Good Times, Sad Times

I am back.. and once again survived about 30 hours in the car with a 10 and 12 year old and no adult to have a conversation with. The drive both directions was very uneventful. Very little traffic and almost no construction on the route we took. It wasn't hard.. just a long drive. I am so glad the boys and I got to be there though.

The services on Thursday and Friday were not easy, but I didn't expect them to be. That was where the sad times came in. Even as prepared as I was, the sadness was still there. Still had a hard time believing she was actually gone.

The good times were there too and I know she would be happy knowing that we were still gathering in her house and enjoying each others company like we used to. Family came from all over.. Oregon, Arizona, Wisconsin, Virginia etc. All made the trip to be there. The funeral was Friday early afternoon, so after that was over we had the rest of the evening and all day Saturday to spend time together. It was nice to be able to catch up with everyone and be there to support each other. I got to see some people I grew up with as a kid that I haven't seen in over 15 years. Pretty crazy to talk to someone you used to play flashlight tag with who know is married and has kids and a job etc.

It was great being able to spend time with my family even though it was not the best circumstances for a get together. If you have been reading my blog from the start, you know about Elvira. When we were talking about things with sentimental value we might like to take with us from Grandma's house, I said I had dibs on the Oak Ridge Boys tape. My dad looked at me and said that his mother didn't own an ORB tape. I told him bet me. I went over to her stereo and sure enough.. second tape down was the ORB Greatest Hits. My cousin's husband fired up the stereo and put it in.. and the first song is of course Elvira. My cousins and I start singing along while everyone looks at us like we just sprouted horns. I will tell you though.. by the third time through.. we had 3 generations of the family signing along. You just can't help it.

Whenever we have a family get together.. we always end up playing cards. This time around I learned a game called "Oh Hell" (there are other names for it too) and of course Hand and Foot. Hand and foot is one of my favorite card games to play.. but they were playing but wussy NY rules.. which while still fun, takes a lot of the challenge out of it in my opinion. Its always fun to get a group of people together like that who like to bullshit and give each other crap while we play. Makes it very entertaining.

Just like old times, I spent a lot of time talking with my sister and cousins. Stayed up to 3am one morning just talking. Its nice to have that kind of relationship where regardless of the time that has passed since you last talked, you just fall right back into it. My cousins are great down to earth people that you can just talk to about anything. I was very thankful they were both able to make it. My boys and my cousins kids all get along great and they spent a lot of time running around together.

I saw lots of interesting things along the way .. but in true juvenile guy fashion the thing that really cracked me up were various street names I passed. My favorite was "Fangboner Rd." That just made me laugh for some reason.. the thought of people that live on that road and have to put that on return addresses or have to give people directions .. "Yeah .. you just take a left on Fangboner.."

Its a good thing I'm back home now and able to go to the gym again. I swear all we did was eat for 4 straight days. There was so much good food. At one point on Friday night we had about 30 people together for the evening meal and there were meat trays, huge pans of lasagna and pasta dishes, salads, sesame chicken, deviled eggs, veggie trays, and two tables full of desserts. Did I mention that we didn't even get around to bringing out the 22 Whole roasted chickens someone had cooked for the occasion? We probably could have fed a small 3rd world country for a week with all that food.. lol. But we didn't have to cook for the rest of the time we were there as there was tons of leftovers.

The trip is over and we are back to the everyday. Which is good in some ways and tough in others. I leave you with a video that needs a bit of background. My kids like this song called 'Crank Dat' by Solja Boy. Yeah, its some hip hop song that they hear in gym at school when they have indoor recess. So my younger son asked me to make a CD for him before we left for NY with all his favorite songs on it. He wanted that one so I went to download it and apparently I downloaded the wrong one. I got "Crank Dat Spiderman" instead of "Crank Dat Solja Boy" .. my bad. Even though it wasn't the right version, I still had to suffer through it about 10 times on that trip. So I was on my laptop checking my email and such and my bro-in-law tells me to search for a video his friend sent him a link to. Its the drummer from Blink 182, Travis Barker, who is just insane on the drums and was doing a drum overlay on some hip hop songs. So I search for Travis Barker on youtube and lo and behold, the first one that pops up was his version of 'Crank Dat'. So we watched that one and I must say it was an improvement over the original. Still not enough that I would listen to it regularily, but then we watched his version of 'Low' by Flo Rida and I enjoyed that one. It had some rock guitars in it already, so the addition of the drums added a nice touch. So I am going to share that one with you. If you want to see the other.. thats your choice, just search for it. :P