This is the time of year when Joe and always went on vacation. It is weird for me this year being by myself in this. Truthfully, since I stay home with my kids I always have done all the planning/packing/shopping/getting us out the door type of stuff. I used to tease Joe because he literally would come home from work on the night before we went (sometimes the day of) and pack a bag and be like "I'm ready!". I remember wanting to strangle him at those times (in a nice way of course) because going away with 2 kids is VERY involved when the mother insists on being very organized and packing everything that could be possibly needed and thinking of all the details. So logistics-wise this is not that much different, but in reality it is very much different.

I miss Joe a lot when I am at camp. I think of him almost constantly. There are so many memories there.....really good, fun memories and some of the best times of our life together. I miss him and I miss the help with the kids. A 4-year-old girl and a 6-year-old boy do not want to do the same things up there. And they need to be watched all the time. I do have help from my family and especially my sister Kim, and I am thankful for that, but I miss the help from Joe in a deep way.

Joe and I also took a trip to Montreal in the summer, just the two of us. I have been thinking about that a lot lately. That is something that still has a sting to it....that those trips are done. We never had a bad time there. Both of us were always happy and always very very in love when we were there. The other day I pulled a bottle of Tylenol out of my bag and it was in french. I have had it in there for a couple years because it always made me smile to look at it. One morning in Montreal I woke up at about 5am with a REALLY REALLY bad headache out of a sound sleep. (Yes, this was probably invoked by too much alcohol consumed only a few hours before 5). I woke Joe up and told him how bad my head hurt, basically looking for some sympathy. Without me asking him, he got out of bed and got dressed and left. I remember thinking to myself..."where the hell did he go??" He came back about an HOUR AND 15 MINUTES later...with this bottle of Tylenol. Since it was so early the store in the hotel had not been open, so he walked the streets (of this city that he knew only as a tourist) looking for a store that was open so early that sold something for my headache. It took him a long time but he found one. Even then I couldn't believe that he did that for me. Lots of people would have headed back to bed and said it was too early for stores to be open. But not him towards me. He was so nice, so good at taking care of me. I miss that a lot.