Pre-funeral festivities

Today we rolled into New Hampshire after a beautiful ride in from Albany. (I can say it was a beautiful ride because I didn't do any of the driving--thank you Chris!)

We were able to get early check-in at our hotel, and then we called our friend Terri (a fellow Bonaventure alum) and grabbed lunch with her at Pizzeria Uno. (I LOVE their deep dish spinoccoli pizza--spinach, broccoli, feta=YUM!). As we were finishing up our lunch, Chris received a call from one of his aunts...they said that they were at the "Mall of New Hampshire," which happened to be just down the road, so we left Uno and went to the mall. We met up with them, caught up quickly, and then went our separate ways. Then Chris and I did some shopping--I needed sweaters desperately, and ended up getting several at Old Navy for a very good price :)

We went back to the hotel and Chris met up with his parents while I went to the hotel room and dropped off our stuff. We spent a little while in our room and then met up with his parents and went over to his aunt's house, which turned out to be very full! Nana Bea (Chris' grandma who passed away) has six children: Bill, Sandy, Sheila, Buzz, Mace, and (my father-in-law) Guy. A few spouses, grandchildren, and extended family members were there, making it an extremely full house! I played a few games of cribbage (I forgot how much fun that game is!) and stood around and talked. Then the big discussions started: What to say at Nana's service, and what to do with her ashes after she was cremated. Because most of the kids are pretty big jokesters, the discussion was never really taken seriously, which was upsetting to some of the people there. Oddly enough, the people who were most upset were the ones who weren't even related to Nana. Finally my mother-in-law said, "Well, we'd better go!" and the four of us (MIL, FIL, me, and Chris) got up to leave.

Part of me wanted to chime in and say that we'll just take the ashes. I mean, honestly, that was not a decision that needed to be made right at that time, and it seemed like no one wanted to claim her. But I have very little say in this. Heck, Chris is a step-grandchild, so in the back of my mind, I was wondering if other family members think about that. (I have very strong opinions about the relationships between step-families since my oldest nephew is technically my step-nephew, and I love him just as much as my other nephews, but that's just me.)

After we bolted from the increasingly heated discussion, we went to the Airport Diner that's attached to the hotel and I had a grilled cheese sandwich at about 10pm. Not exactly something I like to do, but I hadn't had anything to eat since our lunch with Terri.

Now we're back in the hotel and preparing to get up early so we can get ready for the family viewing at 8:30 and the service at 11.