And Years Pass

Hiking in Maine with
friends John and Cindy

This blogspot was created to follow Moonshadow's travels.  Two years later I feel the pull to get back to blogging and go to create my new site.  What to name it? When it finally comes down to it though, Follow Moonshadow still seems right. The song by Cat Stevens reminds me to take it a day at a time, to take the good with the bad and to make the most of the moment.

So to catch up on things, since my last "visit" here we made it back into our home port of Charleston and called Ashley Marina home until the beginning of the following year.  We did boat projects, reinserted ourselves into our previous life, our kids and families and circle of friends and traveled - a LOT.  We did road trips to Buffalo, Maine, New Orleans, all around Florida and more - some on our Harley. We got back to paddling dragonboats and rowing and bookclub and choir.  We caught up on yard work at our home and took over the management of our guest room on airBNB.  We completely and quickly reverted to landlife outside of our residence being on the water.

Mom and I on a night out together.

The last day of 2013, Moonshadow sold to her new owners Steve and Elizabeth Thompson who have renamed her the Eleanor Lee and she's being well cared for.  Steve is a fun and crazy man of many talents and Elizabeth is a wonderful singer/songwriter.  Eleanor Lee has many good years of friendly gatherings ahead of her!

Bobbie, Dale (and Scott), Leslie and Rob
all who welcomed us into their homes
during our transition.

We continued to stay aboard until a couple of weeks into 2014 when we learned that Rob would need a new heart valve - and QUICKLY. With the help of amazing friends, we relocated to the guest room of Rob Dunlap and Leslie Kendall who miraculously welcomed us for the coming 6 months!

Ready to walk out -
after less than
100 hours post surgery!

In that time Rob had his successful heart valve replacement surgery, I took a 3 month intensive yoga certification, we traveled again to New Orleans, Buffalo, Wisconsin and places beyond, and further hung in there until our home finally became available in the beginning of July.  But seriously - who has friends able to put up with guests for a solid 6 months?  That goes down in history for being one of the most generous of offerings EVER.  Then, over a year after returning, we finally found ourselves back in our HOME.

Restoring family celebrations -
pumpkin carving with the boys and their girls

In the year since we've continued to dig deeper into all things familiar.  Dragonboat races at home and to locales like Tampa, Oregon, Boston and Chicago.  I've been to NYC countless times to be work with my sister, Joan, who suffers from chronic Lyme Disease.   We see our kids as often as we can make it happen - happy that they're close by.  We've continued to visit our mothers in New Orleans and Buffalo, enjoying family and festivals during every visit.  Our Charleston friendships have deepened as we enjoy progressive dinners, sunset cocktails, entertaining evenings out and as many parties as we can muster.  Rob's gotten remarkable on his guitar and we've both taken voice coaching and had our first official recital.  There's rumors of trying an open mic night one of these days.

And now we're back to today.  After all of this catching up, it just wouldn't be appropriate to begin to tell you about this most amazing last few days so I will sign off and leave that for tomorrow.  I look forward to
FOLLOWING A MOONSHADOW with you.

Life is GRAND