Wow. What a crazy week-and-a-half.

With a hurricane, and my grandfather’s funeral service to attend, the last 10 days have been pretty action/emotion-packed. I left last Thursday for Washington State and Amanda and the girls went up to Orlando, where they stayed and went to SeaWorld.

Might as well do something fun while the house is getting blown away, right?

Actually our house ended up doing alright. Some lost branches on some trees was the brunt of it for us. Others didn’t fare so well.

Even though it was a bummer of a reason to be up in Washington for the funeral service, I had a really great time. The funeral service itself was very positive and there were some people that got up and told great stories about my grandfather – stories that had people laughing out loud. There was a lot of emotion and tears too, but that is to be expected. He was the kind of guy that would help anyone in a bind. It was really neat to see a packed out funeral service of people to pay respects to my grandfather – people that had been touched by the kindness of my grandfather sometime in their lives. Like I said before, I wish I had taken advantage of spending time with him while he was still alive. He was a pretty amazing guy.

I left Washington fairly refreshed. A renewed sense of being. A renewed appreciation of my heritage and where I came from. It was nice to see a big group of family and friends enjoying each other’s company and laughing and having a good time – even during such a sad occasion. You have to appreciate optimism and people who take such a loss and turn it into a positive.

Plus with our house barely escaping the wrath of Hurricane Wilma, all is good.

Notice I used the word “wrath”. Yes … I have been watching too much Weather Channel.