"Vacation"

As I mentioned in my last post, my sister & I headed south to our Grandfather's house on Monday, the 19th. We were going to stay & work on cleaning out his basement, do some visiting, & just enjoying some time with family & each other. We arrived safe & sound on Monday & went directly to the nursing home to see our Grandfather. He looked great. We stayed for about 45 minutes. My sister has a Great Dane named, Tucker, that my Grandfather LOVES for her to bring. While he likes Tucker, he really likes the attention walking the halls with the dog brings. LOL Most of the residents & nurses really seem to like him as well. He's BIG & that always brings attention.

We took Monday night off from cleaning, but started in on Tuesday. The attic had nothing in it - which was great as it was a crawl space with insulation just lying on the floor. THAT would have been really yucky & messy, but my sister volunteered to climb up in there. {big grin!!} We then headed to the basement.

The house is a split level of sorts. It has a finished basement area. It has a rec room feel to it. Underneath the sides are crawl spaces that were used for storage. Our job was to pull everything out to make it easier when the house is sold - possibly this summer. Oh my gosh! My sister went under & pulled everything out & I sorted. You could tell my Grandfather grew up during the Great Depression. He had saved EVERYTHING! We bagged up three large garbage bags of Styrofoam inserts - you know the type that comes with computers, TVs, & such to cushion them. This was after I had B take a hammer to them & stomp on them to break them down. Then we had a lot of packing peanuts (another bag full) & tons of cardboard - lots & lots & lots of cardboard! We ended up with about 12 large black garbage bags of trash & numerous bundles of cardboard. It was fun to go through things though.

Some of the treasures we found.... a 1935 Reader's Digest (the year my grandparents married), the original photos of the house when they bought it, the original mortgage deed to my parents house, and lots of photos! I'm going to be sorting through all the photos & mailing them back to the respective people. I'll also be scanning any treasures in there & then everyone can get a copy of them. It was a lot of work, but by Wednesday late morning we had accomplished our goal. Phew!

I was also able to visit with a good friend of mine while down there. My aunt introduced us when I was about 9 or 10 & Tricia was about 10 or 11. My aunt & her mom were good friends. We've stayed friends ever since. She was able to come over & visit for a few hours. It's great as we always just pick up where we left off - catching up on our lives & just falling back in to the rhythm of friendship.

Wednesday afternoon we went back to the nursing home for "milk & cookies" with my Grandfather, aunt, cousin & her son, & my great-uncle & aunt. While there J started complaining that his stomach hurt. Then he started really crying about it. Then...he threw up all down my back. {ugh! gross!!! shudder!!!} Poor thing. He threw up 1-2 times more. Then I had to decide if we should keep to our original plan & go home (a normally 4 hour drive) or go back to my Grandfather's house & spend the night & see what happened.

I decided to push for home. About 20 minutes from the nursing home he started crying again so we pulled off. My sister & I were caravaning due to the large number of kids & one large dog & the size of our vehicles. We had walkie-talkies for communication. At that point I decided to go back to my grandfather's house, but J fell asleep so we kept going.

Oh.......my.........gosh!!! We hit rush hour. We left about an hour too late & hit TONS of traffic. I drive a stick shift too. It was horrid. Then, just as we came out of Boston & hit I-93, J woke up & started throwing up again. There was no way I could stop & help him. Thankfully my 10 year old son stepped up & helped. He was a HUGE help. He held the bag for J to throw up in & he cleaned him up. He did this three times while in this nasty traffic. We finally made it to I-95 by 6:40 - we left the nursing home at 4pm.

We pulled off at the first exit & made a potty break since we all were about dying at this point! I also got J changed & cleaned up. We had planned to stop in Kennebunkport for dinner at the highway rest stop (Burger King), but instead everyone (but J) got donuts at Dunkin' Donuts where we had stopped. Then we headed further north. The traffic wasn't a problem from that point on. J slept most of the way & didn't get sick again. I made it home at 10:30 Wednesday night.

J has been sick the rest of the week. The last two nights I've slept in the living room with him on our sleeper sofa. Last night he finally slept through & hasn't been sick since last evening. He's not back to normal yet - he's sleeping again right now - but I think he's finally getting better. Now I'm just praying no one else gets it!

It certainly wasn't the vacation I was planning, but it was good to see my Grandfather & help clean out the house for my aunt. I don't ever want to repeat that drive though!