It seems hard to believe after having crashed at dad’s house for an entire week after returning from Florida but today we are finally returning home to Peekskill! We got up this morning and Dominica worked on packing the car while I made sure that everything was all set with work for me to be on the road some of the day. We had hoped to have been up and on the road much earlier than we actually were but just getting out of Pavilion seems to be a miracle.
Dad drove separately from us and we all met down at Brian’s USA Diner in Mt. Morris which is on the way home. We ate breakfast and then hit the road. We made a quick stop at the Rite Aid in Mt. Morris to pick up a car charger for the BlackBerrys as, somehow, we cannot find ours at the moment.
The drive back down to Peekskill went okay. Dominica was on my BlackBerry most of the way making sure that work did not need me. At one point, of course as we went through the middle of nowhere, I did need to work so we had to drive to Liberty, New York and stop at the McDonald’s there. It was convenient, in a way, since we were both a little hungry. So I bought some WiFi access and worked from my laptop in McDonald’s for an hour or so. We ate and it was a nice break. Then back onto the road again.
It was late afternoon and dark when we finally pulled into the house in Peekskill. Having been away from the house for more than four weeks in the last month and a half and knowing that we are moving to soon has really allowed us to distance ourselves from the house and to stop thinking of it as home. It feels like nothing more than a short term apartment now. That is very sad, in a way. This is a house that we owned. A house that we bought for Liesl. Liesl’s very first home and the only one that she has ever known, at this point. We are leaving so soon that there is very little chance that she will ever remember the house where she did so much of her early growing up. Including learning to walk, which she did tonight.
We pretty much just relaxed this evening. We did some work but mostly just light unpacking. We are pretty tired. There is so much to be done. Tomorrow the real work begins. There is no more avoiding it.
This evening, while hanging out with Dominica and I in the living room, Liesl suddenly just walked across the living room. Fifteen steps on her first attempt! She did really well. She is going to be on a rampage now. She had taken one step from her grandmother to me while in Disney World and then one or two nights later took two steps while playing with Madeline but they were all just isolated steps. This was real walking.