Nashville trips #2 and 3

As some of you may already know the Joyces and the Veazeys have been making trips to Nashville on any weekend available to do so. We are in the midst of the long process of cleaning, organizing and preparing to sell Joe's grandmothers home. This is both physically and emotionally exhausting largely due, in part, to the fact that "Granny" is still alive and living with Joe's dad. She has many of the symptoms of Alzhiemers and/or Dementia and could no longer live alone. So we are charged with going through another persons life and deciding what is important enough to keep and what should be thrown away. Obviously, to her, it was all important or it would have been thrown away. But this is a necessary process as we need to sell the house to provide the funds for her care. Fortunately all parties involved get a long well and are able to make the most of it. To be completely honest, the past couple of trips have been pretty fun. Karen and I went by ourselves a couple of weekends ago. We got a lot done and personally I think it feeds part of a womans soul to create a living environment out of chaos...it does for me anyhow. This past trip was Me Joe and Abby and Karen Dustin and Emma. The older kids had a camp out at Grandad and MiMi's house. Again we were able to accomplish a lot. We are sort of at a stand still though, until we can get a trailer to haul off the trash. I'm estimating that there are approximately 70 bags of trash, or more, so far and we are only about 45% complete. Their is a lot to be done, but truthfully underneath all of the clutter there is a decent house that is the heart of lots of fun childhood memories. As we are able to chip away at the years of unintentional clutter and buildup we are able to reveal a place where children played freely and safely, where grandparents spoiled grandbabies with an overwhelming amount of love, food, toys and creativity. They truly did so much for Joe and his siblings. I am thankful for the opportunity that I have had to know them even as I have had to say a temporary goodbye to one of them and as I watch the other become a person none of us are familiar with. I have had the unique opportunity to know what they were like in their youth through pictures and little notes. I'm posting some before and after pictures. These are from the past 2 trips there. I'm also throwing in some cute pics of Emma and her Poppa (Joe and Karen's other gradfather who also lives in Nashville). Emma was so cute, she was really loving the pickled okra and Abby was eating her tomato like an apple. These girls are hilarious!! Also are some pics of me and Abby on the way home.