Band Camp & Grandpa Peterson's Funeral

It's been a week! A rather long one. Band camp started at 7:00 last Monday morning and ran through 6:00 Thursday night. It was long, hot, mosquito-y, wet and extremely productive. The band has 2 1/3 of the songs on the field and the guard knows almost all of their choreography. A lot of my time was spent sitting under the canopy feedibg the twins who were with me or adjusting the mosquito netting that was over the pack n play. A couple days there were band moms there who were more than happy to hold and take care of the babies between feedings so I could work. The big girls got to go to Tia's and much preferred their play time and rest time there to being at band.

Monday was a somewhat difficult day. Craig's grandpa Paul Robert (Bob) Peterson died last Thursday morning and his funeral was Monday morning. Grandpa was a ball turret gunner in B24s in WWII. He's shared some incredible stories about his time in the Air Force. The service was lovely. Lots of happy memories were shared, the great grand kids (37 as of the twins birth) who were old enough sang "Families Can Be Together Forever", Craig's dad sang a nice song called "Goin Home" (to the tune of Kyrie), Joyce spoke about her dad, his integrity, leading & teaching by example, the plan of salvation and how many people he touched in his 91 years.

We talked to Sophie & Olivia about great grandpa since they knew and visited them. We chose to talk about it as a happy time and were honest/open. Olivia is still so young she didn't seem to understand much but Sophie grasped much more. She had lots of good questions that made us both have to stop and really think. In the end, we let her decide if she wanted to go to the funeral. She wanted to go with us so we used the hand & glove analogy (body-spirit) and she seemed to "get" it.  At the cemetery, grandpa was honored with a presentation by the American Legion Honor Guard. Flags lined the path, flag folding and presentation to grandma Peterson, 3 shots fired and taps played by two buglers. One of the adult children had requested that the family be able to fill the site by hand rather than with the dump truck. It seemed therapeutic for several of the people involved. I'm so thankful that death isn't permanent and doesn't have to be a final goodbye. The separation is sad but knowing we get to see the people we care about again is one of those comforting things that helps life be easier to live.