In just a few hours the Porter family will gather at JB"s uptown for breakfast as a last family get together before Nicholas boards the train to the East Coast.  It'll take him until Wednesday before he gets to Virginia and the next stop in his life's journey.  He is our first grandson to be off on such an adventure and I admit that I feel a little melancholy about it.  I am also a wee bit jealous over what he has ahead of him.  Life changes for all of us everyday, but this is a larger blip on the radar then most other days.  I am happy for him and for Spencer who will now have a room to himself.  Seems the only one who doesn't have a room alone in the Porter household is Sherri (and Russ).  Coming home from up North this afternoon Sheila and I talked about our lives and how they are different from the other stages of having and raising you kids.  It was over 35 years that we had between our first empty-nester year and our present empty-nester years.  No wonder I have had such a hard time recovering from that.  I hadn't realized that is lasted that long!  If we can finally recover we have much still ahead of us that we want to do.  It is an interesting discovery that we are making.  I'm talking about finding out that there is life after children.  We are trying to figure out what that is and just how satisfying it can be for us.