Moving On

Thank you for your sweet comments to my last post about the fire that destroyed our home-away-from home.  We have begun to adjust to the loss and have started to move forward and live life again.  The days after the fire were very difficult and the 'mountains' of paperwork needed for the insurance company kept our emotions at the surface. Listing every personal and household item in the trailer was hard.  Even harder was the fact that we also needed to supply pictures of the destruction and of anything we had inside that could not be salvaged.  I have a feeling the insurance company has never seen a list such as ours and they may have been overwhelmed by the photos we sent - twenty-nine pages of photos with multiple photos on each page.  We dug through the rubble and took photos of anything that was recognizable to prove that we had, indeed, had it in the trailer and that it could not be used again. When the packet of paperwork was ready and had been mailed, the relief was huge! A big load off our shoulders. The remains of the trailer were towed away and that brought new, deep emotions as it went down the road for the last time.  Seeing the big empty, charred area next to our driveway brought tears to my eyes all over again.  Each day has gotten easier and we have begun to think about the work that needs to be done before the next home-away-from-home arrives.

Yes, there will be another RV in our lives.  We've already begun to consider what that will be.  We have visited a favorite RV dealer and looked and considered several directions we could go. We have a 'favorites' list but will take our time to decide what features we really need and what we don't need.  Of course, we must wait for the insurance company to do their work and present an acceptable settlement before we can make the final decision.  We've dreamed for a few years of upgrading one more time and it seemed easy as I thought about it.  We thought we knew exactly what we would choose.  Now that we aren't very far from making a decision it's harder than I thought it would be.

We had an adventure last weekend that was the most precious gift God could have given us right now.  Eclipse 2017 began its journey across our country at the Oregon Coast just ninety miles from our home.  We wanted to do something special to be part of the event.  Our son and daughter-in-law live about forty-five minutes south of us and we got our heads together and 'cooked up' a gathering of grandparents to share the event with four of our grandchildren.  I made some changes to Daffodil, my little vintage trailer, to accommodate comfy sleeping arrangements for my sweetheart and I. She usually has a twin-size mattress but this time we added a full-size mattress that belonged to my dear mother.  We packed our things for an overnight excursion and headed south to join them for a sleep-over!  We parked in our son's driveway and had our own little guest house!

The grandkids' other grandparents live near them but they were invited to spend the night, too.  What fun we had!  After a potluck BBQ we celebrated our youngest granddaughter's fifth birthday together.  Brynlee (we call her Bryn) is the sweetest little girl.  She has a loving heart and is full of fun.  Cake, ice cream and gifts and then some fun games.

We stayed up late - like we did when we were young.  The next morning we had a potluck brunch and watched coverage as the eclipse began on our coastline not far away.  Soon we all donned our eclipse glasses so we could go out on the deck to watch the wonders in the sky.

It wasn't long before we were completely mesmerized by what we saw.

When the moon had fully eclipsed the sun we cheered and clapped - as did all of the neighbors on decks and in yards nearby.  It got fairly dark and  cold and all around we could see that lights had come on.

Soon it was over and we spent more time together.  We all knew we had experienced something awesome!  We munched and played games and soon it was time to head home.  That sounds simple but our normal forty-five-minute commute home took us five hours!  Yes - that's right - five hours!  I loved the license plate on this car in front of us.

The trip was long and we were tired before it ended but it was worth every minute for the joy of being with our family to celebrate and experience a once-in-a-lifetime event.  We've been cherishing those moments all through the week.  It's been a very busy week - we are getting ready for an adventure that was planned a year ago!  God knew back then that we would need this adventure we are about to embark on and He knew we would need it right now.  I'll be away for several days and I'll share more when I return.