I think my mind woke me up as it was going through the list of things we need to do today. Garbanzo and DJ take the red eye out tonight, so we have the day to get them packed and ready to go. Being the list maker that I am, I have already started mentally putting together a list of what we need to still gather. I just worry about getting everything packed in a reasonably sized suit case. The in-laws are having a lot of things delivered to them via Garbanzo. They will definitely come back lighter than they arrived.

I think the other reason for my early morning rising is I’m thinking about my mom. She called me right after I got home from the kids’ taekwondo last night. She was actually in Portland on her way to fly back to Iowa. A few weeks ago, I mentioned how my family has been using Facebook to keep track of the happenings of a sick uncle. I got a call Sunday morning that he had died. While no one likes to lose a loved one, I am happy his pain has ended. The past couple weeks have been extremely difficult for him and his family as they have had a lot of problems getting the pain under control. The funeral is tomorrow. Another thing for my to-do list – send flowers, not that they will help remove the pain my aunt is feeling now that her soulmate is gone, but it’s the thought that counts. Right?

While Garbanzo is gone, I am going to try to find a place to transfer his Grandfather’s 8mm video onto DVD. My father-in-law found a huge box at Christmas under a bed at the house. He had a few reels transfered to DVD already, but just maybe 5 clips. We received a DVD with them videos and a note asking if we thought we should get the rest transfered. Garbanzo and I looked at each other and without watching the DVD said, of course. The home movies go back to 1942 while he was stationed on the Yangtze River, China in command of one of the river patrol boats during World War II. There is some amazing video of when the bombings were occurring by the Japanese. We had seen pictures of the bombings, but the video is definitely more amazing and horrible to watch. When Garbanzo was down in San Diego a few weeks ago, he shipped back the rest of the movies along with random slides he found. Now, we just need to find someone to do it. We have a couple leads, but just need to follow-up on them.

His grandfather, I should mention, was a Naval Academy graduate who served as Naval Attaché in Thailand and a couple other Asian countries post WWII. During WWII, he had quite an adventure after his river ship and crew were caught inside China after the Japanese took control over the Yangtze River. He got his men out of the country via India, Africa, and to Trinidad which was the first Naval base they had come across. (The procedure in situations like that one was to report the first Naval base with your crew.) He didn’t lose a single man, and Garbanzo’s Aunt found recently that a Congressional resolution was passed accepting the expenses he accrued during this operation. This is all the entire family knows of this situation. While it was something written and talked about, it was not something his Grandfather would talk about. It was only after died did we start piecing things together. He had a copy of most of his Naval file, so we pieced it together thanks to copies of reports he had to make, etc. There were other stories, unfortunately, lost with him. For example, he was awarded Thailand’s highest military honor – the White Elephant. Very few foreigners were ever awarded it. When asked why he got it, he would only say that he taught the king how to play poker. The missing piece was “while getting him out of the country due to the civil unrest that threatened his life”. Anyway, we hope that some of the pictures and video start piecing more of things together. What we have seen so far is pretty amazing. I may post some snippets of what we have already if people are interested.

While I will miss Garbanzo, I will have to admit that I will not miss the girls continual fighting which has definitely hit a peak over the past couple of days. My parents would laugh at me because this is exactly how my brother and I were at this age….maybe not exactly – there is less physical violence with the girls. Having no fighting and referring for a week will be nice. Garbanzo and I are contemplating separating them into their own rooms again. They had their own rooms before the great “nanny incident”, but decided to stay in the same room after she was gone. It was nice having a spare room, but we think many of the issues are due to DJ needing her own space. We’ll see. We get enough visitors that losing the guest room may not be an option for a while.

Okay, I’m off to get started on the day. Happy Tuesday!