Making Memories or Cramming It All In?

I have been looking through all of my photos to jog my memory as I am writing about this journey. It is occurring to me that we did A LOT during the 18 months of planning. I remember thinking – and probably saying out loud “this will be the last time we will (fill in the blank) before we leave”. Oy vey…..a lot of beautiful memories but also bittersweet looking back now.

This will pretty much be a big photo dump of the highlights during this time. I’m worried that this is going to look like a giant Facebook post, but whatever, it is what it is. This is helping me to sort through the memories as I write about this time. This time was definitely a major part of my journey to France. I’ll do my best to make it as painless as possible! 😆

August 2018

Beckett, our youngest grandson’s 3rd birthday. We love celebrating all of our grandkid’s birthdays, but this particular celebration stands out. Skip’s sister Sharon and Beckett share a birthday – August 16. Most of our gang was together, including Sharon and Andy, so this made it an extra special occasion.

Later that month, we went to Kauai for our annual trip. We had been to Kauai many, many times before, but I never took these trips for granted. The sheer beauty of the island always brought me joy and peace and the familiarity from visiting so many times made it feel like my second home. It was definitely on my mind that these annual trips probably wouldn’t continue after the big move, so I really tried to enjoy every moment.

September 2018

In September, I was finally eligible for the celebration dinner for the 20+ year employees at Mary Birch, my hospital – or “Dinosaur Dinner” as it is commonly referred to. I started my career in Labor and Delivery with these amazing women in 1998. I learned and grew and went through so many intense times with these wonderful women and many other gifted nurses during my career. This milestone meant so much to me. I have so many mixed feelings about leaving my job, my identity, my fellow nurses. I miss it all so much. I’m sure I’ll write more about that later.

October 2018

In October, my sister Danielle and I hosted a yoga retreat in Hendersonville, North Carolina, where she lives. I have spent a great deal of time there since lots of other family members lived in the area too (I’ll be writing more about my North Carolina family later). Hendersonville is in the magical Smokey Mountains and I always felt such spiritual peace whenever I visited.

The idea for the retreat occurred to me the year before when I was visiting. I got a shocking phone call while I was there from a dear friend telling me she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. After my heart and mind calmed down a bit, my thought was that I would love to share this magical and healing place with her. I thought about other dear friends who might like to visit and experience the magic too. Danielle and I talked a lot about it – and she had special women in her life with whom she wanted share it with too. We decided to call our retreat “Soul Sisters Mountain Renewal” and invited some very special women. We planned different yoga classes hikes, meals, outings, an Ayurvedic cooking class, a visiting medium, lots of things! We ate, drank, laughed, had deep conversations and even some tears. For me, this was truly a highlight in my life and I will be forever grateful to these special souls who traveled so far for the retreat that Danielle and I dreamed up. (Sorry – lots of photos here and I have 100s more!)

November 2018

I don’t have hardly any photos from Thanksgiving this year. I’m recalling that this was the first Thanksgiving I was scheduled to work in my entire nursing career (I always volunteered to work Christmas Day instead). There was some major scheduling SNAFU and don’t think I wasn’t very bitter! Kidding (not kidding).