  Well, they used to be far-flung...two of my husband's sisters have houses almost next-door to where they grew up, where they live full-time now; and two other sisters have bought houses in the neighborhood as well, which are mostly vacation homes at present.  But I digress.

Anyway, the idea of keeping a beloved home in the family touches me deeply.  Not one of my husband's siblings can fathom a world wherein someone else owns that house.  (I'm a bit attached to it, too, as I can still remember all the time I spent there as a kid, throughout high school, when I was dating my husband.) It was so worth it to them to keep it in the family that they bought an investment property out in South Bend some years back, to rent out for Notre Dame football weekends, in order to have the extra income needed for the upkeep and taxes at the family homestead in NY. (They recently sold that South Bend property and put all the proceeds into the LLC, and just let me put it this way: that house, which was within walking distance to the football field, was an exceptionally wise investment!)

It's easy to fall in love with a house when it contains so many happy memories and reminds us of the ones we love most every time we walk in the door.  We had such a house in NH, a Colonial beauty where we lived for 26 years and raised our five sons.  Our oldest was only half-way through first grade when we bought it, and our youngest had yet to be born.  It was a "forever home" type of house--not on a lake, but on a quiet cul-de-sac street in a sweet New England town, with deer-filled woods behind it and vast green yards in both front and back.  I loved that house.  We all loved that house.

Okay, looking for the above photo of our NH house (I got out my flash drives to hunt it down!) led me to this oldie-but-goodie, one of the pre-digital age grainy snapshots with which most of my photo albums are filled.  These faces!!  [sob]  If only you could more clearly see how ridiculously cute these boys are.

That picture was taken in the family room just a few years after we moved into that house, on the occasion of son #2's First Holy Communion.  Excuse me...now I need a tissue.  Be right back.

Okay, moving on!

Once our boys all graduated from college and went off into their grown-up lives, we still thought we might hang onto the NH house, that it would be our home base when we weren't traveling to see kids living in different states.  After he got his masters, our second-oldest was living about an hour away, working as a high school math teacher, and he had no plans to relocate; we figured as long as we had even one son close by, we would stay put.  But then he met his future wife at his brother's wedding in 2013 (he was a groomsman; she was a former college classmate and bridesmaid), and before long, he was moving to VA, where his wife grew up.  And where he had two brothers who had also settled in VA, about an hour-and-a-half away from his new home.

So--by 2014, we had three out of five sons living near each other in VA, our oldest married and living out in the Midwest, and our youngest still in college (but planning to go Army active duty and be stationed who-knows-where after graduation), and we had no one (not even any extended family) living in NH.  We were almost always on a plane or on a road trip to visit our boys, and we were hardly ever there.  It didn't seem like the place for us anymore.  Where would we end up?

By happenstance, we stumbled upon our Oyster Haven house when we were up visiting family in NY during the summer of 2015 and saw the "For Sale" sign as we drove by it.  We decided we would buy it and rent it out until my husband retired, and then we'd sell our NH house and that would become our new home base. 

But God had other plans for us... 

Here we are in 2017, after we'd purchased our house in VA--taking a tour of it with two of our boys and their wives, who live about 35-40 minutes away from us and only minutes from each other.  We originally thought we might have to rent this house out until we could sell our beloved NH house; but that same day, we found out that our NH house had sold--without ever having to be listed--for the price we were asking. (Everything was falling into place in the most perfect way!  There's a bit of a long story involved, and I don't want to tell it again; but if you're interested, you can read about it here.)

Anyway, I guess I'm feeling a bit nostalgic today!  The whole reason I started writing this post--before going down a rabbit hole of memories--was to talk about how fast time seems to be flying since we've become Virginians, and how in the seven-and-a-half years we've lived here, so much has changed.  We had seven grandchildren when we moved into our new house; today, we have 22 (with another on the way). I believe our daughter-in-law Braveheart (the one in the brown coat in the above pic) had just recently found out that the baby she was carrying was actually TRIPLETS.  2017 was to be a banner year: we moved, and we also welcomed five new little ones, the triplets plus two others.  It was some year indeed.  And the ones following have been very full of grandchildren and other blessings as well--such as having son #1 move to the area, shortly after we arrived, and live nearby for over four years with his growing family.  (For that stretch, we had four out of five boys here in VA, and all of our grandkids!)  It has been a ride, let me tell you.

Sometimes lately, I find myself having bittersweet feelings; I love seeing our grandchildren grow and mature, yet I want time to slow down a bit!  When we moved here, most of them were available to come to Papa and Grammy's house for frequent playdates and family get-togethers, as they were either homeschooled or too young to be in school yet.  But you know how it is once they reach a certain age; the school year starts, and suddenly there are so many activities: clubs and team sports and weekend birthday parties for classmates and so much more.  It has become challenging trying to get all three families that live nearby to our house at the same time, because they've all got so much going on in their lives.  (Which, don't get me wrong, I know is good!  Believe me, we were there once.) 

So imagine my joy this past Sunday, when all three VA families (three couples and their 14 children) were able to come over for brunch/lunch/early dinner.  I was so excited about it that I spent all day Saturday cooking and baking.

My husband started to warn me that I was going overboard and we were never going to eat it all, but then he said he stopped himself because he could see how happy the process of getting ready for our little party was making me.  (He was right on both counts!  I was happy.  And yes, we didn't eat even half of what I set out; but I filled lots of to-go containers and made everyone take almost all of the leftovers home with them.)

This has gone on too long, I suppose.  So I'll sign off here.  But not before I add a few photos from our sweet Sunday get-together. 

You cannot even imagine how happy it makes me to see these cousins hanging out together at our house!

And to see adorable little peeps like this guy eating at our table.

  

And as always, I love it when our grown-up kids can sometimes take advantage of the opportunity to snag a much-needed cat-nap on our living room couch!

Our VA living room is very small, much smaller than the one in NH.  But it's cozy.

I have a few more things to say about our old house vs. our new one.  But I'm going to save that for another day!  (You're welcome!  Ha ha!)

The Many Blessings of Our Life in VA

I have gotten to the point where I can't imagine not having made our big move to VA.  Back in 2016, when we were celebrating our last Christmas in the NH house where we'd raised our boys, it was somewhat heartbreaking imagining a different sort of home.  How could we be as happy anywhere else?  How could another house ever mean the same to us?  After all, we'd been in that one for 26 years and we'd put so much sweat equity (and love) into making it just right for us.  It was filled with wonderful memories.

But when we moved in early 2017, we knew that eventually, we would make many new memories down here.  And that this would become our home.

Well, that definitely happened.  Hoo boy, did it happen! I can no longer imagine what our life would be like if we didn't live here, near three of our five sons and their families.  Just this past week, look at all we would have missed.

On Tuesday, we went to the kindergarten graduation of four of our grandchildren.  Son #3's daughter (the middle child of his five) and son #4's triplets (two boys and a girl) had their end-of-year ceremony at their Catholic grade school, and my husband and I were there in attendance.

The kids were adorable, needless to say.  But I thought MY kids (the doting dads taking videos of their kids singing) were equally adorable.

Two of the triplets were classmates this past year (one of the boys and the girl); and one of the triplet boys was his cousin's classmate.  He excitedly pointed at her once, at pick-up time, and told his mom, "That's [her name]! I know her from school!"  True story.  They've been playmates and practically neighbors since infancy. Hilarious.

Classmates/cousins.

The Kindergarten Crew.

If we still lived in NH, I doubt we would have flown down for this occasion.  We would probably save those sorts of travels for major events, like First Holy Communions.  But being here, we can easily attend all the grandkids' special events, big and small.

Two days after the graduation, my husband and I started some home improvement projects for son #4 and his wife Braveheart.  They just bought a new house, and before they move their things in, they wanted to get some painting done.  My husband even got up on some super-high and quite terrifying scaffolding (while I took care of some things down low, where I could keep my feet firmly planted on terra firma.  #fearofheights).

Braveheart came by with all the kids while we were working, and I got this selfie with the youngest of their four (who calls herself an "honorary triplet").  People say she looks like me...but I'm not sure.  She does definitely look like her daddy at that age.

It's such a joy to see our boys living near enough to each other to be an integral part of each other's lives.

Son #3's hard-working wife Preciosa was the real estate agent who found this dream house for son #4's family and helped them negotiate the deal.  And she and son #3 decided to give son #4's family a generous housewarming gift: a trampoline for their awesome new back yard.  Because we live nearby, my husband was able to help his boy assemble it on Wednesday, and he and I were able to be there when the kids first discovered this amazing surprise gift from their aunt and uncle the next day.

I love this big-hearted boy.  And his dad.

Last night, after an exhausting day of painting, my best guy and I came home to our little VA doll house (although smaller than our NH house, it's really not all that small; but it's a sweet little place and I often think of it in those terms) and headed out to the patio on the side of our house.  We sat together on one of the bench gliders by the fire pit, sipping cocktails.  (You can have a date at your own house!  It's relaxing...and cheaper than going out!) We were sitting there talking about how as long as we were together, we could live pretty much anywhere; and how great it was that we could live here, where we can help some of our boys out and enjoy lots of time with them and their families. (We'd like to have all five living nearby; but we'll take what we can get!)

Today, I'm going to watch son #4's kiddos, so he and Braveheart can get a lot of packing done at their old house.  Again, this is something I probably wouldn't have been able to do if we hadn't made our big move.

Leaving that NH house was quite painful at first, and a real exercise in detachment from the things of this world; but we have been so extraordinarily blessed since the move.  Life is so good here.  

I give Mary, and the daily Rosaries we say to Her, all the credit.

  

Thank you, Mother!

Have a wonderful weekend, dear readers!

Our Walls Do Talk

My husband and I are about to leave our VA home for the summer and head to upstate NY, to the town where we grew up and met.  To the place where our story started 50 years ago. 

I’m excited to escape the extreme VA heat and humidity and spend the summer months on the refreshing lake, boating and swimming (when it finally gets warm enough for this old lady to dip her toes in there!), seeing my mom and lots of siblings on both sides, hosting our kids and grandkids for a vacation week in July at our Oyster Haven rental property.  

But I will miss the kids and grandkids who are our “neighbors” down here (not exactly next-door neighbors, but close enough)—three of our married boys and the 13-soon-to-be-14 children they have between them.  I love having so much of my family within striking distance.  (I want them ALL that close, but I’ll take what I can get!!)

I’ll even miss our sweet little house here, though it doesn’t have a lake view out the back windows—and in fact, it doesn’t even have much of a yard at all around it. We make do, as you can see from these photos taken the other day at a playdate with son #4’s wife and four kiddos.

Most of the walls in my house are gallery walls, eclectic groupings of artwork and memorabilia that “command attention and showcase our fondest family memories” (that’s what the Internet says these sorts of walls are supposed to do, and that description seems to fit!).  My walls look randomly designed (and they are constantly evolving and changing); but they are tied together by the fact that everything I hang up on them has special meaning.  Every piece has a story behind it, and all together, our crowded walls tell the story of our life.

This little section of wall in my kitchen is one of my favorites.

This wall includes canvas photo copies of the pigs I'd painted onto the kitchen walls of our NH house over 30 years ago.  I had to roll a nice neutral gray-colored paint over my precious pigs to make things fresh for the new owners when we moved away in 2017, but I made sure to take pictures before I started that sad task.  And those canvases were among the first items I hung up when we got to our new house.  Notice also the two cartoon drawings son #4 (a very talented artist) did for us as gifts, one of our five boys and the other of my husband and me.  There's the Bigfoot sign I painted for my dad years ago as a Christmas gift ("Bigfoot" was the name his grandkids all called him, per his request!).  That little sign came back to me when he died in 2016.  There's a clock I had made with an image of the cover of Finding Grace (you can do just about anything with photos these days, can't you?). The tiny embroidery piece was handcrafted by one of my twin granddaughters, who is 12 now, as a gift for me a few years ago.  (The little wooden frame?  It originally held a tiny oil painting that I made for my own grandmother many decades ago, a gift that came back to me when she died. Talk about history repeating itself!)  See that small framed print of an old brick building? That's the high school where my husband and I met as freshmen, way back in 1972.  It's since been torn down and I'm so glad to have this image of it!  The small wooden cross with the beautiful scroll work on it was given as a favor at a wedding we attended about a year ago at our parish here in VA.  (We have friends!  We're making connections, when I never thought we would do that after our big move to a new town--and a new state-- at a relatively late stage of life!). And finally, the cutting board is a gift from our youngest son.  It is engraved with our last name and these words: "Together is our favorite place to be."  Truer words were never spoken.  (And my boys are the sweetest, most thoughtful gift-givers.)

Can you see why I love that gallery wall so much?  Since it's in the room where I spend the bulk of my time each day, I look at it often.  It always makes me happy.

I have a passion for collecting transferware and vintage souvenir plates, so many of my walls have plates hanging on them.  But they can't just be pretty; they have to be meaningful to me as well, as these two in the family room most definitely are.  The top one is a souvenir from a Bavarian town where our youngest son lived for three years when he was in the Army.  While he was stationed there, I was able to stay for a prolonged visit with him at his apartment, located right in the center of town, and I fell in love with that area of Germany.  The other plate shows a map of another place near and dear to my heart, of course: the state of NH, where we lived for more than a quarter of a century and did most of the raising of our sons.

On the table: a picture from our trip to Rome in March of 2019, standing 
in front of the Spanish Steps.

The other neat thing on that wall is the framed map of Lake Champlain.  We grew up near that lake and we spend our summers there, so my husband and I love having this reminder hanging on a wall of our VA home.  And of course, there's the requisite nod to Irish culture, the Claddagh wall hanging.

The man of the house has a recliner chair on one side of the room, and this is what the wall next to that chair looks like.  I don't really have to tell you why I love it so much, do I?  I mean, is there anything better than family photos? This wall also has the sweet sign our middle son's wife made for us one Christmas--it might have been the first Christmas we celebrated in VA.  It says, "Papa & Grammy's House, WHERE COUSINS BECOME FRIENDS."  That pretty much sums up why we moved here in the first place and what we hope this house will accomplish!  (Please note the clock, too, a gift I gave my husband: it's an Irish pub clock that says, "DANCING, SINGING, CARRYING ON--CLOSED DURNG MASS."  That was a must-have because we love all things Irish, and that includes Notre Dame football.) 

Over on the other side of the room, where I have a big overstuffed chair and ottoman, this is what my wall looks like. Pictures of our boys, pictures of them with their wives on their wedding days...it doesn't get much better than that.

The best wall of all is in our living room, though: that is where we showcase the ever-expanding gallery of canvas portraits of our beloved grandchildren.  Each little person's adorable mug is added when he or she turns one (a favorite age of ours), so only 19 of the 20 (almost 21!) are up there so far.

We do have some lovely religious artwork in our house as well (a subject for a future post, perhaps?), and a few other pieces of art that speak to me in a special way.  But family photos and memorabilia take up most of the wall space.

I'll be missing these busy but comforting walls, and the tales they tell about our life together, when we're away for the next few months.  But I'm also looking forward to spending most of the summer (when we're not at our Oyster Haven house) surrounded by the walls of my husband's beloved childhood home, where we spent so much of our time when we were young and just starting out.  Those walls do a lot of talking, too, and they've got some great stories to tell.  

We should be packed up and on the road to NY by Sunday or Monday.  But first, some babysitting!  We are going over to the house of son #2 tonight for a sleepover, to be there for their four boys when Mom and Dad leave tomorrow morning to have their new baby.  Our daughter-in-law is scheduled to be induced rather early.  Any prayers you could offer up would be appreciated!  And I'll let you know how it all went, and whether we've got a new granddaughter or a new grandson!

A Poignant Lesson about Dealing with Loss

Those of you who've been following along here for a long time (hi, my handful of faithful readers!), or those who might have only stumbled upon this humble little blog in the last few years or so, know that my husband and I made a big move south in March of 2017.  (It's a recurring topic here at String o' Pearls; but old folks like me tend to repeat their stories, as you might have heard.)  We left our longtime home in NH, where we'd lived in the same house for 26 years, and moved to a small town in Northern VA.  Three of our five sons had moved to the same area (two of them are practically next door neighbors, and the third lives less than two hours north of them), and they appeared to be putting down permanent roots; so after much soul searching (and much encouragement from the most loving peanut gallery imaginable), we decided to relocate.  We realized that if no one was going to be moving back to the Northeast, our home in NH didn't make much sense anymore...and we found a perfect little town as close to midway as possible between the two places where our VA boys lived and bought a house there.  At the time, we had ten grandchildren with a couple more on the way, and six of them were in VA.  With 3/5 of our sons and more than half of our grandchildren in the same vicinity, it appeared to be as perfect a situation as we could hope to expect.

Our oldest son and his wife and four little girls were living in the Midwest, near her parents.  We figured they would end up settling down out there.  Our youngest son was still single and in the Army, stationed in Germany, and we didn't know where he would end up when all was said and done.  But still, three out of five ain't bad, right?  The decision to move seemed like a no-brainer.

We had a few months in VA getting our new nest feathered, and then we went up to NY, where we spent the summer escaping the VA heat, enjoying Lake Champlain, and managing our Oyster Haven VRBO rental property.  And what do you know: during that time, our firstborn decided to make a radical career change that would have him working out of DC before too long...and living a stone's throw from us.  So when we returned from NY in early September, his wife and four daughters moved in with us while he finished his training.  Within a few months, they'd found a sweet old farmhouse to rent, and it was less than 20 minutes from our house!

A quick aside here: our fourth son's triplets were born right about the time our oldest son's family came to VA. Things got really busy really fast, I'll tell you!

I believe that there was some divine intervention at play with our move, I really do.  We sold our NH house for the full asking price without ever having to put it on the market and found the perfect cozy house in our new VA town, where we could become a central meeting place for our ever-growing family. We didn't initially win the bidding war for this house, but then got it because the other buyer's deal fell through.  Everything just fell into place.  I believe that God arranged things so that we could have not just three but all four of our sons who were married at the time and all of our grandchildren living so close to us that we could be a part of their daily lives.  It's been almost too good to be true.

In the almost five years that we've lived in VA, seven more grandchildren have been added to our string of Pearls, and two more will make an appearance in the coming months.  Our youngest son has gotten out of the Army and is married now.  It's just been an amazing time for our family.

Cue the deep sigh here...because life throws you curve balls, and change is inevitable. Our oldest son has switched companies and is going to be based in Iowa now, so just after the New Year he and his wife had to pack up and move back out to the Midwest.  They bought a charming farmhouse with more than four acres of land--and they are our aspiring homesteaders, so they plan to get chickens and sheep (which they had here in VA) and maybe even a cow! For our son, as far as job satisfaction and quality of life (time at home with his family!), this is just the best move ever. But when he and Regina and their five kids took off in their packed-to-the-gills minivan last Saturday, we felt a bit bereft. That, my friends, was a tough goodbye.

This feels like an enormous loss for my husband and me.  I get weepy-eyed often, trying to adjust to the reality that they won't be a stone's throw from us anymore, that when we say goodbye to them now and they ask "When will we see you again?" it might not be for months.  (Every single time they left our house when they lived near us here, they would ask that.  And it was never more than a few days until we saw them again--a week at most.)  We are going to miss them all so much...but I guess I should dry my tears, since we are planning to drive out to Iowa pretty soon, to help out in the week or two leading up to the birth of baby #6, who's due in early February.

ANYWAY--

I've been way too long-winded with my lead-up here.  I wanted to share something amazing that happened today, but I wanted to make sure you knew just how timely this occurrence was, given my current emotional state.

Our oldest son's four girls (aged 6-10) are doll fanatics. They have American Girl dolls, baby dolls, and porcelain dolls, and they are all played with regularly. Recently I was making a drop-off at Goodwill and I decided to pop in and see what they had.  There was a shelf piled high with porcelain dolls, so I combed through them and found three really pretty ones that were in great shape, priced between $5 and $8, and I decided that I would get them; as long as I could find a fourth, I thought I would bring them out with me when we go to Iowa, as housewarming presents for my favorite doll enthusiasts.

I went to another thrift store (one that I used to frequent with Regina...sniff!), and my search paid off.  I found a never-played-with Little Dutch Girl doll, still in the box with a Royalton Collection brand tag, with her arms and legs still protected by bubble wrap.  Her white garments had some brown mildew or age stains on them, but I spot-cleaned them and she looked terrific.

Today I was about to throw away the box that the Little Dutch Girl doll had come in, but as I turned it over, I saw that there was an exceedingly poignant hand-written message on it.

In case you have trouble reading it, here's what it says:

9/20/98

This is Autum's [sic] Birth Day Doll from Nana--

I will love you baby until my eyes close in death, 

and will always be reminded of the little girl I was

robbed of--

God love you, watch over and keep you 

is my heart's cry to God--

My love

Nana

Oh. my. goodness!  This is so sad...but if there was ever a time that I needed to see what real loss would be like, this is it.  

Did Nana buy this doll for her granddaughter's birthday, even though the little one had already died? Is that why it was like new in the box?  My heart aches for the poor woman who wrote this note!

I will miss my babies terribly.  But I will be able to see them--maybe not as often as I'd like, but I will... unlike this poor grieving grandmother!  If this Nana is still alive, I pray that God has given her solace and peace! And if she's not, I hope she's been reunited with her beloved little darling in Heaven.

Even though five (soon to be six) of our grandchildren will be living a two-day drive away from us, Papa and Grammy still have a very full, very grandchild-rich life in VA.  Just this past week, we had dinner at son #2's house one night, with his four little guys (I forgot to take any pictures). 

Another night, we watched son #3's sweet five-year-old daughter overcome her initial shyness to cheer with her squad on the sidelines at her Christian school's varsity girls' basketball game.

One morning, we babysat for the cheerleader’s two younger sisters while her mom had a 28-week sonogram to check on her baby brother.

We had son #4's four little ones over for two daytime playdates.

"Santa!"

All that in just one week.  How extraordinarily fortunate am I?

I know that I can't even begin to imagine what true suffering, the kind described in that heart-breaking note on the box, is like.  Nevertheless, I reserve the right to feel sad about what we've lost.  Lucky for me, though, there are still plenty of adorable little folks nearby who can help Grammy to remember how very blessed she is!

Happy Birthday to Our Middle Son

Son #3 turned 35 today.  What?! How is this possible? Because "just the other day" (to borrow my mother's term for anything that happened before this very moment), he was a newborn baby coming into the world five days early at 9 lbs. 13 oz. and 22 inches.  He was a long and lanky baby.  And his father and I were just a couple of babies ourselves, not quite 28...which means that—oh my goodness!—we were seven years younger than he is now!  It's unfathomable.

His was an easy labor and delivery, despite his size—for me, at least.  For him, it included getting momentarily stuck, because of his unusually broad shoulders, and almost having to have them broken by the doctor so that he could make his way safely through the birth canal.  But other than that brief scare, it went amazingly smoothly.

A couple of grainy 1986 snapshots from our boy's early days.  
(What I would have given for an ever-handy cell phone camera
 and the color and clarity of 21st-century digital photography!)

Those words, "amazingly smoothly," kind of describe how his life has gone ever since.  He was always a happy kid, always liked to see the good in every person and every situation.  He always had a lot of friends in school, with his optimistic, glass-is-half-full attitude, his passion for anything sports-related, and his winning smile.  He was a joy to raise, and it has been a joy watching him in the role of Dada (he is as hands-on as they come) the past six years, raising his own brood of four with his lovely wife Preciosa.

Our middle-born is about 6'3" and a lot more filled-out than he was back in the day; but he's still kind of lanky, even though he's not the skinny, knobby-kneed lad he once was.  ([Sniff!] I remember that sweet little guy so well!)  He often cooks for his kids and oversees their bath time; he changes diapers like a boss and creates his family’s Shutterfly photo books every year (he likes archiving memories—I think he got that from his mom!); he’s an assistant t-ball coach for his two oldest kids' team; and along with other impressive DIY projects, he puts up shiplap walls.  He is a jack of many trades these days.  He is also unfailingly good to his father and me, and is clearly happy to have us living just over a half-hour away, where we can be a part of his and his family's everyday life in VA.

This was taken about a week ago, after his oldest daughter's
pre-K end-of-year show.

About a year before we made the decision to sell our house in NH and head to VA, son #3 and Preciosa emailed us a 15-page powerpoint presentation, complete with pictures and professional-looking graphics, enumerating all the compelling reasons why we should move south.  I shrank each page to the size of a wallet photo so that I could frame the entire document, which hangs in the stairwell on the way to the basement in the VA house we bought in 2017. Every time I pass by and see it, I am reminded that we are just where we're meant to be, and that we are beyond blessed to have grown children who want us nearby.

At the time that this powerpoint was composed, we had three married sons and
three grandchildren living in VA.  That number has grown to four married sons 
and 17 grandchildren.  When son #3 and his wife wrote this for us, they were the
parents of two, and they have since added two more.

I used to fear the empty nest a bit, because I'm not a big fan of change.  There was a time when I couldn't imagine our middle son—along with his four brothers—flying far from home.  But like the mother rabbit in The Runaway Bunny (one of my all-time favorite children's picture books) was wont to do, their dad and I decided that if that was what was going to happen, we would just follow them!  Luckily for us, most of them flew to the same region; so our choice was a relatively easy one to make.

This birthday boy of ours...how we love him!  And his powerpoint co-writer...we love her, too. 

Views

About a week ago, my husband and I returned from a week-long trip to Upstate New York, where we went to get our VRBO house on Lake Champlain ready for our busy summer rental season.

We bought this one-of-a-kind former farmhouse, which was originally built in 1830 with some later additions in the 1940's, when we were still living in our New Hampshire "forever home."  At the time, we thought we might rent it out until my husband was ready to retire, and then we'd sell our NH house and move into it, using it as our home base and traveling from there to visit our far-flung grown children.

But with three of our five sons living in the same area of Virginia and looking like they were settling down for the foreseeable future, we decided to keep the NY house as a rental property, sell our NH house, and move closer to them.  When we made our life-changing move south in 2017, sons number two, three, and four were already VA neighbors; then shortly after we became Virginians, son number one moved here, too.  What are the odds?! I can't believe God arranged it so that those four boys would roam far from their NH roots and serendipitously end up in the same place, giving us the opportunity to have all 17 of our grandchildren living less than an hour away from us.  (We just have to get our baby and his wife to move here—that's still a WIP.)

Our Colonial beauty in NY (which we've dubbed "Oyster Haven") sits on a gorgeous piece of property that includes a football field-sized back yard and boasts 250 feet of lakefront, which essentially gives us our own private beach.  There are spectacular views of historic Valcour Island and its little brother, Carleton's Prize (nicknamed "Gunboat Island"), as well as the outlines of the mountains of Vermont on the other side of the lake.  It is about as idyllic and heavenly a setting as you could ever imagine.

We try to block off a week or so each summer so that our kids and grandkids can spend some time there with us, but otherwise we keep the NY house available for guests.  We spend the summer months staying at my husband's childhood home just a few miles down the road, managing our VRBO property and enjoying boating on the lake.  But the rest of the year is spent in our adopted state of VA, living in a house that has become the perfect meeting place for all the little Pearl cousins.

There is no doubt that the glorious panoramic view from the back yard patio at our house in NY handily beats the nothing-to-see-here view from our tiny side yard patio in VA.  Our modest house in a cookie cutter neighborhood on a postage stamp-sized plot of land has nothing on our spread in NY when it comes to views. Surely, it is not the most impressive place by the world's standards; but as a central location where our gang can gather easily, it really couldn't be more perfect for us.

More on our garden Sasquatch in a future post!

My husband has set up an outdoor video camera at his childhood home, so that when we're in VA we can look at the real time lake view on the big screen TV in our family room. 

And here's my usual view from my overstuffed arm chair in said cozy family room: my husband in his recliner chair over on the other side of the couch, with his nightly glass of scotch on the table beside him; me relaxing with my feet up on my ottoman, wearing my sensible shoes (the ones that navigated miles of cobblestoned streets in Rome with ease), enjoying the company of my favorite human and the peaceful aura of our home sweet home. 

Sometimes views that seem like nothing special are actually the best views of all.

CHRISTMAS 2019 (with a Little Thanksgiving Thrown in for Good Measure)

It has been over a month since I showed up here at my blog.   A month!  (If Instagram is any indication, most of the bloggers I used to follow aren't really showing up at theirs very often either, so I guess I'm on trend for a change.)

I never even managed to get anything written up about Thanksgiving chez Pearl, and it really was quite blog post-worthy.  It was a two-day celebration, actually, with all but son #2 and his wife and three little ones here for turkey and trimmings on Thursday, and then the whole gang (five boys, five wives, 16 grandkids) here for a more casual brunch on Friday--and I never got around to blogging about it.  Of course, this is no biggie to the Internet world, most of which doesn't know my humble little String of Pearls exists.  But I like the idea of having our family memories archived here, as a kind of online scrapbook, before I'm robbed of the ability to remember life events clearly.  (I hope that never happens; but you never know.)

Before I continue, here are just a few snapshots of our Thanksgiving celebration.

Anyway, moving on--

I thought I'd dust off this poor neglected old site (I'm practically choking here--I'm allergic to dust mites, you know) and jot down some memories from our Christmas festivities this year.  It is, after all, still Christmas, and will be until the Baptism of Our Lord on January 12, the first Sunday after the Epiphany (why do some people think Catholics have no fun?  We have the MOST fun!).  So I have lots of time to talk about the most wonderful time of the year, my favorite holiday of them all.

If you come here often, you know that in March of 2017, we made a big life change and sold our longtime home in NH and relocated to VA, in order to be closer to our grown sons and their families.  When we moved here, there were three sons who lived between 35 and 50 minutes from our new house.  Then shortly after we settled here, our oldest son made a career switch that by some miracle had him working out of DC, at least temporarily, so he joined the party and moved 17 minutes from us.  That meant that all of our boys who were married at that time were now nearby, and all of our grandchildren as well.  (Our youngest was still single and stationed in Germany; he got married this past Sept. and currently lives in OK with his bride.)  When we moved here, we had seven grandchildren; in the almost three years that we've been Virginians, nine more have been added (five of them came along in 2017 alone!).  And we get to see them all often.

While we were living up North, we had two Christmases that involved our kids driving long distances to be with us and also included the joy of having grandchildren with whom to celebrate.  In 2014, we had four little people opening their Santa gifts at our NH home; in 2016, we had six of them.  Things had not gotten too crazy yet--and we also had so much more space in our beloved Colonial than we do now.

Fast-forward to 2019--with a smaller house and ten more grandchildren, from eight years old down to less than two months--and you can imagine the chaos!  It's glorious, and joyful, and really so much fun.  But I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say it gets a little crazy!

The first two Christmases we were in this new house, we cooked filet mignon for all the adults (which had become our traditional Christmas dinner main course when our boys got old enough to appreciate it), after feeding the younger crowd.  But having that kind of a special sit-down meal while simultaneously wrangling all the children and babies was just getting too logistically hard to smoothly pull off, with the way our numbers have been exploding.  And I wanted my husband to relax, instead of manning the grill and worrying about making sure the steaks had the right amount of pink inside for everyone.  So this year, I made ahead trays of pulled pork, lasagna, and homemade mac and cheese, and I warned that it would be a more casual type of meal, with the food kept warm in chafing dishes and people eating whenever they wanted to.  But there were so many munchies out as well, and most of us filled up on those beforehand and then the casseroles got a little overheated and dried-out by the time people were ready to eat.  Hmmm...there is obviously more tweaking that needs to be done.  But when your family grows as big as quickly as ours has (a great problem to have, by the way), having holiday meals that go off without a hitch gets kind of tricky.

In my quest to come up with the PERFECT way to handle feeding my gang (is there a perfect way, though?), I think next year we're going to split our festivities up into two events: one intended only for the kids and the other for just the adults.  And I'm not going to waste my time on homemade mac and cheese when a vat of Kraft from the box would have made all my little peeps so much happier!  I think we're going to have a birthday party for Baby Jesus with all the kids' favorite foods and cake and ice cream for dessert, and we'll save the fancier menu for the adults-only affair.  Papa and I will give the grandkids their presents at the little kids' party, but we'll save gift exchanging with our grown kids until we can do it without the surrounding chaos.  (Stay tuned for a post on the subject of the adults-only party idea very soon--because we actually had one of those this year and it was fantastic!)

In spite of the fact that I was worried about the food and whether it was good/hot/moist enough by the time it got eaten, I think a good time was had by all.  Everyone came over in the early afternoon on Christmas day, after going to Mass and opening stockings and Santa gifts at their own houses.  Our youngest son and his bride were not with us (they were out in MI with her folks this year), and actually son #3's wife stayed home with their new baby girl, who had just recently been hospitalized for almost two weeks with RSV.  But everyone else was able to make it (including our daughter-in-law Braveheart's parents, who are local as well), and I can't tell you how thrilled I am that they were actually able to spend part of the day with us on the 25th!  When your kids get married and move away from you, you never know how many of them you're going to be able to have with you for the holidays.  I am abundantly blessed, to be sure--and don't I know it!

Without further ado, here is a Christmas photo dump.

Hugging cousins.

 I love my girls.

And I love my boys.

They all got those silly shirts from us for Christmas. :)

By the end of the night, there was dancing--and performing--on tables.  (So it must have been a good party.)

If you're still here, congratulations!  And if you haven't had enough of us Pearls yet, tomorrow I'll be back to tell you about our awesome adults-only party!