Gliding on paddleboards through rough seas far from shore, my daughter, granddaughter, and son-in-law are surrounded by dolphins. One taps my daughter’s board with its nose. My granddaughter falls off her board, and a pod swims over to check her out.
My daughter and her family, minus their college-aged child who is working, visited us here in Virginia Beach from Michigan for a one-and-a-half week vacation. We went to the beach four times, paddleboarding twice, the Norfolk Botanical Gardens, pigged out on hotdogs and cotton candy at a night baseball game with fireworks, frequented happy hours at a couple of our many fabulous restaurants, and steamed four pounds of crab legs on the patio.
My oldest grandchild called my daughter from Michigan. “Mom, next summer I’m going with you on vacation. I don’t want to miss out on all that fun.”
Notice she did not say, “I want to come next year because I miss my dear, sweet grandmother so much, I can’t stand to be away from her another minute.” She doesn’t want to miss another vacation in paradise.
We put new windows in this year and have thought long and hard about updating our master bath and our kitchen. But we don’t want to put too much money in our townhouse if we might move. We still toy with the idea of relocating closer to our Boston kids or our Michigan kids. We look at Zillow quite often.
But then we face reality. Our kids would disown us if we moved away from here.
The man who’s coming to give us an estimate on our bathroom makeover will be here any minute.
Coming East 
Susan, where are you? We have missed you!
Wow, Judith! I haven’t written anything in years. I’ve been concentration on my music instead. I’ve thought about renewing my blog during this pandemic, but I haven’t gotten off my duff. How have you been? So happy you got in touch with me. Maybe it will spur me into action—if I can remember how to navigate WordPress again!
Well, you know, if you must stay, it’s just such a sacrifice for the kids living at the beach. 😉
I’ll do most anything for my kids, even live here, if I must.
oh, how I have missed your writing! It sounds like a wonderful visit, and there’s always that white stuff to consider when moving north… but, we understand wanting to be closer to your kids. Great post, thank you for sharing, Cathi (DAF)
Yes, Cathi, we do get cold feet thinking about that white stuff that falls from the sky up north. Our kids get an over abundance of it. I’m enjoying getting back into writing my blog. Hope I can keep it up. Thanks for stopping by.