The long ride home
 

Well we just got back from dinner with the kid, grandkids, and the wife's sisters, and to put it mildly, it was gut wrenching. The food and restaurant were excellent, but at the end of dinner, the tears started to flow. While their happy for us, they still don't want us to leave, so it was very emotional. Will now finish packing the car and get some sleep. We should be on the road by 3AM , and then it's nonstop to TV. :crap2: The next time you here from Marybb and I, we'll officially be frogs!!:pepper2::coolsmiley::pepper2:

My heart goes out to you and your family. Saying goodbye is so tough, but you all will be so okay.

My kid is working on me real hard through passive aggressive behavior, she does not want her Mom to move 3000 miles away. My husband and I love The Villages, we want to be free of the congestion, craziness of the big city, we want to be kids again. I feel that I have been a wonderful attentive Mom and grandma, but I also want to be wonderful to me. It's my turn to be of service to Me and the husband.

Enjoy your journey to your new home, hopefully our home sells soon so we can join you in Buttonwood.

God bless you,

J

Aww, I could barely read the posts outloud to my husband without crying. Life is about changing. It is difficult. But we deserve our happiness too. There's always room for visits...both ways. I truely wish you all many, many, many days of smiles, health and much happiness. Safe travels and God Bless you and yours. I'll leave the lights on for you!

Hi Lary and Mary,
I feel your pain and joy. Goodbyes are so hard. May all of your reunions with family and all of your new life in TV be filled with bliss!

Welcome home. Love and hugs,
P

..May you both enjoy a long and healthy life in TV.. We welcome you back. BUT PLEEEZZZZ do not try to make it straight through...... You are talking at least 24 hrs on the road .......We ALL want you here safely.... Why not give yourselves a tour of Savannah after an overnight a couple of hours North of there. I"ll be giving the "Big- Guy- in- the- sky" a shout out with a request for your safe travel.......GODSPEED......

It is tough to leave family, but it is sooooo much fun here.

What heartful posts from everyone. I think about leaving my grandchildren and how sad I will be. It doesn't matter where I will be my grandchildren are always in my thoughts. I don't feel so guilty now after knowing other grandparents feel the same. I know I will be shedding some tears but hopefully when when arrive in TV the sun will be shinning.
Even leaving my kids at school makes me sad. I hope and pray that I have someway touched their lives. Well enough of being sad. I need to think about all the fun ahead of us. Wish everyone many years of happpiness.:wave:

Goodbyes are so hard. I dread even thinking about that day. So I don't...not yet anyway! My husband and I will be down July 1 for a month to look for our new home (our last resort)! I cannot wait! We've been terrific parents...we always will be. We will just be terrific parents 1200 miles away having the time of our lives! Safe journey to you!

Goodbyes are so hard:cry:
When my parents moved from the Buffalo area to Sun City West, AZ decades ago, it was a different world communication wise. There were no cell phones, it was very expensive to make a 3-minute phone call on the land line (who heard the term land line in those days?)....and it was very expensive to fly from Buffalo to Phoenix. Nowadays, it's so much easier to stay in touch with loved ones. There are computer cameras and "Facetime" on the iPhone where you can see one another while talking on the iPhone. My brother (who lives in KC) will sometimes call me on the iPhone and it's not always a pretty picture at this end.......so I put the camera on the dawg! Anyway, bottom line....it's so much easier to stay in touch with loved ones these days.....and doesn't put you in the poor house to make a trip back home. So...have a safe trip to TV (and don't do it in one day...yikes!).....enjoy.....and look what you have waiting for you. :a040:

Move
 

Congrats on your move. It's not easy leaving but once your settled in and they come to visit, you'll have a great time and they'll be pleased with your decission. What was funny to us was my oldest daughter moved first and said you can visit anytime it's only a 6-7 hour drive. Well now it's only a 3 hour plane ride for everyone. It does get easier over time. Hope you have a safe trip, when you get here hook up the Skype on the computer and you can see each other any time.

I was so homesick at first
 

It took months for me to get over the homesickness. After the kids all came to visit they understood why we moved. I still miss them, but I do love it here. I will keep you in my prayers.

We are moving down in August, closing in July and I have the same feelings going on right now. I keep telling myself that we have been great parent's to 2 amazing sons, and we love our Granddaughters past the sky, but now I want this lifestyle for my husband and I.
Larry and Mary, I wish you safe travels and all will be well once you get settled and start enjoying everything we have been dreaming about:o
Linda
(soon to be resident of St. James!)

Safe travels, laryb. The best is yet to come!

laryb -

As swimdawg's already said, there are TONS of ways to stay in touch with family and friends - different than the old "long distance phone calls" and "stick a stamp on a letter" days. And I'll bet you'll be surprised how often you'll have visitors from back home once you settle in to TV!!!

Hope your trip is a safe one -

Bill :)

Drive carefully, you, two! You'll be here before the day is over....friends from Swansea use to drive here in 17 hours. Frankly, that's way too long for me, but I'm sure you both are adrenalin driven at this point... ;)

Saying good by is very difficult. When Mike and I headed out to CA years and years ago, we, too, had the farewell dinner with family. It was very difficult to say goodbye to my parents, siblings, grandmother, but we headed west and we visited back and forth. My parents even got brave enough to drive cross country. It was one of their most favorite trips.

You'll be fine and once you get here, you'll be so busy, you'll have to remember to make a note to call your family, time will go by so quickly as you settle in. Remember, I phones, I pod touch, pads, are good for face to face conversations. Our son, who has lived fairly close to us here for the past 5 years, will be heading to the Chicago area with his family very shortly. Though they've only in the past 5 years lived close to us, I've gotten used to it and I'm the one making the fuss...lol. My new I pod arrives on Monday....the kids all have I phones or I pod touch devices...so we'll be able to see each other quite a bit.

Hurry home, drive carefully, get plenty of rest when you arrive and WELCOME HOME!!!

Facing it soon too, the move that makes it our Lily Pad.

Feel this hug.

Gracie - is your Northern Mansion for sale yet????
Inquiring minds want to know!:wave:

We just went through that three weeks ago...and haven't looked back since!!! We are here full time now and have never been happier. No one could understand how we could move so far away, but my daughter has just come down to check it all out and thoroughly understands why we found The Villages so compelling. If she could, she and her husband would move here too!!

Best of luck in your new home and new life...hope to meet up with you soon!!


Pat & Bill
Lovin' our Life in Hadley

LaryB,
I know you'll be tired from the drive, but please tell us when you arrive so we'll all know you got here safe and sound. Exciting times are ahead...
:wine:

A week from today it goes on the market. My realtor ran off for a week..If we wait a couple more weeks, with the market dropping so badly in Ohio, we will have to pay them to buy it.

Thanks for your thoughts Phyllis, and to all the other posts in this thread. Everyone of you have made me and my Maryb feel so welcomed to the "TV" Family". After the ride down and doing some unpacking, this is the first time I've turned the computer on, and naturally, TOTV is the first site I've been on. The trip was uneventful until we reached Jacksonville, and then it hit the fan! Other than a few traffic jams, the first 18 hours were a breeze. It started to rain at Jacksonville when we took the Rt 10 exit, and just got heavier and heavier, to the point where we could hardly see 20 ft in front of us, so we slowed to a crawl. When we reached the 301 exit, the roads were flooded and things were getting worse, if that was possible. We figured that if we made it this far, we'd just be careful, drive slow, and we'd finally be in TV. The one thing that really messed things up was Rt 301 being shut down in some small town called Lawtey, which I think is about 95 miles from TV. The police put up a detour sign that led to no where. It led us in to the woods and there wasn't another detour sign, and we decided to ignore the GPS, because it just led us in a circle back to the same roadblock. I drove down a road away from 301 for several miles, and when I found an intersection, I took a right and kept on driving, all the while ignoring the Garmin. After about 15 miles, I figured I was far enough from 301 to start following the GPS. After going through what seemed liked endless flooding, I ended up back on 301, and we were back on track to TV! We were supposed to arrive in 20 hours at 12:30 AM, and ended up getting in at 2:30. During the trip, Mary was following all your posts on her Ipad, and we can't tell you how much we looked forward to all them. Hopefully we'll get to meet all of you at the squares, the pools, Crispers, and all the other TV hotspots. And from now on, we won't have to call it TV, we can call it home, and that's really :coolsmiley:

You two are some of the sweetest and nicest people on TOTV and now you are home.

Hope to be your really friend.

Glad you both made it safely. Welcome home!!!

Bill :)

It is never easy to part from family. But send them a video of you and your wife line dancing in the Village Square and all will be well with family...:pepper2:

Glad to hear you made it safely to your new home. Now take a deep breath , pinch yourself and start your new lifestyle. Wish you both the very best.:angel:

laryb:

I am soooooo happy to hear you and MaryB made it to TV safe and sound.

It's so hard saying goodbye to love ones but I'm sure visits from them will help them to see you made the right choice. They'll be stopping by as Disney is only an hour away. :)

Best Wishes as your start living the dream.

Welcome home!
(You do know that you can wave to the family if you stand by the clock at the square, call them and tell them to log on to The Villages dot com, and then click the link to the webcam at the town square? We do this all the time with folks back home)

Great idea! :BigApplause:

Welcome Home Lary and Mary!!! And now, THE FUN BEGINS!!

Three words: web cam - skype