Weekend in Vegas

As soon as my grandpa's funeral was over, we raced home, quickly packed our bags and ran to the airport to catch a 4:50pm flight to Las Vegas. Jeff had a previously scheduled meeting there and I was planning on coming along. It just made things a bit tight with my grandpa's death. But we made it and had a great weekend. We stayed in the Paris. I have never stayed there yet and it was nice. This was the view from my room. I looked down at the Bellagio water fountains and could watch the water shows whenever I wanted, and I could see the Eiffel Tower.
Thursday night when we arrived, we went to see Lion King. It was a really great show! The music was powerful. Then we ate a restaurant called MIX. It was good and had a neat atmosphere but I don't know that I'll ever go back to it. The food was a little....out there. I'm not big on putting duck liver on my bread.
Friday night we ate at the Eiffel Tower. This place had a great atmoshpere and the food was delicious! I will defiantly go back to this place and I recommend it to anyone! We both had surf-n-turf fillet, with a great chocolate souffle for dessert.

We sat right against the window and had a nice view of the Bellagio water show, but really anywhere you sat in this restaurant, you would have a view. We asked our waiter if there were any celebrities there and he said, "Well no, but the guy who is coming to sit at the table right next to you in a few minutes just lost $18 million dollars in the last 2 days here! We are comping his meal." 18 MILLION!!! Do you know what I could do with 18 million! What a complete idiot! I didn't even feel bad for him. He was some Asian man and apparently he had money to BURN!

After dinner, we went to the top of the Eiffel Tower. (we went to las vegas with my bro glen, his wife kathy, jeff's assistant julie and her husband brandon) We stayed up there for a few minutes and got some neat pictures of the view.

We flew home Saturday night. It was a nice break considering the emotional week we had had.

Grandpa's Funeral

My Grandpa's funeral turned out really nice. I even made it through my talk and kept my composure pretty much the entire time. He was buried with full military rights and it was really a nice service too.
After they had folded his casket flag, they presented it to my mom because she is the oldest. It was a really touching speach from the veteran. This picutre of my mom is so sad. Her eyes make me want to cry.

Goodbye to Grandpa Hartvigsen

My grandpa passed away early Sunday morning in his sleep. He was 86 years old, or "half way to 172" as he would say. He was sooo ready to go and really, he quit living 7 years ago when my grandma died. Still doesn't change the fact that I will miss him. That I will still want to call his house and talk to him and when we finish speaking hear him say, "bye for now". I will still want to be able to touch his hands and feel how incredibly soft they are and I still want to hug him and smell him. He was a survivor of Pearl Harbor. He was on the USS Medusa when they were attacked. He was a diver and a gunner's mate. He dove several missions on the Oklahoma and 1 on the Arizona. He lived through many things that would have surely taken me. He owned a dairy farm for over 30 years and I LOVE my memories of the farm. But I know that he is so happy to be back with my grandma again.
I took these pictures last year

I took this picture last Sunday at My uncle's 50th birthday party. I went to see my grandpa on Friday and missed him and went back on Saturday and visited with him. He played solitaire while we visited and when I left he went for his usual ride out to the cemetery to "see grandma", came home, got into bed and started to work on his crossword puzzles and just... went. My uncle has been living with him to help care for him and found him on Sunday morning. I got to speak at my grandma's funeral and I get to speak at his funeral too and feel really honored to do so.