Spring Has Sprung in VA: Birds and Blooms—and RBF!

Here’s a the current state of affairs at Casa Pearl.

A little bird is building her nest in a fake flowering plant that we have hanging on our little side porch by the patio.  Real bird. Fake plant.  It all seems to be working out beautifully.

Bigfoot is thrilled to see the first real blooms in our perennial garden along the side of the house.  Trust me, he’s thrilled. That’s just his usual expression: RBF (Resting Bigfoot Face).

And the cherry blossoms are in full bloom on my favorite tree out front.  It's just SO lovely.

I love living here.  (We have a white picket fence, no less!  What's not to love?)  Where my husband and I come from in upstate NY, a recent storm dumped 8-12 inches of snow.  I prefer springtime in VA!

There is so much beauty all around us in this world, isn’t there?  The wonder of God’s creation, it takes my breath away sometimes.  (The sun is about to rise as I write this, with the sound of birds singing outside the window; and I imagine them flying in and out of the branches of my favorite tree.)

Little glimpses of what Heaven must be like: I see them all the time.  

Today, VA feels like Heaven.

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!)

A “New” Chair for Oyster Haven

Greetings from upstate NY!

After a short stint back home in VA, my husband and I had to make another trip up north to check on our Oyster Haven rental property.  This spring we lost a chunk of our back yard, due to erosion from heavy rains.  We had to have work done to fill it in and shore it up, so that if it happens again we won’t lose our stairs that lead down to the beach.  (They’ve been removed temporarily but will be reinstalled when all is secure.) We waited to get this work started until our busy summer rental season was over.

My husband wanted to see with his own eyes how the construction project on the bank was going; but he had to make a trip back up anyway, because he still had to bring in all the kayaks and the canoe from the lake and get them into winter storage, as well as bring in the buoy and the dock.  Not to mention our pontoon boat, which has to get cleaned up and brought to the marina where it will be housed until next summer.  I was originally going to stay behind, because I’m an incurable homebody and I’ve missed being in my own VA house.  I’ve also missed our kids and grandkids who live nearby.  But the bottom line is that I belong with HIM.  I’m his helpmate first and foremost, and everyone else comes second.  Our boys all have wives now, so they don’t really need their mommy!😊

So another week by the lake it is!  And it’s been absolutely lovely here, weather-wise; it’s so warm and sunny—what we used to call an “Indian Summer.”  Just glorious.  As you can see.

In other Oyster Haven news…

Remember this somewhat recent post about how I re-upholstered my grandmother’s chair?  Well, I have another tale to tell about bringing an old chair back to life, with little more than a scrap of fabric (from where else but my mother-in-law’s attic, which is practically a small JoAnn’s affiliate, no kidding!).  And lots of TLC, of course.

Toward the end of the summer, I was thinking about hitting the secondhand shops or garage sales to look for a chair to put in the upstairs hall at Oyster Haven.  When we bought it in the fall of 2015 and started getting it ready to start renting on VRBO the following summer, we didn't spend a lot of money on furniture, aside from the beds.  We got bedside tables at secondhand stores and accepted a hand-me-down dining room table from my sister-in-law.  We had an awesome tile-topped trestle table that my husband had made for our NH house that didn't really fit in our downsized VA house, and he made a pair of glorious wooden benches to go with it for the kitchen of the rental house.  Some of the dining room chairs, a coffee table and a pair of end tables for the living room, along with a few other random pieces that we didn't have a place for in our VA house anyway, also found a home at Oyster Haven.

We were on a budget in 2015, so I ended up buying an inexpensive, nondescript little padded stool from Home Goods to fill this space in the upstairs hall, and it has been there ever since.

I must have been meant to get a new chair to replace that stool; because one August day my husband and I were driving back to his childhood home, where we stay during the summer, and out by the curb at the entrance to the neighborhood there were two dining room chairs near a pile of trash, obviously being thrown out.  And when we went to look at them more closely, one of them was in great shape, except for the fabric on the seat cushion.  (The other, a matching arm chair, had a hunk of wood broken off of it.)

After it was recovered, and cleaned up a bit, it looked quite lovely.

And I loved how it has transformed that upstairs hall!

(It would have been pretty, no matter the cost; but I especially love it when things are free!)

One quick addendum:I decided to recover the stool and bring it back to use in our VA living room.  It’s a small room, and we have a big family; so any extra seating that we can get—especially seating that takes up very little space—is appreciated.

Have I got enough competing floral patterns in my living room?  (Don't answer that!)

Have a great week!  And happy homemaking!

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.

Junior’s Guest of Honor

This past Monday, I was the guest of my 5-year-old grandson, Junior, at his pre-school.  Junior is the oldest of my second-born son's four boys.  He and his classmates were told that they could invite one special grown-up in their lives to come to their school for an hour, for songs and storytime and a spring flower planting project, and Junior chose me.

I'm “Grammy” to the other three families of grandchildren, but when he was a novice talker Junior dubbed me "ReeRee" and somehow it stuck, so that’s what he and his younger brothers still call me.  I don't know if that title will stand the test of time, with all of the other Pearl cousins calling me Grammy; but I kind of hope it does.

I can't tell you how honored I felt to be the guest of this little guy, an outgoing dynamo of a boy who has the biggest heart and loves both sides of his family with a passion that I've rarely seen in anyone of any age.

He was so excited when he saw me, and I believe I now know what it feels like to be a celebrity.  He enthusiastically introduced me to everyone there, saying, “Hey [so and so], this is my ReeRee!  Do you know this is my ReeRee?” When he and his classmates stood on the stairs at the entrance to the church that is the home of his pre-K school and sang for their guests, he was literally jumping up and down at the end of each song.  He couldn’t contain himself.  

That sweet kid...I have a big spot in my heart reserved just for him.  

I am so fortunate that we were able to move down here to VA four years ago, as hard as it was to leave the house we'd lived in for 26 years in NH, the home where we'd raised our five boys.  We live less than an hour from Junior now (and even closer to his 13 Pearl cousins), so spur-of-the-moment invitations like this one can be accepted with joy. Hopefully these everyday yet oh-so-special times spent together will become lifelong memories for Junior and the rest of the precious little people on our lengthening string of Pearls.

A Week in the (VA) Life

My husband and I are about to head north for most of the summer.  Starting less than a week from now, we will be staying at his childhood home on Lake Champlain, spending time catching up with extended family on both sides and managing our "Oyster Haven" VRBO rental located three miles down the road from the Pearl homestead.

I am looking forward to a couple of relatively relaxing months spent by the lake with my best guy--especially since we did something wild and crazy a few months ago...we fulfilled a lifelong dream of his and bought a boat.  And we didn't get just any old boat: we got a big pontoon "party barge" that fits a whole slew of people on it at once (which is key these days, with our growing brood).  This summer, we'll be breaking it in without our passel of grandkids, since our four oldest sons all have to save their vacation time to drive out to MI for their youngest brother's wedding in September.  Wait, that's not completely accurate; actually, our firstborn and his wife and five kids are planning to come up for a week or two, since he is now a commercial pilot and can commute to his job from anywhere, within reason (like his dad).  But for the most part, it will just be the summer of Papa and Grammy, the summer of my guy and me.   (You know, as in "the summer of George."  Do you remember that Seinfeld episode?)

It's going to be a little weird, however, being away from all the kids and grandkids for most of July and August.  I've gotten so used to spending time with them on a regular basis.  And I have to admit, I might experience a wee touch of separation anxiety!

My husband and I haven't really made any friends since we sold our NH home and moved south two years ago to live closer to our married sons--who by some miracle all ended up settling within spitting distance of each other here in Northern VA.  It's hard, at 60-ish, to start anew--especially if you're shy and/or introverted (lucky me, I'm both!).  You don't have the built-in paths to meeting other adults who are in your season of life that school and sports provide when your kids are growing up.  We're friendly with a few folks at church, and with the nice young neighbor who mows our little patch of lawn each week.   But it's hard to imagine us forming any deep friendships here, the kind that happen over the course of living in one neighborhood with the same people for decades.  I joined the Altar Society at our new parish, hoping that would make me feel more connected to our new community.  But the truth is that I am often either out of town (in Upstate NY) or busy (babysitting or visiting with grandkids) when the group has meetings or activities, so I haven't been as active over there as I would have liked, and I haven't gotten to know any of the other members really well yet.

The bottom line is that these days, our grown sons and their lovely wives are our best friends.  We enjoy spending time with them and their children more than anyone else--and we see them often now, without having to get on an airplane to do it, so our life here is blessedly full.

Last week is a great example of just how full it is, actually.  Let me show you what it was like, day by day.

Monday:

Our oldest son was on a trip, so his wife and five kids came over in the afternoon to go to the pool in our neighborhood complex.  My husband was home, and he was going to give swimming lessons to the girls (aged 4 to 8).  We got the kids in their suits, slathered on the sunscreen, packed up the towels and other paraphernalia, and walked over.  It's not far, but it was oppressively hot and it seemed to take forever.  When we got there, the lifeguard told us the pool was closed for a half-hour, because they'd heard thunder not too long before.  There were about 20 minutes left to go, so we decided to wait to see if there would be an all-clear soon.  A few minutes into the wait, more thunder.   That meant the clock was reset and there would be 30 more minutes of waiting.  Such disappointment for the girls!  We decided to head back home and play in our little plastic pools.  The 6-year-old complained, "That will be boring!"

But actually, it wasn't.  It was fun.

Tuesday:

On Tuesday, my husband left for a four-day trip.  That evening, I went over to son #3's house to help him and his wife paint their basement, which was formerly a man cave/craft area, but is now going to be an awesome playroom for their growing family.  (They have three kids 4 and under, with a fourth on the way.)  By the time I got to bed, it was well after midnight.  I slept over, so at about 6:30 the next morning I got to enjoy couch snuggles with some of my favorite little peeps--G-Man, Princesa, and Rosita--before heading back home to babysit for son #1's wife while she went to an eye appointment.  (I was too busy painting and snuggling while I was on the sleepover to take pictures.)

Wednesday:

Our oldest boy's gang enjoyed playing in the basement while their mom was at her appointment in the morning.  (Our basement is going to get finished off, finally, in the fall; but even in its rough state, our grandkids love playing down there.)

While they were at our house, I had my granddaughters try on the flower girl dresses they're going to wear in their uncle's upcoming wedding.  (The two girls on the end are wearing dresses previously worn for the weddings of our other boys, spruced up with lace boleros and lace at the hem.  The twins in the middle are wearing their First Holy Communion dresses, repurposed with cranberry ribbon to match the bridesmaid dresses.)

After their mom returned and we had lunch at our house, we decided to try the pool again (fingers crossed!).  Without Papa, a former lifeguard and water safety instructor, there would be no formal swimming lessons; but we hoped to get in some good cooling-off time, at least.  I'm happy to say that the weather was perfect, the pool was open, and we all enjoyed a couple of hours of playing in the water (all but the girls' little brother, Simba, who is almost a year old; he is not a fan of getting wet!).

Thursday:

I had to get up early to make the 35-minute drive over to son #4's house, so that I could watch his 22-month-old triplets while he accompanied his wife to her morning OB/GYN appointment (which included the 20-week sonogram!).  Earlier this month, my husband and I watched the triplets for five days, while their parents went to Mexico for a wedding/well-earned vacation.  Those little monkeys were on their best behavior and we had a ball with them--but there were two of us to wrangle them at all times.  Being with them alone for a few hours really made me appreciate what a tremendous job their hardworking mom is doing; she's at home with them, alone--all day, every day, until our son gets home from work.  They are adorable--but into absolutely everything and they definitely keep you on your toes.

One of the wisest moves their parents made was to get this trash can that has a locking lid!

Friday:

My husband returned from his trip in the morning, and in the afternoon, we watched our darling granddaughter Rosita at our house while son #3 and his wife took the older two kids to see Toy Story 4 at the little downtown theater where we live.  We decided to rent the original Toy Story to watch with her while her siblings were at the movies.

Can you stand it?!  How cute is she, sitting there next to her Papa?  With her little feet not

even reaching the end of the cushion!

When she got tired of the movie, we paused it for a bit and went outside to play in the pool.

Who knew that those cheap little plastic Walmart pools could provide so much quality entertainment?

Saturday:

As if the week hadn't already been jam-packed enough with all kinds of family fun, on Saturday our second-oldest son and his wife hosted a party to celebrate the two recent birthdays of two special people: their second son Jedi (who turned 2) and his Papa (who turned a lot older than 2).  Most of the family was there.  Son #4 was on call for work, so he had to stay behind and his wife came solo with the triplets.  (I think Braveheart was the perfect blog handle to choose for her, don't you?)  Also missing was our baby, who is currently stationed too far away from VA (but not as far away as Germany anymore, thankfully).  And son #1's wife was at a homeschool conference with their baby boy.  But otherwise, all were present.

Son #2 and Ginger have a huge fenced-in yard with a swing set and just about every outdoor climbing or riding toy a kid could hope for.  It is the most perfect yard for having a party, and it was a wonderful day that was enjoyed by all.  13 of our 14 grandchildren were there, and it was the best kind of chaos!

Sunday:

I started this post on Saturday, but finished it up on the Lord's day.  It's a funny thing...after writing earlier in the post that we don't have any friends here in VA yet, on Sunday night I realized that that might not be totally accurate.  As my husband and I were leaving 8:30 a.m. Mass, a dear older woman I met through the Altar Society came up to say hi and chat, and she affectionately grabbed hold of my hand.  She held onto it all the way down the aisle as we walked toward the door of the church, and she smiled at my husband and me as if we were the very people she was hoping to see.  God bless her, just that quick, oh-so-sweet interaction made me feel like maybe--just maybe--this newly adopted town of ours will really feel like home to us one day.

There were no visits with the kids and grandkids on Sunday.  My husband left for work that afternoon, and I have about a million little things to take care of before we start our road trip north when he gets back towards the end of the week, so I kept myself busy at home.

It's Monday now, and there is still so much to do to get ready for our trip.  Today was spent running errands, shopping, sewing (the last of the flower girl dresses, for 3-year-old Princesa), and driving over to say goodbye to son #2 and his family.  In the next few days, I plan to try to see the other families to say goodbye as well.

As Pooh Bear would say, how lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.  (Lots of somethings, actually!)