The visitation, funeral and impromptu family reunion all went well. It was great to be able to all spend time together and we felt blessed to be there to support my grandmother, who is doing amazingly well and starting to plan for the rest of her life, knowing that she still has living left to do. She told us lots of stories over the last few days and I think she really enjoyed passing on bits of history to her grandkids. I know we all sat at rapt attention - she's led what she considers a very normal life, but it was so interesting to us...we'd like to hear more someday. Hopefully she'll be doing some traveling to visit family, and she'll be able to start going to church again, which she is really looking forward to - the last few years my grandfather has not been mobile enough to get to church, so the pastors have been doing home visits. My grandmother is ready to attend services again and visit with old friends each Sunday. The ladies of the church held a very nice reception for us in the Fellowship Hall after the funeral. It brought back a lot of memories for my sister and I as it was the church we attended as kids. Overall it was a wonderful trip - I would have liked to have had another reason for all of us to get together, but when we do get together it's always a good time.

So I went from rain in Michigan to rain in Washington, but at least I'm home sleeping in my own bed (not air mattress) and back with my husband just in time for our first anniversary tomorrow. Due to weather delays I got home after midnight yesterday, and because I flew into Portland, we didn't get home until almost 3 a.m. We were having our "man room" furniture delivered yesterday morning, so we had to be up by 9 in order to let them! Will had to go to work after that and I had to run errands...Needless to say, we were both exhausted all day.

Today we'll do a little shopping for some more "man room" items (end tables, and something to put the TV on, and throw pillows - my idea, of course, to which Will asked, "Why?"). We'll have dinner out tonight to celebrate our anniversary at a local restaurant we've been wanting to try - it's right on the water (which would be great for sunset, but it's cloudy today) and it supposed to be gorgeous inside as they brought in materials from all over the world to furnish and decorate the space. We'll see! Off to get the day started...