Colorado Trip

To settle up some affairs for my parents' estate and mark the one year anniversary of my mom's passing, all my sisters and I headed out to Grand Junction, Colorado on October 13th. We spent the first day cleaning out a storage unit and mailing packages out East for us and our families. We also mailed all of my mom's scrapbooks back to Maryland so that I can scan them all in and make a digital copy for everyone. While we were in Grand Junction, we were sure to hit up some of my parent's favorite places to eat including Bocaza, Subway, Dairy Queen, Taco Bell, and Coldstone. 

On Friday, we headed to one of my Dad's favorite places to spread some of his ashes. My dad spent many hours running, hiking and biking on the Colorado National Monument and wanted some of his earthly remains to be spread here.

We didn't take nearly as many pictures as my mom would have liked, but we did manage to take one group shot of us all together on the Monument.

Later that afternoon we headed over to Memorial Gardens to visit my parents' final resting place. Their ashes are in this mausoleum below. 

They each have an area which contains their ashes and a few items which represent their mortal lives. My dad has a Marines Corps hat, a bike sculpture, a Broncos figurine, a picture of the Colorado National Monument and a key ring he earned from donating blood so often.

My mom's area includes some of her crafts, her camera (including the tape which held it together for the last few years!), an Outer Banks crab, a picture of my mom and dad together, and an elephant. We will also be including the electronic copy of all her scrapbooks as she always talked about being buried with them after she was gone.

Side-by-side...

We also visited the grave of the stillborn baby born before me...

And the plaque for my dad out in the garden area...

Saturday, October 15th marked the one year anniversary of my mom's passing. It was nice to be all together that day and do the things that my mom always enjoyed doing like eating breakfast at Village Inn, going to a movie and shopping at the mall. We finished up the evening watching some "Law & Order." I think my Mom would have been pleased with  how we spent that day!

Tasha and I left early Sunday morning to head back to Maryland. I don't know when I will get back to Grand Junction again. It was such a wonderful place to grow up and holds lots of precious memories for me.

Goodbye Grand Junction!!