Oak Den: Saying Good-bye to Grandpa: Part I

Well, here's the thing about funerals: while they are, of course, sad events they are also usually a lot of fun. It is really fun to be with family and it is really fun when there is a road trip involved!

Our road trip began in the early, dark hours of Friday morning. We drove to Provo to meet up with Janet and Ward so that we could travel to Mesa together.

Here we are waiting for Janet and Ward at Allred's in Provo. We are already 2 hours tired!

I couldn't tell you what gas stop this is on I-15, but it was a few hours down the road and it was when Ward moved into our van and I went into Janet's car and that's how we traveled the rest of the way! GREAT TRIP! I'm sure it was great for the brothers to have ALL those hours to talk together. And I know that Jake and Abbie were MUCH better behaved with Uncle Ward in the car. And Janet and I had oh, 9 or so hours to talk and talk and talk. Great trip.

Gas stop in Richfield. Too funny to see Doug and Ward doing some techo thing at the gas pumps with their gadgets and gizmos a-plenty.

I think it was in Panguitch that we stopped for lunch at a park. You see, I was having such a great time with Janet that I really don't remember where we stopped. But this was a fun little break. We had a great rain storm pass by while we were under the pavilion eating.

I had decided that I didn't want us to have to eat fake food too much on this trip, so we went back to our travel roots and packed a lunch to bring. I forgot a few things, and didn't have time to get to the store for some things. But I did bring a home-made peach pie to eat!

Doug had bought peaches while in Provo on the weekend and they were going bad, so when I got back from Provo on Wed. night I knew the peaches needed to have something done with them on Thursday before we left on Friday at 5:00 AM. So I cut them up and bagged them and froze them so we can use them for smoothies. And I made a pie.

I liked having a picnic with real food at the park. We're going to do it this way more often on our road trips.

Abbie and Winnie at the Paige, AZ Wal-Mart, where we also rented some Red Box movies. How brilliant is THAT invention?

Janet with one pair of contacts and two pair of reading glasses on!

This is pretty funny. Janet needed to make sure we were going in the right direction when we were trying to get to her Mom's house. I had been trying to read the Atlas but the print was too small, even with my drug-store reading glasses on. Janet had on her contacts so she could see distance but that didn't help with close up, so she put on her reading glasses, but her contacts where throwing things off. So she put MY reading glasses on top of hers and then she could read the small print on the atlas. It was really pretty funny. WE'RE GETTING OLD!!

Janet teaching Doug, Jake and Abbie how to play "Farkle" (??)

We did eventually get to Mom's house in Mesa. Rick had driven Mom down on Wednesday and Maggie had flown in from Alaska on Thursday night, and they were all waiting for us on the front porch when we drove up. A fun and happy reunion. We talked and laughed and played a game and got some things ready for the viewing the next morning. It was nice being together...