LemmonBuggParty

I don't want to get in the car again for more than 15 minutes anytime soon. I loved being in Atlanta and at the beach but wish I could fly and meet my family there, is that bad to say?? Probably so, but I said it anyway. After 15 hours in the car yesterday, I really hoped we would make it back to Thetford in one day. Ha, that was wishful/willful thinking! Have you been on I-95 anywhere within an hour or so of DC recently?  I forgot how awful stop and go traffic is.  It is so deceiving - bottleneck and then, yeah, traffic clears, them bottleneck and yeah, it clears, then bottleneck, bottleneck, bottleneck, scream, scream......thankfully there was a way out! Today was a rough day - we slept at a dive that was "pet-friendly" and finally got the boys to sleep around 12 a.m.  As the trailer was packed with all our clothes, we just sleep in what we had on. Yuck. At least I could find my toothbrush :) Then we got up around 8 a.m., got in the car, hit the McDonald's and hit...

Tonight we celebrated, although a week early, BillyB's 75th birthday. Certainly a milestone.  Both Bugg brothers and their families, along with GrannyB, gathered together for a meal, cake and ice cream with some wrestling, boating, screaming, changing of clothes, laughing, baby powder?, and gift opening in between.  As BillyB will be with us in Vermont on his official birthday of August 1st, we will get to celebrate again. As fate would have it, Nina's high school group of friends is holding their annual summer gathering an hour or so from our new location! Our first visitors and a birthday to boot! Happy Birthday BillyB! James, Carter, William, Julie, BillyB, Thomas BillyB and grandchildren and two friends that are staying with Carter and Julie

After a week and almost a half at the beach - today was a day of challenges - getting my mind around getting the kids out of the house was the major one. We finally did the "divide and conquer" and Bill and William went to Lowe's to get stuff to fix the yard/driveway and Thomas, James and I went to the beach.  The very act of going to the beach involves great effort and lots of stuff -  bathing suits, swim shirts, sunscreen, more sunscreen, buckets, shovels, towels, chairs and an umbrella and anchor if someone has an open hand. Oh and don't forget some water and a cooler as it is SO HOT!  The Lowe's trip was necessary as the yard is torn up because we have had the new plumbing line run- no more septic. This gives Bill the project he had been looking for but hadn't quite found until today. Once at the beach, we all relax.  The laundry, grocery list, phone calls and dog hair on the floor can wait. The boys dart off to the water and I settle in my chair. Today ...

We are at our house at Sunset Beach for two weeks. It is a wonderful amount of time as we don't feel pressed to get out to the beach everyday or at the crack of dawn and can relax as the next group of renters come in this Saturday afternoon.  It is a slowed down pace of life, and even Bill has taken to it this trip.  After a hectic move, and relentless sea of boxes it is wonderful to be in a place we are all familiar with that isn't cluttered with our current life.  Tables are mostly free of papers and stacks, the floor is free of toys and most of all for me, there is no cat liter to empty! The cats will be mad at us when we return but they will adjust and are being well taken care of. Trudy has been a good traveler again and has calmed down this visit to the beach. For those of you that don't know, we added a rescue dog to our family last October. She is a sweet girl of around two 1/2, a mix of boxer and american bulldog. She fits our family well and the boys love her. ...

Bill and I argue sometimes about where "home" really is for us. I think, in truth, home is where we are all together.  But this week, being back in my childhood home in Atlanta/Sandy Springs, I have been reminded of my youth day in and day out. Just driving in and out of our neighborhood brings back memories. I remember when I first got my drivers license and got to go to the grocery for Mom, I remember wanting to wait at the bottom of a friends driveway when her mom would back down in her station wagon because it was kind of like a roller coaster to me, and of course the summers spent at the neighborhood pool, many happy memories. The landscape of Atlanta has changed a good bit but many of the places I have gone over the years are still here - the shoe repair place, my hair salon, El Azteca Mexican restaurant.  Other new places of interest have popped up as well. Last night, Mom prepared a meal that I remembered having when I was growing up, baked chicken and rice with a...

So far we have done the following: visited the Montshire Museum - a wonderful science museum right on the Connecticut River with lots of trails and some water features for the kids to play in Visited the Town offices and joined Treasure Island, the local hang out on Lake Fairlee and bought my trash/recycling pass - you take it yourself every Sat. ($4.50 a bag!!) visited the local General Store which also houses the Post Office  shopped at Dan and Whit's - if they don't have it, you don't need it visited the Norwich Bookstore drove thru the Dartmouth College campus eaten Gelato and saw Brave at the locally owned movie theater in Hanover visited the Dartmouth Bookstore drove thru a State Park that has a dry dam and then found awesome swimming holes to go back and visit went back and visited the swimming holes Jame and William attended an Art Camp at the Justin Morrill Homestead in Strafford, VT - he was a famous VT senator - important guy William attended two d...

So enough about the move - everyone moves at some point and there is a commonality about them - pack stuff up, put it in a vehicle, drive to new location, unload, start over.  It is the start over part that is the hardest. In the four short years we lived in Hudson, OH we all made some wonderful and what I hope will be lasting friendships. As the move date came closer I am thankful my friends didn't pull away into their own protective cover. Instead I was able to pack in as many chats, lunches, dinners, drop ins, phone calls and impromptu get togethers as possible. For this I am grateful. I miss my friends but somehow I know that the connection to them and the place of Hudson is strong and lasting. So we move room by room and start over.

June 17 - Father's Day Happy Father's Day! After our first night in our new home and a good night's sleep under our belt we were ready to tackle the full day of unloading and more importantly where to place things when they came off the trucks. Each box, in theory, had a color code to determine what room it would go in.  The problem was all the "other" boxes! This would prove to be a bit of a puzzle as rooms began to fill up. By about 3:30 p.m. everything was off the trucks and we were beginning to navigate paths and find boxes that needed to go to other rooms. Final walk through with the movers, papers signed and we were minus three 26 ft. trucks that had dominated the yard for the last day and night. It is a wonderful old house, our new home on Thetford Hill. There are great perennial gardens and an old barn that will be a great area of interest for the boys! There is also a small pond in the back that must be home to many, many frogs.  Every night there is...

June 16 - Three trucks and six guys, two parents, three boys, one dog and two cats. Two stairwells both narrow and steep and mattresses and box springs to get in place.  For anyone that has moved to a new home, the simple act of setting up one's bed is a great comfort.  Amidst the chaos, having a place to lay your weary body on familiar sheets is a great blessing. I was most grateful and we all slept in our own beds.

A new day. Having a dog in a hotel room is just odd. Walking her thru the halls to go out seems so foreign,but she enjoyed the journey. I am not sure others in the hallway were as happy to see her wiggly excited 65 pound self dragging me down to the stairs!  Getting in so late or early in the morning has it advantages as we didn't have much to take back out.  Preparing for the drive I went to get gas - imagine my surprise when the station was a Full service station! I found it hard to remember what to do. It all came back, of course, and so did the memories of going to the gas station with my grandparents in North Carolina where the attendant knew them by name. Then I posted such on Facebook and it garnered lots of attention. One friend remembered my brother-in-law used to work at a gas station after school and was a friendly face for many. It is nice to be reminded. The drive through New York State was lovely and long. We edged along the Adirondack Mountains area and saw ...

Following Bill on the highway just into Mentor, OH I noticed that one of the tires on the trailer looked flat.  Before I could get him on the phone, the tire blew.  So there our little caravan sat on the side of the highway flashers blinking. The long and short of it is the boys and I wandered around Mentor looking for an auto parts store that we found just before closing at 8 p.m., to find a socket wrench set as the one with the car didn't fit the trailer.  Finally just before the sun was setting Bill was able to get the lug nuts off and get the spare on. William and Bill then went on a wild goose chase to track down another tire but were given bad information so they drove 45 minutes out of the way for naught. For those of you that might know the history of our beloved trailer over the last couple of years or so, this comes with the territory!  Flashback to the night before leaving for Christmas break.....set to leave early in the morning, which is a minor mira...

The day was long and the process even longer. Our impending move to Thetford, VT was closing in and we still had so much stuff left to pack.  Where does it all come from?  It seems that when one closet was empty another was waiting patiently to be packed up. I would have to say that I didn't have any more patience for packing up our lives.  Things that were to be done weeks ago were looming in the final hours. People in and out, phone calls from friends checking on us, everyone still processing that the house we had lived in and called home for the last four years would no longer be ours. I think the process of moving, during the final hours, makes it possible to cut ties and leave. After the trucks (6 Men and 3 Trucks!) were loaded and pulling out of the driveway, we still remained.  One cabinet opened in the kitchen revealed a stack of some of my favorite platters and cooking stones. Carpets to be vacuumed, counters to be washed down, empty rooms to be swept. Two...