Long Island weekend

Steve's grandmother Margaret Daly Ford passed away last Monday. She was 93; her husband had passed three years earlier and she missed him tremendously, and her health was in slow decline. We visited her in the hospital on the Sunday right before she died, to make sure Steve could say goodbye and Seb could have one last memory of her.  On that Sunday she was visited by five of her seven children and various other grandchildren.  It was, as things go, a good way to go.  The wake was on Thursday, the funeral on Friday, and all of her children and their spouses, as well as all 23 of her grandchildren and many of their spouses and children, attended.  It was sad, of course, but also celebratory - wonderful to see so many of the cousins together and get to talk with them.  Seb and Liesl were extremely well behaved throughout the wake, funeral mass, burial, and luncheon afterwards, which made us very proud.

I didn't take any pictures of the Ford gathering, although others did. I'll have to hope for a copy of the pictures, especially the one of all of us together at the lunch. 

We stayed out on Long Island for the weekend, to hang out with mom Raab/grandma for a bit. On Saturday morning we took the children to Robert Moses beach and played jump the waves, run screaming from the waves, and other classic beach games.  Liesl got a little swept away one time (she set up digging shop a little too close to the incoming tide) but was not overly traumatized.  It did awaken a healthy respect for the ocean - she kept an eye on it from then on - which I was actually quite happy to see.  My daredevil girl often needs a bit of a scare to convince her to be more careful.

Other than that, we stayed pretty close to Greenlawn. We watered the plants and picked ripening blackberries, and Seb played baseball with whoever would pitch to him. We visited the local library, which was huge and fun.  And we ran around the yard spraying each other with the hose until everyone got soaked.  It turned out to be a really nice and relaxing weekend.