Quick trip to Jersey

 So instead of getting away early, it was late afternoon….us and everyone else trying to get out of the city on a Friday.  For whatever reason the GPS took us the longest way possible which neither of us realized until we were so far into it, it seemed stupid to turn back.  Anyway, it made for an incredibly long and since we were both grumpy…..unpleasant ride.

 Got to Marie's around 9 pm….had a bowl of soup and literally went right to bed.  Got up early the next morning to get all the things together to put with Eleanor's cremains that we were supposed to be burying at the cemetery next to Joe.

 Photos, casino cards, eyeglasses, rings, coins, prayer book, coin purse, house key, cat's collar (Bows and Brandy's ashes were put in as well), her cardinal thermometer, St. Jude bookmarks and her rosary.  Tom included a private note.

So as we're getting to the cemetery….Joey calls and says there's not a container lining in the ground.  Just a hole.  So we stop at the caretaker's cottage and they say the funeral home is supposed to do that.  What the what?  So we've driven from DC and Joey from North Carolina and now we can't do this thing.  Brother.

So we just hung around and talked for awhile.  Fortunately Joe and Karen had also planned on loading up the rest of their stuff from their storage shed on this trip so all was not lost.  Now we just need to find ANOTHER time to go do this thing.  Have I mentioned that this has made me re-think cremation?

 Oh, and since Joey has a ceramic mug on his desk that Tom made him a long time ago when Tom was in the service….Joey felt compelled to make a little something for Tom at some crafty ceramic place near their new home.  So this little guy will now be a tasteful addition to Tom's office.

 We spent the rest of the afternoon taking video of Eleanor's home, visiting Denny and Kathy's new house, making decisions about a price reduction on Eleanor's home and Marie baked mincemeat chocolate chip cookies for her brothers.

 We got away early Sunday morning as we had some apartments to stop and see on the way.  Saw this cute scarecrow in a little a town where all the little shops had put them out along the road.

 A piece of glass art in the lobby of one of the apartments we looked at.  Have finally settled on a place that we'll move into next month.  More on that later……..