Grandpa Mason

Last Tuesday when I was on my way to my ob appointment Dave texted me. He had just read his email and his dad wrote him and said that his grandpa Mason passed away on December 31 in his sleep. It was super sad, I cried a bit before I went into my appointment... I let Dave decide if we were going to go to the funeral or not, he started school this past Monday and so it was going to be a critical time.

This picture was taken on a rainy spring day in there Salt Lake Home, just behind the capital building, before we moved out of Orem Utah and to Kennewick in 2007 before Sami was born. We saw him a few other times after this when he visited Kennewick to see his sons, but what I know of him, he was wonderful. This picture says a lot about him. Behind them is a room that he had just refinished. It was there front covered porch but he built it in himself and did all the work. Yeah pretty amazing. We couldn't believe it. He worked in various farm jobs but when he got older he started Mason Floor Coverings in Kennewick and laid carpet. He and Dave's older brother Brent actually laid the carpet in my parents family room in there house. I didn't know them at the time, but when he retired Dave's brother Brent took over the company for many years. In this picture is him, Dave and his second wife Barbara... his first wife was Jean Holbrook who until reading the obituary I didn't know her first name was Jean. My middle name and Daphne's middle names are Jean, so it's fitting, we fit right in. Daphne is now named after me, my mom and her great grandma Mason. Well he had dementia or some form of that and his health declined after October, so it was a nice thing partially that he is in a better place where he has complete control of his own body and mind.

Dave's dad offered to pay for our hotel room and so we decided we needed to go. We left Tuesday around 2 from Cheney, stopped in Kennewick to borrow my parents portable DVD player and than drove the last 4 hours to Gresham where we stayed the night at Days Inn. Dave decided instead of just missing class on Wednesday he would just go to programming Tuesday than we would leave sooner. We got into town around 7. We checked in, took our stuff up to the room and changed into our suits. I also borrowed a suit from my sister, the pool was nice and warm it was great. Daphne well this is the best attitude she had the entire time, she clung to us the rest to the time very unsure and did this semi whining noise... poor girl. We ended up going up to the room while Dave and Sami played longer.

Sami used to be like Daphne but she has gotten a lot better. It takes her some time to warm up but Dave said eventually she was in the water with his help and pretending like she was a Mermaid.

We woke up the next morning, got read, ate breakfast and headed to Beaverton for the funeral. The kids were unreliably naughty. Sami is a creature of habit and so when we take her to church in the middle of the week and it's not our church and she isn't going to primary she gets super wigged out. Daphne napped the way there and so she was wired. I ended up taking them and sitting in the van for the last 30 min of the funeral. We than went back in for the luncheon. After the luncheon we had a map, and an address and still missed the entire burial service. It was horrible. We had to go through down town and than kept missing this tiny street to take us over the bridge and through down town Portland where you go like 5 the entire time and have to go from 10th avenue to 82nd avenue and you stop at a red light every couple minutes. Than we finally get up the hill and there is a police man with flares blocking the road, so we turn where he tells us have no clue where we are going, go around the block come back out and he is gone, and so than we continue up the hill and don't seem to realize until way too late that there are two graveyards across the street from each other... (SERIOUSLY) so we wind through the first one looking for any sign of cars of family etc. Than when we finally notice we are in the wrong graveyard, we take another wrong turn and have to back track another couple minutes. So when we finally got into the graveyard, going in the wrong way, everyone was leaving and so Dave jumped out and found out where the gravesite was so we could visit it next time we go through town, since we sure know where it is now, and than we turned around and left because no one was there to talk too, everyone was on there way out. Dave was super upset we missed it, but come on I don't know how we could have tried harder to get there. We left at quarter to 1 and didn't need to be there til 2... and got there around 2:45... dang big cities...

We came to grips with the fact that we were at the important part and that we can come back and visit later. We got on the free way and headed on our 6 hour journey home.

1 hour out of town and 30 min before the Dalles where we stopped for dinner, my nurse called, and than I was tired and the rest of the drive tried not to think about this upcoming ultra sound and how it will go. The girls didn't sleep a wink, they slept the whole drive through Portland where we couldn't find the graveside. So we heard whining and fighting the whole way home. After the Dalles we didn't stop until Umatilla where we stopped at a gas station to go potty, change clothes (put the girls in there pjs), and get a few munchies. I was annoyed with the creepy gas station guys staring at me... Guess they'd never seen a pregnant women before.... Dave said he was flattered that they were checking me out... I was grossed out...

We stopped again in Kennewick to get me and Dave strawberry cheese quake blizzards, than drove home and got here around 8. We unloaded the girls, the car and put the girls to bed, than I took a bath and we went to bed. We were exhausted but very grateful to be back in our own home and not in the car for 12 hours. But it was worth it I was glad we went.