Back from Pennsylvania

...For a day or two anyway. We braved the icy roads and made it to my aunt's funeral just in time to see everyone walking out of the church. I did make it inside before they closed the casket and got to see my uncle and cousins before they closed the casket.

The rest of this post would seem really inappropriate if you didn't know our family, which is completely nuts and absolutely nothing else should be surprising.

The burial was in a small country cemetery with one driveway in, and no other exit. You pull in and back out. So, with a foot of snow on the ground (I may be exaggerating a few inches), 15 cars pull into a driveway long enough for about 10. The 6th car in, then managed to lock both sets of keys in the vehicle. Yep - I said both sets. Now as you might have expected, with it being such a small cemetery, lots of people carpooled to get there. So we had six overloaded cars that couldn't get out. So there we are in 15 degree weather on snow covered ground with about 20 people stranded, including the hearse. My aunt must have been having a good laugh over that one.

But we did manage to load everyone back into the remaining cars (my kids rode in the trunk space of out Ford Escape), and about two hours later they had finally broke into the car.

I suppose it was a blessing as it really did take everyone's mind off the day. There were many tears that really pulled at my emotions. From the six and nine year old girls, with tears streaking down their cheeks, to seeing my tough as nails 80 year old grandfather break down and weep in a pew by himself after the service. The photographer in me wished he could have captured those moments, but some pictures are better left stored in one's memory.

It was good to see family that I hadn't seen in 15 years and to get to meet some of my cousins children. It was amazing to see how much they looked like their parents when they were that age. Molly made fast friends with my cousin's daughter and they quickly exchanged email addresses so that they could arrange a Webkinz play date. Who knew the power of the Webkinz? My dad joked that it was terrible that someone had to die for us all to get together and that he planned to fake someone's death next year so we could have a reunion. Someone else said that would just tick someone off and we'd end up needing a funeral anyway - yeah I told you we were nuts.

All in all, the 15 hours we spent int he car over the last two days weren't too bad. Even the dog traveled well. We'll see if Thursday's travels will be as fun. Hopefully there will be less snow and ice and the emotions will be a bit happier.