Monday in Virginia

 We traveled through the night on Sunday, September 25th and arrived in Virginia around 9:30am.  We did pull over somewhere in New Jersey because Paul couldn't keep his eyes open anymore.  I thought about offering to drive for about 5 seconds before I drifted back to sleep.  I am not cut out to drive in the night.  Ellie and Anna took Emma out and let her walk around for about an hour because she had woken up.  She loved it!

 Monday we spent napping and trying to catch up from the lost sleep the night before.  In the evening, Paul's brother Tony took us to the marina to watch the sunset.  It was beautiful.

 Paul and Tony

 A dirty little boy. :)

 Me and my boys.

 A flower for mom.

 Beautiful!

Friendly's

 Emma excited about something.

 Anna with a new friend. That was a big frog.  Needless to say, I screamed when she brought it INTO THE TRAILER AND INTO THE ROOM WHERE I WAS.  Yes I did.  And I'm not even ashamed to admit it.  I do not like creepy crawlies and my children know it.  She momentarily forgot this in her excitement of finding such a big frog.  At least that's what she told me as she was apologizing. :)

 We left Connecticut Sunday evening.  Sam couldn't stay in the dampness anymore, so we decided to drive all night to VA.  Paul made a spontaneous decision to stop at Friendly's on our way out of town.  None of our kids had ever remembered eating Friendly's ice cream and he wanted them to have the experience.

 Emma, of course, was all for it!  She started posing as soon as I brought out the camera.

 Ben loved the idea of eating ice cream.

 Mmmmmm.

 Sam was excited also.

 As was Anna.  And Ellie?  No pic of Ellie?  Well, Ellie decided to delete her picture off of her mother's camera.  I don't think she will be doing that again!

 Mmmmm.  If you have never been to Friendly's, you need to go.  This was some sort of cracker jack sundae and it was delicious.

 This, was of course, a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup concotion and I think we licked the dish clean.

 Emma loved them both!

Next stop, Virginia!

More from Connecticut

 Paul's Aunt Gail

 Emma got so tired out

 This was Ben after he got stung by a bee 7 times and we gave him Benedryl.

 All the Dziadul grandchildren

 The newest great grand child, Wyatt

 Chris and Wyatt

 Tony, Elena, Chris, Suzi, Josh and Wyatt

 Paul and his brother Ron

 Tony, Sherry, Paul, Ron

 The Dziaduls

Paul and Uncle Eddie

Emma, Ben and a few others

 While at the funeral, Ellie did a great job keeping Ben and Emma quiet.  Emma spent the time picking up whatever she found on the ground, and then eating it.  Thankfully, she spit it all out before swallowing.  When the funeral was over, I took this series of pictures of her and I think they turned out very cute.

 Ben spent the time collecting rocks.  He actually put a line of rocks by each vehicle that was parked in the small circle.  He also picked flowers for me, Anna and Nana, and didn't understand why he wasn't allowed to pass them out during the funeral.

 After the flowers, he found a berry bush.  A red berry bush and he picked a few.  And then squished them.

 He tried to wipe his hands on his white sweater, which, by they way, is no longer white. :)

 Zachary.  It was so nice to see him and he brought much comfort to his father while he was there.

 Paul and his two oldest sons.  What a handsome bunch.  I know funerals are not the ideal place to take pictures, but I couldn't resist snapping one of these three all dressed up.

 After the service was over, the funeral director showed us the grave of "Bobshi and Jadju"- Paul's great grandparents.  I thought it was so sweet how Samuel got right down and helped clean off the grave of his great, great grandparents.

The Funeral

 He found a berry bush and got busy.

Hello again.

Wow.  It's been a long time since I posted.

Silence is golden, except on a blog.  I never intended to be away this long.  I never intended to be away at all, but as I am sure most of you know, Paul's second oldest brother, Tim, passed away quite unexpectedly on September 20th, his 51st birthday.  He suffered a heart attack and was unable to be revived.  Paul wanted the entire family to travel to the funeral, so 36 hours after we received the news, we were packed in the van with 5 of the kids, leaving our home for the 22 hour drive to Enfield, Connecticut.  Paul's parents, sister and Paul Jr. left at the same time we did, but arrived a few hours ahead of us.  Zack left KC Friday morning and arrived in the afternoon, just in time to be picked up at the airport to attend the viewing.

We were away 7 days.  We stayed in CT through Sunday, September 25th and then drove all night to Virginia, to stay with Paul's brother Tony and his wife Elena.  The live right on the water and we had such a wonderful time with them. We arrived home late Thursday night, September 29th and I feel like we have been playing catch up since then.

We took 1001 pictures in the time we were away.  Don't worry, I am not going to post all of them.  There are some I would like to share, so look for several posts coming up in the next few days.