We're back home after our short yet exhausting trip up north for Pat's funeral. We left Yankton around 3 p.m. yesterday after Cory got off work, stopped for supper at Culver's in Mitchell, and made it to the funeral home in Redfield around 7 p.m. The visitation was supposed to go until 8 p.m., so we kind of expected that by 7 p.m. things would be winding down. We pulled up, though, and the parking lot was filled and vehicles lined the surrounding streets. There was a prayer service going on that the Order of the Eastern Star (an organization Pat belonged to) had requested. Cory stepped into the room for that while I stayed out in the main room with the kids. After nearly four hours of travel, there's just no way we could have entered the prayer service quiet as mice. The service ended soon after, though, and we were able to see Pat's husband, her girls, brothers, grandchildren, etc. That was nice simply because we hadn't seen many of them since Mary's service more than four years ago. Still, we all agreed that we need to get together next just because and not wait for a death to bring us together.

So we stayed at the visitation for about an hour and then headed to the motel. The kids really need to blow off some steam after all of the traveling and time at the funeral home, but that's kind of hard to do in a small motel room with no on site pool or warm weather (close to zero the entire trip) or anything else to do. We managed, though, and eventually turned out the lights around 11:30 p.m. We were all up by 8 a.m. today to get ready for the funeral. The funeral was at Pat's church in Tulare (about 9 miles away), and we arrived an hour early since we knew it would be packed. The parking lot was almost full when we arrived, and the church was indeed bursting at the seams by the time the service started. Unfortunately I didn't get to sit with Cory during the service because Tylan started fussing almost right away. Tylan, Ella and I spent the majority of the service in a back room, but I was able to hear most of the service. It was a really nice combination of laughter and tears and comfort. Accalia had a very hard time, and Cory thinks it really hit her when the minister read letters that two of Pat's granddaughters wrote to her specifically for the funeral. The graveside service was at a small cemetery a ways out in the country, and I just stayed in the van with the kids while Cory went to that. It was just way too cold to take Tylan out for that 10 or 15 minutes. Then we headed back to the church for the meal and didn't stay long after that. Traveling home wasn't too bad, and we made it home about 15 minutes before Accalia had to be at ballet.

If there's a bright spot to all of this, it's that we were able to see more pictures of Mary when she was young. There just aren't many pictures of her as a child because the family was so poor and didn't have a camera. When we saw the pictures, we immediately saw that Ella looks just like Mary. Their faces are the same, and there was one picture of Mary in profile with her eyebrow arched that is exactly what Ella looks like when she makes that expression. I just wish we had pictures of Mary as a toddler because I'm almost positive we'd think we were looking at Ella. Cory's going to ask his cousins if we'd be able to get copies of the pictures for ourselves.

I'd better get to bed and hope that Tylan has a quiet night.