Boston, a Whirlwind Stop at Home.

We arrive home to Boston the evening of October 1 taking an Uber to Jenn and Rob’s home in Melrose.  Jim has a 9am appointment in Lynn where he met up with his good friend from medical school, Roger Hadley and his wife Donna.  Roger was a medical school classmate and is the recently retired, longest serving, Dean of Loma Linda University School of Medicine.  He is in Boston visiting Loma Linda alumni along with his wife Donna, Lindsay Daguerressar who is senior Development Officer for the School of Medicine and Patience Boudreaux, Planned Giving Officer.

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We had a good breakfast and a great visit.
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So fun catching up with longstanding, rather than “old”, friends.

We went back to Lynn later that same day and had dinner with Nancy and Jim Warner and Rob and Jenn.  Nancy is a close high school friend of Sandy’s who she reconnected with in 2016 after not seeing each other for 50 years.  We have had some memorable times together since that reunion.IMG_2448We spent the next few days packing up all of our belongings from Jennifer’s house into plastic boxes as she and Rob have sold their house in Melrose MA and have purchased a new home in Newport RI.  Moving day is October 8 and we have to separate out clothes going to Newport from clothes moving on with us to Melbourne where we will face Spring/Summer and cold/hot weather.  We also have haircut appointments and a travel clinic appointment for Jim as he is going to Ethiopia on November 2.  We attend a goodby party for Jenn and have a final meal at Turner’s Seafood Grill and Market where she has been working for the past five years.

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Goodby hugs for Jennifer.

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Leaving Turner’s for maybe the last time.  We all have a lot of good memories and meals from here.

The movers show up early morning on November 8 and empty the house.  We pick up a rental car and drive to Bristol RI to visit our oldest grandchild Jackson Curran who has just started his freshman year at Roger Williams University.  He is a changed man from when we saw him just a few months ago, college will do that.  He is back to the outgoing, warm talkative person that we knew when he was younger.  We spent a delightful evening with him and had a memorable dinner at Le Central which is a local French neighborhood bistro that offers modern versions of French classics using local produce and fresh ingredients.  We had a lovely meal and great conversations with Jack.

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Jack showing us his dorm room at RWU.

We spent the night at the historical Victorian home of Kiki McMahan who is Rob’s mother.

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Kiki’s house.

The movers arrive at 2 Griswold Place in Newport at 8am on October 9.  We spend all day there helping with the unpacking and moving in.

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This is the listing photo of Jennifer and Rob’s new home.  Our room is the large window on the 2nd floor.  Jackson’s suite is the whole 3rd floor.  Three car garage on the right.

We drive back very early morning on October 10 experiencing the worst of Boston rush hour traffic for a 9:30 Dermatology appointment for Sandy.  We drop off the rental car in Boston as we are spending our last night in here with our dear friend Peggy Scott who lives directly behind our home at 87 Beacon Street.  We delayed our flight to Melbourne Australia by one day in order to attend a book launch by our good friend Jay Carroll which was held in the newly bustling Seaport District.  We had dinner with dear friends Donna and Tom Quirk at Drink prior to attending the book launch.  Jay has been working for a number of years on his book Barnstorming which is an historical novel about the negro baseball league and so much more than can be explained here, so just buy the book.  We would highly recommend clicking on our link and ordering his book.  Jay is a multitalented person who we have been close friends with since the early 90’s.  We have no regrets about delaying our trip to Melbourne for Jay.  He is one of the most charismatic friends we have. Click on the video below and see why we feel this way about him.IMG_0038

IMG_0806We are now heading to Melbourne with a quick two night stop in LA to connect with quite a few friends there.

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