Saturday, October 27, 2007

October 2007

That was one heck of a month. Man.

Well, I was able to convince my employer to give me the last of my vacation so that I could go and be at Ryan and Rebbeca's wedding. So I took off on the 12th of October and got sick on the plane. Got there on the 12th, visited with Grandma and Grandpa, then returned to SF to prepare for the wedding. It was great to see everyone, despite being both sick and jet lagged. The wedding was on the 14th and it was very nice. And it would have been the subject of a much longer post, if not for the other events of the month. Before I move on though, congradulations Ryan and Rebbeca!
I arrived back in Japan on the 16th and went to work for two days. Then, on the morning of the 19th in Japan I got a call from my mother informing me that my grandfather had passed away in his sleep. I imeadeately packed a suitcase and headed back to the airport. I arrived in Napa on the afternoon of the 19th. My mission for the week: to play with my little cousins as much as possible and to record as many stories of my grandfather's life as I could. So, on Saturday all the kids (everybody minus Oriana and Josh, who were still in transit) went to a Milo maze/Pumpkin patch in Davis to get lost and to pick out pumpkins. I wish I hadn't forgotten my camera. Anyway, we had fun in the maze. As far as the pumpkins went, Chenzo and I went a little overboard. He used his money to buy the biggest pumpkin in the patch, and I bought about 6 pumpkins so that everybody could have one.
This was my one dollar pumpkin.
So the next day Chenzo, Josh, Nick and I carved the big pumpkin.
This is how big it was.
Smaller pumpkins had been carved on the previous day. Josh.
Tara.
Nick.
Me.
Chenzo.
'China.
And the big one, done.
Then we laid them out by the tree in front of the house.
Here they are at night.

It also happend to be Kira's birthday, so we made a cake and cut it with the Sonic Blade (Trademark).

Well, the rest on the week was consumed by planning the funeral and trying to collect as many stories as possible. Here is everybody at dinner on Tuesday, the night before the funeral.
Thank you for everything Grandpa. Love you.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I cried when I saw your post the first time. I came back to it today and it was a little easier.
Love you,
Mom

Unknown said...

I hadn't seen it. I just started crying too. I love you. We'll miss him. He was a great grandpa.