Fourth of July Weekend...unabridged!

This was my Joseph...ready for travel and excitement:

Owen and I left late Wednesday night on our first road trip as a family. By four a.m. Thursday we could see the morning sun starting to come up in Onset, MA. We were in bed all morning. By the time we woke up, it was a beautiful Cape Cod day.
I went for a walk along the canal with Susan Mastria and Susan Tague, and Robert's sister, Carol...Here are some lovely pictures from that little field trip.

We had a great time hanging around in Sue Mastria's yard. It's one of those perfect Cape Cod yards with a great table to hang out at, a view of the water, and the sun sitting perfectly in the sky...ahhh.

This is Sue looking gorgeous, with a beautiful martini and her new dog, Princess. Princess is a total sweetie! If you're interested in a video of Princess playing with my uncle Brian, it's available on my Youtube page...Princess is so tiny that Sue can bathe her in the sink, as shown here...

I am so grateful to Sue, not just for letting us stay in her fabulous house, which would be reason enough in itself, and not just for being an amazing hostess- cooking up enough food to feed our small army of people and mixing some great cocktails- but also for being there, on the Cape. My heart is still on Cape Cod, even though most of my family is not there anymore- and to have a weekend full of family, memories and salty air was so important. I am so thankful that Sue still lives there!

The best thing about this weekend was that my son got a taste of where I come from- people and place, and it was awesome to see...

This is my aunt Tricia holding him (you can see more of this in my last post.) Joseph talked to her so much that I think he was filling her in on everything that's happened since he last saw her, when he was only a week old!

That's my cousin Holly holding him. She also provided him with the stylish Harvard apparel...he clearly enjoyed her thoroughly!

The other Charbonneaus, the Tagues, shared this weekend with us. Actually, Susan Tague deserves credit for organizing this whole weekend. It was great to have Jef spend some time with them...

That's Mitchel enjoying a steamer...they were awesome! Then Brian provided fireworks (he loves pyrotechnics!) Onset, Ma turns out to be like the best place for fireworks. From Sue's yard we could see literally hundreds of fireworks over the course of the weekend...all without even having to give up a seat at the patio table!

Susan Tague loves my son, and he loves her...

I know that Owen had a good time because he finished one book, got most of the way through a second and started a third...

He also had a lot of time to really relax with Joseph, something he doesn't usually have during the work week.

I loved sharing where I come from with Jef. I love my kid to pieces and now that he's around, I miss my family even more because I know that the path we've chosen often brings us far away from Charbonneau-country... wherever that might be.

I was very sad when we left Massachusetts on Sunday night. I cried a lot. Owen felt bad because he said that he didn't mean to force me to leave my home. But he didn't' force me. I left to make a life with him where he decided to make his career. If anyone understands that, it's Susan Tague. I don't think Susan ever thought she would raise her son in North Carolina. But that's where her husband's career has taken them. And she's still a New Englander. Her son is still a New Englander at heart and he wasn't a year old when they left. I think my son will still be a part of where I come from, as long as I put the effort in to make sure that he has memories of this place, and relationships with these people. I often worry that Joseph won't identify as half a Charbonneau, because he will be living in the Fletcher house, often surrounded by Fletchers in New Jersey, where nary another Charbonneau lives. But then I realize that there is no way to ignore it. The place that I come from is so beautiful and filled so thickly with laughter and memory and Charbonneaus, that every vacation we take there connects Jef to that place in the same way that I am left to connect to it: attached at the heart. We'll both be attached to those gray mornings, late nights around the fire and the sound of the waves. I am lucky, in a way. In spending my vacations on the Cape my son will always associate where I come from with the happiest times- with sleeping late and lounging around, with fresh air and warm weather, eating fried seafood, playing cribbage and lying on the beach. If he loves the Cape the way that I do, then someday he'll also know how much I love his father, because he'll know that I have given up living there to be here in New Jersey, with Owen. Not that New Jersey is all bad, of course. I am only an hour from the virtual center of the world, New York City, and still only an hour from the beach, two hours from Atlantic City (very helpful!) and there are literally a dozen malls in close driving distance. But on a hot day when it smells like car exhaust and road tar outside in New Jersey, I will think of a scene like this and I will be thankful that I am from Cape Cod...and I will be thankful that Cape Cod is there waiting, just four hours north, no matter how far away it feels.