Much Needed Break

We have just gotten back from a much needed trip out of town. I have been so busy with weddings and editing, Lee has been up to her neck in work and Katie has been trying to have as much fun as possible. We all needed some time as a family, so we loaded up the truck and made a quick trip to NC to see Lee's mom and grandmother. Katie so loves being over there, she has a great time with "grandmom" and "MomMom". They always have books for her to read, some videos to watch plus a huge backyard that she can run around in.

The first part of the trip was a bit stressful. We were going east on I-40, having a good time until we hit mile marker 7 in North Carolina. Traffic came to a complete STOP! It took us almost an hour to go 4 miles. The problem was a large tractor trailer flipped over and they had one lane closed so they could clean up the accident. I can tell you this, there was not much left of that truck from what we saw. We got a little bit up the road and noticed some road construction on the west bound side of 40 and traffic there was backed up for about 8 miles. We decided at that point to make it a long trip home by taking as many back roads as possible on the way home.

Katie wanted to spend the night at Grandmom's house so that gave Lee and I some much needed time alone at the hotel. We have to stay at a hotel when we go over there because there is just not enough room for all of us to sleep there. I did have a bit of work I had to do on this trip but that was not a big deal.

Katie got to spend some good time with Lee's Aunt Linda as well. Linda spoils Katie to no end. She always brings little presents to Katie when we visit and Katie loves the little toys that she gets. We also went to a ranch near by called The Lazy 5, they have a huge collections of animals in a safari type setting. You stay in your car and drive through. Katie enjoyed being able to feed the animals right out the window of the truck.

Saturday night Lee and I went out to dinner with Lee's cousin and his wife. It was a lot of fun to just sit and chat with them over a very nice dinner.

Since we knew the highway was going to be bad with traffic, we decided to take back roads to go home. We really enjoyed the trip home. We drove through the mountains, along the Blue Ridge Parkway, through the Smokey Mountain National Park along the way. It was very relaxing and comfortable way to come home. I was not as tired as I normally would be after driving along the interstate. Our trip would normally take 4 to 4.5 hours but taking our time and enjoying the ride took us 5+ hours. It was a fun trip.

I have back to back weddings the next two weeks but, we are taking a trip to St. Augustine to see Lee's dad. He is doing well with his cancer battle. He just completed a month long treatment of chemotherapy. He is doing very well and I was very impressed with the fact he completed the entire treatment. He was very sick for a number of days but, he stuck it out.

We finally have Gran's condo up on the market. It took us a little over a month to get it cleaned out and all the things sold that we could sell. It came down to the last item being left was a beautiful organ that she played all the time. We could not sell that organ for anything, we finally had to give it away. No one wanted it. I thought that would have been one of the first things to go, but it was the last item to leave the house. We ended up paying for a painter to come in and put a coat of paint on the walls to freshen up the place. The thing that amazed me the most was the fact that they lived in that condo for almost 25 years and they didn't do anything to the condo. It has the same carpet, the same flooring, the same stove, dishwasher, the same everything. The thing that was not original was the water heater and two toilets.

I hope everyone has a great week.

I Miss...........

Tonight I was helping Leeann with a photo shoot of a couple of kids. Leeann has really done a great job with her photography and it shows in her work and her style. I am so proud of her and the work she has put into this. She is going to be a great photographer.

After the photo shoot we went to one of our favorite restaurants for a nice dinner and to look over her pictures. We got to talking about a few things with one of them being when and where we grew up. I started thinking back to my childhood and all the things I used to do and all the things I miss. Things like:

Being able to ride my bike anywhere in town, without my parents right behind me.
Playing in the yard with my friends.
Kick Ball with the neighbors by the street lamp light.
Friends that you grow up with.
Simple summer road trips.
Picnic's under the tree at my grandmothers house.
Saturday Morning Cartoons.
Drive-In Movies.
Sidewalks. (We have none here)
Spending all day at the swimming pool for a $1
.25 cent Cokes
.65 cent a gallon gas
Penny candy (that was really a penny).
Staying up all night with your friends reading comic books.
Toilet papering a house just for fun.
No Cell phones
No pagers
No answering machines
Writing Letters.
Records. (the vinyl one with grooves that popped and hissed when you played them)
Sleeping late on Sunday mornings.
Snow Days
Snow.
Tackle football with no pads or helmets (that may explain a lot to some friends of mine)
Walking home from school with your best friend.
Watching football with my dad
Small town living
Knowing your neighbors.

Those are just some of the things I miss, the list would run for pages. I grew up in the 70's/80's. Went to the roller rink on Friday and Saturday nights, played baseball everyday. Jumped on my bike at first light and had be home before the street lights came on at night. Knowing that no matter where I went, or what I did, my parents knew about it before I got home.

Why can't we go back to those days?