Despite the sadness over the last couple of days, we have all managed to have some pretty good laughs. I decided I would share a few of these with you.

You see, I get along with Jo’s family so well because they remind me so much of my own. I feel right at home with all of them. Everyone kept telling me how well I fit in, especially with my comments / jokes about Jo’s uncle and great uncle.

Colleen (sister in law) and I went down to the beach yesterday. It took all of about a minute to walk down there. It was low tide, so you could walk across the rock bed (like a sandbar) to the island across from the harbor. We didn’t make it that far before the tide started to come in though because we stopped and took a few photos - snails, muscles and jellyfish galore. I have photos to share later on. I just downloaded some photo editing software to Jo’s computer and will hop to them.

What a long and exhausting day this has been.

Today was Jo’s grandmother’s funeral. It was absolutely beautiful - a celebration of her life. It shouldn’t have been such a surprise to see over 500 people show up but you know, it actually was. The sanctuary was jam packed! Jo’s sister sang a song, as did one of his aunts. There were a few tears of course but the memories that were shared were so sweet and there were many laughs, as that was something she loved to do. Naturally it was really hard on some of the family; Jo and his cousin Lee had a really hard time being pallbearers and I honestly don’t know how either of them made it through but they did.

We all congregated back to the house (Jo’s grandparents), where I decided to kick up my feet. Too bad there was no recliner though, I think I could’ve gotten in a really nice nap. No, I take that back. There was a crowd of about 30-40 at the house from about 4:30pm - 8:00pmish.

Now, I think I’m going to prop my feet up and chit chat with Jo’s mom and dad for a bit before bed.

I would love to just get away and just relax for a few days. I could see myself soaking up the California sun, resting up in a lovely little cottage - something like Mendocino lodging. I’ve always wanted to visit California and be able to say I dipped my toes into the Pacific Ocean. And after everything we’ve been through in the last few days, a nice vacation sounds wonderful. Jo says we’ll do it someday because he would even like to do something like that. Who knows, maybe it’ll happen someday!

Wow. I don’t think there’s a single person in Jo’s family that I haven’t met at this point. I have met family from one end of Canada to the other. He actually has some pretty interesting relatives. Many are in the IT area, one happens to be an aerospace engineer and there’s two or three that work in market research.

I love meeting people but in all honesty, it’s pretty exhausting. I’m just thankful there are several that are in our age group. I was worried they would either be much older or younger. Heck, Jo even has an uncle that’s only 5 years older than him. I thought that was pretty wild.

I do love his family though. They’re pretty amazing (minus one individual, but that will be another entry).

The phone rang around 8am this morning. It was Jo’s uncles girlfriend. Jo’s grandmother passed away around 7:30am this morning. They said she went peacefully, after throwing up twice in a row (which probably took what little bit of energy she had left). In the room when she passed; Jo’s mom, Jo’s dad, aunt Brenda, Pop (Jo’s grandfather) and Jo’s cousin Lee, which was the first grand-baby. Lee said that when she passed, she had a tear in her eye.

A part of us is relieved that she’s no longer in pain and suffering from the cancer (3 different cancers that took over her body) and the other part wishes she didn’t have to go. I guess that’s normal though because I remember feeling like that about my loved ones passing too.

The day his grandmother called us in one by one to say her final goodbyes (that was last Thursday), she told me to take care of “her” Jody. I told Jo I was so happy we made it there in time to say our goodbyes before the morphine took over. Jo said he was happy too and he said “thank you” for nagging him so much about moving here. I knew this is where he wanted to be too but I think it took actually getting here for him to really realize it.

Anyway. Nan was as good as gold, as everyone keeps telling me and I even witnessed myself. She was definitely loved and will most definitely be missed but she’s in a better place.

One place I have always wanted to visit is Oregon. Even as a child, watching the movie “The Goonies”, I became fascinated with the Oregon coast and now, I know a couple of people who live there. It would certainly make for an amazing vacation and for someone like me, who loves taking pictures, it would be a fabulous photographic opportunity and experience. In fact, some of my closest friends have taken some really nice pictures on some of the beaches of Oregon, all of which make me extremely jealous and eager to visit.

When the time comes and we are able to afford a nice little getaway, we will search through oregon coast rentals to find that perfect vacation home. Of course we could go with a hotel or motel but honestly, we would be taking other relatives and it would be really nice to have that extra privacy we will get from a vacation home. Plus many hotels and motels do not come with kitchens and that is something I would prefer to have during our vacation. Eating out is not something we really do that much on vacation. In fact, the last vacation we took we only ate out a couple of times during the entire week we were vacationing.

Oregonbeachvacations.com would be a great place for us to start our search for a vacation home rental. I love that they provide photos of the homes, both the interior and exterior and the biggest plus of all, there are even gorgeous beach photos to browse through. I can really appreciate that extra step they have made to ensure people like me get exactly what they want in a vacation home.

After everything we have been going through with Jo’s grandmother, a nice Oregon vacation sounds pretty dern perfect right now.

Our 10 year high school reunion. Of course being in Calgary we were unable to attend. I recently started finding many of my classmates on myspace, which has been pretty cool. Many of them I lost contact with just after graduation due to heading off to college and what have you. There are still a few classmates I would like to catch up with but haven’t had any luck finding them. I’m guessing that is due to last names changing because of marriage or perhaps they just haven’t joined myspace.

I haven’t tried facebook yet but that’s where I’ll look next.