Family reunion?

So weddings and funerals are a way for my extended family to get together for a reunion. On a similar note, my grandmother died last Thursday after she was brought to the hospital. My uncle took her in because she stopped taking care of herself. There they found a mass in her heart, but since she was so frail, they decided not to run further tests. Later, on Thursday, things got worse really fast, and was suddenly she was gone. To me, this would be a relief for her. Now she gets to be with my grandfather, her mother, and sister. She will have her healthy body and mind again. So by Sunday night many on my Utah cousins were in town. So the older people, our parents, met at our grandma's house to discuss the funeral arrangements, while we young people met at my parent's house to talk and have fun. So we talked and had fun and ate "free" pancakes. Ok, so the story behind that is we were talking about where to eat on Monday, and Kathy said that we could go to IHOP and get $5 pancakes. I said that we could eat free pancakes here because there was a big bag of pancake mix sitting on Mom's counter. So as the night wore on we got hungry so we had pancakes. We also discovered that night how much alike we all were.



On monday we went to the Jelly Belly factory in order to entertain Michelle and Lua's children. Later that afternoon, I went with the Utah cousins to Old Sac and we wondered around and bought candy. Then we all went out to Golden Corral for dinner, and took up about a quarter of the restaurant. There we met up with Doug and Echael, and Michael, and Ben and Kim, who had come into town by then. Then we went to back to The House, and Julene had come into town. We discussed the funeral schedule for the next day, then went home.

The next morning (Tuesday) Nolan had to take Iliana to the doctor's to get her RSV shot (which they only offer on certain Tuesdays of each month, and require an appointment), while I took Oliver with me to the funeral. We got there a bit late, but in time for family prayer. At least I got there before the cousins who got lost using a GPS (Pam, and Kathy!). The funeral was very nice. AFter the funeral director locked the coffin he handed the key to Uncle Dave which I thought was very strange. Later I found out that Kathy had presented her dad when they were on their way to the funeral home, and so that was basically the only thing that worked. Uncle David gave the eulogy, but he had found Grandma's journal, and inside was an entry where she basically gave her life story; so he just read that. I thought that was cool, because then we got to hear about Grandma in her own words. Then we drove to the cemetery and Uncle Larry gave the dedicatory prayer. Then back to the church for lunch. It was nice to chat with everyone there (some had finally arrived that morning) and see a new baby that no one had known about! Then we went back to the House to have a small birthday for Kieran since it was her birthday that day.

The next few days were spent cleaning out Grandma's house. And man did it need cleaning! Grandma seemed to have spent the last few years just buying stuff from DI, and that's where most of it went back to.