It’s been a busy several days around here, so I’ll use that as the crutch when I place blame for not writing here for the last couple of days.

I was up at the crack of doom on Saturday morning–4:30, to be precise–in order to make sure the rest of the herd was awake, fed, dressed, cleaned up, and ready to leave home at 6:30 to get the kids to the vans for their servant trip out west.

What’s that? I haven’t mentioned that here before? Let me rectify that. All three of our under-18 set have headed out to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming as part of their servant trip with church. All of this would be perfectly okay, of course, had we not been out that way not 10 months earlier, with somewhat disastrous results–read: the Casper Super 8 Hostage Situation. They’ll do some good works out there, have some time with their fellow youth from our church and several others, and come back sometime late in the afternoon on Saturday.

But back to the story: I was up at 4:30 as part of the plan to get everyone out in time to meet the 2 rented vans taking two churches’ worth of youth and their adult supervision out to the hinterlands of Wyoming.

Then, sometime before 7:30, we headed out from there to go meet up with some of Jenni’s friends for a breakfast in St. Paul at the New Louisiana Cafe–mostly recommended, though their biscuits and gravy had mild sausage and really peppery gravy.

After that, we headed to Rochester to finally inter my grandparents. See, they both left their bodies to Mayo (the clinic, not the condiment), after which their ashes (though not cremated, rather chemically and otherwise dried and dissolved…or something like that) were returned. As expected, we’ve had my grandmother’s ashes for a while now, but grandpa’s finally came back a couple of months ago. Our first attempt at disposal met with a snag in the form of the huge may snowstorm, which blanketed Rochester in a foot or so of the white stuff, so we regrouped and settled on this date for the last scattering and some celebration.

It was a fine family gathering, as we placed some remains along with mementos in a small crypt at their burial plot, and then proceeded to the pasture, which they had bought ages ago and long since had sold to one of my uncles. Once there, after a nice lunch, we flung the last of the ashes, complete with a toast to what was left:

We got home late Saturday afternoon, by which time, I’d already been awake for 12 hours and had driven probably around 200 miles. I was going to relax and maybe fall asleep in front of the TV, until I discovered that the nearly 2-inch rainfall of that late afternoon had decided to find its way into about half of the basement. Shop Vac time…

We slept in on Sunday, but then headed out to brunch with mom and dad at Hell’s Kitchen, then back home for a bit, then out to Joe’s Crab Shack so Jenni could have a Father’s Day dinner with her dad. Having topped up on crab, we headed home for another round of vacuuming and then some baking. Gluten-free cupcake baking…Good stuff.

Monday was busy at work, and not so busy at home, but I just didn’t feel like writing. So I didn’t.

And that catches you up. So lesson learned: when the kids aren’t here, the quiet just gets tiring. That said, it doesn’t mean we won’t send them all away again.

See you tomorrow.