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We are home from our summer vacation road trip and it was wonderful. Aside from the driving (which Josh did 97.5% of) I wish I could do it all again right now. We spent time in Virginia, Maryland, and seven different destinations in New York. Although we didn’t get to see everyone, I think we did as much as we possibly could. The highlights of the trip were definitely the time spent at Mom’s house and the time spent in Ithaca. Too bad that couldn’t have overlapped some how. I can’t help but be a little homesick as I write this. I am always super adamant about not having sad goodbyes. I’d rather skip being sad and just start planning the next visit. This time it was really hard, I had so much fun and Harper loved Uma and Aunt Nee Nee so much. It was a good thing that we had an itinerary to stick to or I would still be there.

Here is a picture of Leah and I on our way out the door to see Priscilla's Husbands band play at a local bar. I can't remember that last time we did that. It was sooooo much fun.

Our time spent in western NY with Josh’s family was great too. It was a weekend of closure. Josh’s grandmother passed away in April and it was nice that we could spend a few days at her house before it is put up for sale. We reminisced about our visits with her over the past few years, watched old VHS tapes (Christmas in the 90’s and honestly it was very entertaining), and collected a few pieces of memorabilia including a mug, a fork, and a small jewelry box that plays music. The jewelry box belonged to Josh’s Mom and he has vivid memories of playing with it as a child. Josh also picked up a large storage container from his old house. It is filled with pieces of Josh’s child hood from when he was an itty bitty through college. His mother had accumulated all of it and Josh always knew it was stashed at his old house. What a blast to go through. Check out the awesome t-shirt designed by Josh:

The Weapon:Nike Air Trainer SC
Bo: Arrested for exceeding the speed limit in sneakers. No cars or trucks involved.

Then there was the reunion. A bit of a disappointment for Josh because there was only 17 classmates there! I didn’t care because a handful of Josh’s close friends were there and I was really glad to meet them in person. Josh and I had a blast because to us it was just a date, a night out together. We even got silly on the dance floor, yep, us and like 3 other people. But we didn’t care; we were having fun, fun, fun.

After all that craziness we headed further West for our final bit of closure. We hung out with Josh’s dad and his family. Josh’s dad is moving to South in a couple weeks, so our next get together with him will be Florida.
After all of that we embarked on our two day trip home. Not bad at all, just about 6 hours of driving per day and Harper was such a good boy. The trip was so good for him. He got to see so many loving faces and was definitely nudged out of his comfort zone. He was a totally different person when we got home and for some reason I was actually able to watch it happen over the days spent elsewhere. It’s odd because I am with him all day every day but I definitely felt like I got to spend so much more quality time with him. It was definitely just what we needed as a family before the craziness of the fall semester starts. More on that later…