In 2020 many of us had to let go of (or be forced to do) many things. Around June of this year we started to go back to the "new normal". I find myself saying "This is the first time since 2019 that we (insert event here)." It proves to be jarring, wonderful and even intimidating at times.

I'm sure I'm not alone. This past week, my sister and her family got to enjoy that very thing for the first time since August of 2019. For her, it was a vacation. She was going to Cape May/Wildwood Crest New Jersey. It's a four-and-a-half-hour ride from where she lives. I like to use Google maps and see how far things are from us and boom!

We live four-and-a-half-hours from that locale as well. They also had a pull-out queen sleeper sofa in the efficiency they rented. We decided to visit them for the weekend. As a surprise, we found a dog sitter last minute and on Friday morning we decided, we'd hit the road.

I saw my sister two weekends in a row in June. they both were for separate reasons and none were for pleasure. The past three days were. That sleeper sofa was the very worst I have slept on in all my life. I'm still exhausted.

That said, the exhaustion pales to the joy of spending time with family and in the ocean. The pure happiness of spending time with family for fun is something I have not been able to do for two years. We drank, we ate, we laughed and we got to appreciate how quickly things can be taken from us. We got a little bit of what we were missing back.

It was one of the best weekends I have had in a long time. That's all. That's the blog for today.

&

Raine