Goodbye to Rochester

So we went up to Rochester expecting to cool off. We even brought some long sleeves and light jackets against real possibility of a few chilly days. Imagine our consternation when we spent the first week there in the grips of a heat wave such as only visits that area every few years: in the mid 90s for almost a week straight!

Stop laughing down there, Southerners. :-)

Anyway, it finally did get back down to the usual mid 80s and we even had a chilly few days before we left. Check it out: our kids wearing jackets in July!

Oh, yeah, and 3T pants still fall off of Miles. What of it?

Thursday was the day we'd fixed on to leave. On Wednesday, we had another couple hours at Eeyaya's (Leah's) to say goodbye. It was not easy.

Miles & Adele bid a fond farewell to the trampoline their cousins.

I had to muster up a goodbye to my very dear other half. If you don't know this already, Leah and I were born five weeks apart and we spent our first 18 years living 40 minutes away from one another and scheming continuously for more more more opportunities to be together. We have been sisters in every important way, and I've felt so very blessed to have had her with me to face so many milestones. Most recently: our third decade! We had to begin it states apart but this year we celebrated together.

Because we've both been so very mobile over the past few years, we've hardly been able to see each other above a couple of holidays each year since we both graduated and married. This summer was an enormously welcome opportunity. And I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm longing to buy up a house down the street from her.

Where we come from, we're a legend.

The goodbyes continued. Adele said goodbye to her best friend, Kirby the dog,

The kids said goodbye to one another...

I'm not sure why I love this video so much. It's maybe just that the sound of kids clamoring down those wooden stairs are such a sweet sensory memory of this trip.

Meanwhile in Penfield, the kids said a loving goodbye to their Grandpa Jim.

They are seriously going to miss the spoiling they got! All they had to do was approach him with a book or ask for attention and they got it.

The night before we left, Miles got a special big kid treat: a trip in Grandpa Jim's vintage Mustang to see a baseball game downtown! (The Rochester Redwings, a minor league team, if you care about that sort of thing. Also, they won :-) ) I got to stay home and receive a visit from my old and very dear Allison and Sarah, previously shown at the Highland Bowl at Twelfth Night.  We were enjoying our girls' night far too much for pictures.

Anyway, Miles and this car! Miles says it is a racecar. He loves the racket it makes!

Adele was pretty crazy about it herself!

They wanted to stay and climb the car and their Grandpa for much longer, but we had a date with their other Grandparents in Maryland. So we piled in and said goodbye as best we could. It sounded a lot like, "We'll see you soon!"

It's been a long time since I've been home long enough to feel I lived there again. I got to catch up with a variety of old friends, I got to see places I haven't seen in years. I got to reprogram the radio stations I liked into the car, buy groceries at Wegman's, eat Pontillo's pizza, and brush up my accent. :-)
I kind of got a bit more centered and at home with myself, along the way. One gets tired of constantly having to say, well, I'm not from here. I didn't grow up here. I'm new here. Where is the ___? You pronounce that HOW again?

I know our society is such that we really can't expect to stay put. And I know that's not really desirable to a lot of people. I get it. But all this transience can get kind of disorienting and tiring.

I'm happy to say I'm feeling extremely oriented and rested these days.