A Family Visit

These last 4 days have been a whirlwind of fun with Skip and his family. Skip is my brother. He and his wife Nancy have three children, Austen, 17, Michelle, 16 and Sierra 9. The took a trip from their home in Sacramento to visit some prospective colleges for Michelle and to come to visit us. They love San Diego with it's beaches and zoo's. And we love having them. They pitched a big tent in the back yard and settled in for a few days. The first order of business was to go through Mike's things together. They helped us sort through everything and decide what to do with them, we made three groups, one for us to keep, one for Skip and his family to take, and one to go to the good will. Mike had his things pretty well organized. He told me he had gotten rid of a lot of things. Obviously he was planning his death. And want to make it as easy on us as possible.
We had decided to give Mike's car to Michelle. She needs it for all her activities at school. Skip and I went to the DMV to put the paperwork in order. 
That evening we went up the hill at sunset to the place where we had Mike's memorial. As we arrived at the site a huge hawk took off from the exact place where we had the memorial. Obviously Mike was there with us. We all spent some quiet time thinking about our own memories of Mike.