Quinn Does The Impossible

Impossible eh? I present for the jury's consideration the evidence below.

Leftover Beach Pictures

Nothing too spectacular here. The sky was too white in the top photo, and let's face it, the other photo is just a piece of wood.

Used Games Bonanza

So while we were on vacation I noticed over at CAG that Gamestop was having a used game sale. A buy two get one free deal, and you could also get free shipping. And since the Wii has backward compatibility with the Gamecube system I loaded up on some old Gamecube games that I had always wanted to play but never gotten. I managed to pick up the Price of Persia: Warrior Within and Prince of Persia: Two Thrones, the second and third installments of the Prince of Persia series (I had played the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time a long time ago and really enjoyed the puzzle aspect of the game). I also picked up the Zela Four Swords game, as well as Spider-Man 2, X-Men Legends 2 and another random Batman game. In addition for the PS2 I got Rayman 2, Mark of Kri and Rise of Kasai. All these could be mine for the low low price of under $50. Now given they way Gamestop assigns the free game I had to place multiple orders (instead of assigning the free game as next most expensive, it would always pick the current cheapest game), but that was okay since I also choose the basic shipping option (which with an online coupon was free), and according to the shipping description it would take over a week or more for the games to arrive (they claimed 2-5 days for processing and 5 days for standard shipping). So imagine my surprise when we arrived home on Sunday night and all the games were sitting there on our doorstep. Looks like I have enough games to keep me entertained for a while. And considering how costly some of the new Wii releases can be I'm surprise more people aren't opting to locate some of the better Gamecube games.

Another Stuffed Animal

So earlier in the week I had no idea how the funeral was going to go. Ginger was overly concerned that the children would be rambunctious or something and act inappropriately.


Little did we know at the time they would both act with all the decorum the event demanded, but in order to insure good behavior I basically instituted a bribe promising them a surprise of some type if they managed to not cause any problems during the ceremony. So while we were out for lunch today at a mall in Richmond we came across a Build-A-Bear (a.k.a. Drop-A-Ton-Of-Money-On-A-Stuffed-Animal-And-Accessories) which Catherine immediately wanted to go into. So I decided this could be her surprise, getting a new stuffed animal and accessories. Catherine's newest addition is a dog called Daisy.

Funeral

Today we said goodbye to Ginger's grandmother. I was a bit surprised, but during the service the kids started crying. I should have realized from the day before that Quinn was going to react this way, but for some reason I wasn't expecting it. By the time we got to the graveyard service they seemed fine for the most part.




I guess kids are pretty resilient. They seemed to have bounced back fully by the time we got back to the church for the reception. Catherine got to hang out with her cousin Maddie. Quinn hung out a lot with my Mom. I'm not sure I had ever Quinn wearing a tie before. I feel like he must have worn one at some point, but I just don't recall when it was.








I kept busy by taking some pictures of the flowers. Given how many flowers there were that gave me plenty to do.




After the reception we briefly returned to graveyard and then returned home after that.

Hopewell

Today was the viewing. And that meant the pre-viewing viewing. We had given the kids the option of not going, but they wanted to go. So we all ended up heading over to Hopewell to the funeral home to see what everyone would be seeing later. Quinn handled it pretty well, but you could tell the experience let him a bit uneasy. At one point he sat down in a pew and looked away, not wanting to look at the casket.


Once we left the funeral home Ginger's Mom had us as a captive audience, so she drove us around Hopewell telling us of the history of the town and where she had lived growing up. The town itself reminded me a lot of the town I grew up in (Waynesboro). A small town that exists at the whim of a large chemical company plant (in my case it was Dupont) that's one of the main employers. I'm not sure if I recall the name of this company. The other thing that seemed similar is that downtown consisted of just a couple streets, and no building really seemed to be larger than three stories.


All I had to capture the events of the day was my small hand held camera, so the pictures are probably pretty bland. Let's see how well I do recalling the information about the buildings we saw. I believe this was the school. I don't know if it's suppose to make you think of the schools from things like Little House on the Prairie, but it did for me.


I think this was the house where Ginger's Mom lived when she was very young.


This was Cook's house. Somehow it related to their family, but I don't recall how. I remember them mentioning it acted as a hospital / triage center for civil war soldiers. (This is the house the Kennedy's lived in and my grandfather grew up in.)


This I believe was the house that Ginger's grandmother lived in with her husband. I'm having a hard time recalling all the details. Apparently I should have been recording the conversation as we went, or I could request the tour again, I'm sure she would love to do it all again.


And this I believe is the high school Ginger's Mom attended high school. The school is not being used any longer, but those who graduated from it (from both my parents generation and my grandparents generation) want it used for another purpose.) I'm guessing I've gotten some information here wrong, and once I get chastised for not remembering all the details correctly I'll update them accordingly.

She Will Be Missed

Ginger wrote up a nice piece that covered some of her memories of her grandmother will be read during the funeral.

I have many memories of you, my grandmother, but I have a few favorites I will always remember:

I remember you taking me to the beach when I was young and climbing the sand dunes at Jockey's Ridge

I remember you filming the bridge on the way to the beach for me since I thought it was so long

I remember you always asking me "don't you know about sharing" especially when you ate one of my fries

I remember spending Saturdays at your house and having a wonderful time and eating burned bacon and toast

I remember playing Life and Chinese checkers with you, and you always won!

I remember you loving the birthday cake with the purple icing I made you

I remember you "fixing" my ice cream cones, mostly because I remember them being much smaller after they were fixed

I remember playing with cicadas in your back yard and attempting to climb your big magnolia tree

I remember us eating red, white and blue ice cream around July 4th 1976

I remember your joy at holding your great grandchildren

I remember you playing peek a boo with Quinn

I remember you always looked and acted so young

I remember you could always talk to people and entertain them

Thank you for being such a wonderful grandmother.

So we ended up getting to Richmond last night really late (somewhere between 11 and midnight). Luckily the kids slept most of the trip, but considering they didn't even begin to sleep until well into the trip they ended up missing out on a lot of sleep. Ginger and her Mom did a lot of the funeral planning today and I did my best to try and keep the kids occupied.



The kids at the moment don't seem to be overly affected which is odd since I know they understand the concept of death from when Dobie died. I'm glad they actually got a chance to know her though, I only have vague recollections of my great grandmother (not really sure I remember her at all to be honest).


My memories of her will always be influenced by the fact that when Ginger and I were dating (and even well into the first couple years of our marriage) that she would always remind me how much she liked Ginger's previous boyfriend. Basically how he always brought her flowers (I didn't) and how nice he was (implying I guess that I'm not, which is probably fair). In her defense once Quinn showed up and she realized that Ginger and I were probably going to be together for the long term and those reminders stopped. She was never afraid to speak her mind, and you always knew where you stood with her. The good news is she isn't suffering anymore and she's in a better place.

An End To The Vacation

We decided to revisit the "Bee Beach" today. Ginger and the kids worked on an elaborate sand city for most of the time. It ended up looking quite impressive when all was said and done.








When I saw Ginger talking on her phone, I realized she had probably gotten the phone call we had been dreading. Her grandmother had been seriously deteriorating over the past week and the doctor that checked in on her today said she probably wasn't going to make it another day.






Realizing this might be our last day at the beach we decided to stay a bit longer than we normally would have. We made a conscious decision that we didn't need to tell the kids just yet and let them continue working on their sand structure oblivious to the news.










Eventually though we had to leave as we were informed that a serious thunder storm was on the way to us and the life guards were leaving the beach. We were also told we were more than welcome to stick around, but it would be at our own risk. So that more of less ended our beach outing for the day. We informed the kids of the news about Ginger's grandmother on our way back to the house, and explained that we would probably be leaving for Richmond soon. Once we made it home and were having lunch Ginger got the call her Grandmother had passed. Even though this news was not unexpected, it was still hard on her. Ginger's grandmother had been getting worse for months, and that's one of the reasons Ginger had gone out of her way to get to Richmond as often as she had recently.


So we spent the next several hours packing everything up. Then we scrambled to try and figure out how to check out since we were leaving well before the normal check out time period. Had I been thinking clearly at the time I would have offered the house up to my cousin or friends from work provided they could immediately come down and take advantage of it instead of simply turning in the keys (since we basically lost out on week of the house by leaving early). We said goodbye to the house, made a stop by Rita's Ice (we had stopped by Rita's every day we were there, it didn't seem right at that point not to stop by) and drove to Richmond.

Mini Golf

It's hard to believe our two weeks of vacation is already more than half over. For the past couple of days at night there have been thunderstorms and in the morning it's been overcast. This has made the ocean a bit rougher than we would like and a lot colder than we would like. As such we've been hitting the pool a lot.


I'm not particularly a fan of this since we have a pool at home and I have this crazy idea that you should do things on vacation that you can't do at home. Ginger and the kids have this crazy idea that on vacation you should relax and not worry about stuff like that and just have fun.


Looks like Catherine's managed to get a little bit of junk in her trunk.






So after hitting the pool in the morning we went out for a round of mini golf. We ended up going to the Lost Adventure course, because that's where the kids picked. Apparently the deciding factor was they got stickers there last time and they wanted some more stickers. I suppose I've heard of worse reasons to pick a place. Ginger and I opted not to play.




The game was exceedingly close, with Quinn managing to pull out a victory by 1 stroke. Quinn also managed to get a hole in one on hole 11 that qualified for a free game. Considering we got stuck behind a group of four guys that were taking a fair amount of time I had no inclination to go through it again that quickly even if the second game is half off and one of them would be free (although why would you use the free game coupon when it's half off anyway).