Countdown

We are going to New Hampshire! In 17 days. I’m so excited I’m about to the point of marking days off on my calendar or making a chain I can take a link off of every day. I am resisting going down to the basement and bringing up my suitcase so I can start packing. It would make sense – there are a few things I need to bring up there I don’t want to forget. But I do still have 17 days to go…

By the time I get to New Hampshire, it will have been nearly 2 years since I’ve been up there. The longest time I’ve been away from “home” since moving away. And I miss it terribly – sometimes so much it almost hurts. It’s hard to put into words how much I am looking forward to being up there, resting in the closest place I have on earth to home.

Of course, this trip will be a very new adventure. Every other time I’ve been up there, it’s just me with a rental vehicle, driving all over the place and doing was I wish (mostly spending hours on end at Allyson’s). I will still have the rental vehicle (we’ve decided not to put all the miles on my car), but this time I’ll have Ed and Emry with me. Traveling with a not-quite-six-month-old should be exciting.

We’ll be leaving very, very early in the morning (about the time Ed usually heads to work anyhow) to drive up there, hoping Emry will sleep for the first leg quite comfortably. We’re hoping to arrive around noon at my sister Katey’s new house. My sister Jenny will also be visiting the first few days we’re there, and I’m sure it will a busy stay with 2-year-old Jay to entertain us.

In no particular order, we hope to drive down to Newport, RI one day to see where I was born and enjoy the beauty of the island. And we’re going to drive up to Maine because Ed wants to see the rocky coastland of New England. (We probably won’t swim, but we can put our feet in – Emry’s first trip to the ocean.) There will be apples to pick, and ice cream to eat, and hours and hours to spend with Allyson and her 7 wonderful children in their new home. That is always the best part of New Hampshire.

And we’re just going to drive around as I get to share my life with Ed and Emry. I drive around the streets of Pittsburgh every week – the home of Ed. But he’s never seen where I’m from, and where I love the most, and the places that mean the most to me. I can’t wait to share!

Only 17 days…