Treasures and housecleaning

These were in the box my grandma sent yesterday. Amazing, huh? The first is my great-grandfather Walter. He was born in February 1884. The second is my grandma Sally at age 2 in 1925. The third is her mother, Edith at about age 16 (1899), the last is Walter again (Edith's husband, my great-grandfather), around 1920 in the workshop of his granite monument company. Awesome.

The boys and I are trying frantically to get the house in order before my dad arrives this evening. We are always thrilled to have him but with the camping lately the housework has suffered. And since we haven't got much of a system down for packing/unpacking/storage, the house was full of huge Rubbermaid containers of camping food and there is still a cooler of drinks in my kitchen. We are getting there, though, and Dad is bringing the Porta-Potti down for the camper as well as some awesome nesting mixing bowls and dishes (place settings for 6) so I will have plenty of dishes to feed 12. Very cool.

The A/C guy is coming this afternoon for the annual check-up and I am going to try to get an estimate to have a tree pulled from the back yard, a hair appointment, a nail appointment, and something fixed for dinner since Evan has baseball at 5:30.

Oh -- and it appears I have the ashes thing under control. The crematorium in Arizona faxed a Transit authorization to Rob at work. I can UPS the cremains and the paperwork to the cemetery in Wisconsin. They will take care of placing him in the family plot and my grandma will cover the bill. Grandma will sign the form requesting a free marker from the government (he is eligible because he was a WWII veteran) and pay the $60 fee for setting the marker when it comes in. Much less of a hassle than I anticipated.