August 31 DAVID DAVID DAVID!!!

Thursday:  It's been a LONG time anticipating David's arrival back in Grand Rapids--and TODAY WAS THE DAY!!! Hurricane Idalia hit Florida as a category 4, thankfully missing Tampa Bay with much of its damage; however, the airport closed down Tuesday night. David's flight was taking off early Thursday morning, going through Chicago, and hopefully arriving to us by about 1:00 in the afternoon. SO ... we monitored the airport closing thing quite closely and were relieved when it reopened to outgoing flights at about 3am Thursday morning. And really, with all of the cancelled flights that had occurred over the 36 hours the airport was closed, it would be a near miracle for David to arrive at his scheduled time. We were ready to be disappointed, which helped lessen the pain, but STILL ...

David's flight was delayed at Tampa, which naturally resulted in him missing his connecting flight to Grand Rapids from Chicago ... but we don't want to unnecessarily dwell on the negative here ... HE FINALLY MADE IT to us by nearly 6pm Thursday evening. We were super happy he made it to us safely, although he was tired from a very long and boring day just ... waiting.

We drove out to Rockford and decided to eat at one of our favorite places, "The Toasted Pickle". We ate outside, because it was such a beautiful evening. I snapped just a few pictures while we were out in Rockford:

It's been quite a long time that the three of us siblings have been in the same location--like since my mom's funeral back in May 2018--we asked Terry to snap a picture or two of us together.

These are not the best pictures ... but it was windy and chilly and we were all tired. No worries! We are just beginning our extended siblings weekend!

So super glad to have David near us I can't even put it into words! 

NO WORDS. 

Except I do need to insert a PS here. We re-introduced David to the game of "Bananagrams" and howled with laughter as we played it over at my sister's house later in the evening. It's actually NOT a hilarious game ... no, no, no. It's just how WE play it. I'd explain, but it would be too many words, and I'm not even sure I can describe it.