Another Trip

I think I have mastered the art of avoidance. I returned from my two week trip to the Midwest, repacked my clothes (the majority which were dirty) into a smaller suitcase, slept a few hours, and thirteen hours after I got home, took off in my car for the Atlantic Ocean.

I met my two sisters and sister-in-law at my oldest sister's beach house. I wrote about our visit here.

Wait...what was I avoiding? When I was in the Midwest, I was avoiding the house having the floors refinished. Last week I was avoiding painters.

We have never hired someone to paint our house, inside or out, but I am so glad we did this time. We had all the main rooms, a powder room, the master bedroom and the master bath painted. I'm pleased with the paint colors and I am thankful for all the time saved from Hubby having to do all the work. Plus, Hubby not having to figure out how to paint the stair well and the funky angled high ceilings in our bathroom was worth it as well!

Back to the beach....

After the 4.5 hour drive (which was tough since I hadn't had enough sleep), I arrived to this:

 My sisters weren't due to arrive until late that night, so I took the time to wash my clothes. Nothing like arriving on vacation with a suitcase full of dirty clothes. ha. But the time the others arrived, I had it all done!

The main reason we all met there was to organize the closets and clean out the fridge and freezer and organize the pool room. Lots of people stay there throughout the year, especially the summer months, and it needs some maintenance of the spaces. We ended up with three trash cans full of stuff we threw away.  I don't know about you, but I feel good when I sort and organize and throw things away, even when it isn't my stuff.  I even came home with a fleece for Hubby, flip-flops for my daughter-in-law and a pink hoodie for my granddaughter. (Left behind and not claimed by anyone.)

I thought about taking pictures of my sisters and I working, but when I realized that we all still had our pajamas on, I thought maybe it wasn't a good idea to take pictures and post on the world wide web. ha.

This is the only photo I took of our "work":

My oldest sister asked me to make labels for storage areas so people know where to return things to. These are all the rejects. We only needed 8 or 9 signs, but I had quite a pile of rejects. It was a collaborative effort; I cut out and wrote the signs, my sister-in-law laminated them, one sister punched the holes and the other sister hung them on the appropriate shelves with zip-ties.

We were there about four days. I think we could have gotten the work done in two days, but then there wouldn't have been time for sun and pool, TV watching and shopping and eating out!

I kind of wanted to walk on the beach, but it was a challenge to get to the beach. The week before we were there Tropical Storm Ana went through Holden Beach and left the dune between the house and the beach looking like this:

That's about a four to five foot drop. My sister, who took this picture, had to climb back up on her hands and knees. I hope it gets fixed for all the beach goers this summer!

I came back home on Saturday and have been busy doing laundry and cleaning and ordering organizing things for my kitchen from The Container Store and getting myself geared up to unpacking some boxes.

Being gone for almost three weeks didn't make those boxes get unpacked. Sigh.

Lately...

Why haven't I written? The short of it is that I have been out of town for close to forever. I find it hard to write when I am traveling.

When we moved into our house we realized the wood floors were in pretty bad condition so we scheduled someone to come in to refinish them. When I learned we couldn't be in the house for six days, I started trying to figure out what to do with myself. Sitting in a hotel room all week didn't sound like the best idea to me. So I booked some plane tickets and took off to the Midwest. I spent a couple of days with my son and daughter-in-law. The first morning I was there I got a phone call from my son asking me if I could come pick him up because he had been in a car accident.

His car was totaled. The other driver ran a red light. When we examined the damaged car we realized that if my son would have been just ONE second faster, he would have been hurt very badly. I am so thankful that God spared him from that. I am grateful that I was in town and able to take my son and keep my eye on him the rest of the day. I am grateful that his wife is a doctor and could ask him all the questions to make sure he was okay.

Meanwhile back in South Carolina... a before picture of the floors:

 If you look in the upper left corner,you can see the not worn part under the cabinet. The finish is pretty much worn off.

Here is an after picture:

So much better!

Back to the Midwest....

My next stop was in Iowa at my daughter and son-in-law's farm. Because this:

This sweet, sweet granddaughter is wearing her mommy's sweater. A college friend knitted this sweater for Megan when she was born. I loved it so much and saved it all these years. Lydia looked so sweet in it!

I had a wonderful long weekend with my daughter and her family. Us three girls spent a day with my parents. I so enjoy watching my parents love on their seventh great-grandchild. My mom has the sweetest smile when she sees Lydia.

My daughter started back to work (only two days a week) while I was there. She asked me if I would be able to babysit Lydia that Monday. I couldn't respond YES quickly enough! Lydia and I had a great day together. She did pretty well with the bottle and napped for over 2 hours in the morning. I loved taking care of her and talking to her and getting sweet smiles. I didn't even mind the spit-up on my shoulder. ha.  But the best part was the snuggling.

All that was only the first week I was gone. The second week hubby had meetings in St. Paul, MN, so I drove up there to spend some time with him. Well, at least the evenings with him.We did manage one dinner with friends the one night he was free for dinner.  I spent my time shopping for clothes since Minnesota doesn't have sales tax on clothing. I also spent a wonderful long afternoon with a sweet friend I met when we lived in Singapore. Our husbands work for the same company.

Mother's Day weekend found us back in Iowa. Hubby hadn't seen Lydia since she was four days old. He was more than a little excited to see her and spent a lot of time holding her and talking to her.

We were able to spend Mother's Day with my mom and dad and sisters and brothers-in-law.

Four Generations

Mom and her girls