Joel’s – Votaw Family Blog

My Grandfather passed away on September 28th of 2009 with his family at his side. He lived only a short time after he was diagnosed with a vicious form of cancer that ripped through his body. Leaving his wife of 61 years behind was the hardest part of this ordeal. I was lucky enough to spend a few days alone with him after his diagnosis. His only fear, or the only thing he was concerned about, was leaving my Grandma behind.

If you feel that you are able please leave a comment for the family to read. All comments will be forwarded to Maxine.

Here is the whole funeral, graveside ceremony and reception.

If you have a slower connection, please press the play button on the screen below, then press the pause button. The video will continue to load. Give it a few minutes, then come back and click play. Enough of the video will have loaded by then to be able to watch the entire video without pauses in the audio or video. You can also click on the bottom right hand side of the video (where the 4 arrows are at). This will allow you watch the video on your full screen.

The funeral video is about 100 minutes long while the tribute video below is about 30 minutes long. I know my Grandma is happy that people are able to see this, so please enjoy and give her a call if want to tell ask her how she is doing. She really likes that.

You can also click this link to see the actual video on the hosted website. http://vimeo.com/8126713

Below is a video that was prepared as a tribute to his life and that was played at his funeral viewing and reception.

If you would like to download this or see it on the hosted site, go to http://vimeo.com/7743230. You can also click on the screen expander on the bottom right side of the video to see it on the full screen.

You can see my Grandfather obituary at waltvotaw.blogspot.com.

Went to CA for Thanksgiving and our GPS got lost. Can you explain what is happening here and where we were? Big Kuddos to the 1st person to guess where this is at.

The kindergartners had their annual Daddy Donut Day this year at CTA where the kids go to to school. So this year Carson and I got to go. It was fun and the kids did a great job with their songs.

Carson was very embarrased but I think he did wonderful.

Oh yea, it cost $3 for this per child…..That is one expensive raised glazed and cup o water!

I am not one for the lure of Vegas. We have had fun there and my friend and I went up the other week and had a good time at the Wynn Buffett. So there are good things about Vegas but generally I do not like the place.

I had to go to Vegas on Wednesday to visit a project and was headed home right around lunch time. I was searching for something unique to eat that we don’t normally have when I stumbled upon Tommy’s Burgers. There was a Tommy’s Burgers by our families home in CA and the taste buds started flowing like Pavlov’s dog hearing the bell.

It was funny because it is so unhealthy that I felt a little guilty. What was even more funny was that you could tell that most everyone there was feeling the same way; quite and reserved, each in their own little corner, never making eye contact. Just the knowing head nod, that yes, I know I am doing something wrong, but so are you so leave me alone!

So next time your in Vegas, you can find me at the Tommy’s Burger in Henderson.

PS, yes I had the Chili Cheese Fries too. Leave me alone.

Last night was Jonas’ 9th birthday party and all things point to a great success. Jonas decided he wanted to have a swimming, pizza eating, movie watching, fun evening with the guys. So that’s what we did. Everything went very well even with the fore-casted storms. We have not had a monsoon type storm for weeks and then last night one was fore casted to come through. We watched it closely and it finally hit as the credits were rolling on the movie outside.

I will post the video and some other details later, but for now, here are the photos from last night.

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So as many that read this know, I despise flying commercially. The prices are outrages, the service is despicable, and TSA stands for Tyrants with Snarly Attitudes. It is a sad sad thing. Well the other day our plane was in the shop for some work and so I got fly commercial.

This is where it gets good (or bad) depending on your outlook on life. See photo. Wow! Yep, this is real. Everyone in the entire airport was all worked up about thus guy. The best part was watching the reactions of the people as they saw him. Even TSA was a little surprised. You could see their brains trying to figure out how to hold this guy.

He was on my flight and sadly enough he sat in the next row over from me as evidenced from this photo.

Nice enough guy, married, but not right in the head. Said his wife was “punishing him” for not being somewhere on time. Um ok, nice! I am glad my wife just makes me take the trash out. He had no issues with making himself very noticeable; went to the food court, stood right by the boarding gate, got up several times during the flight to use the restroom or put things in the overhead. Oh the poor guy on the isle as he reached to put things back in his bag; eye level with you know what, covered only by thin cover of fabric from his…..shorts? I shutter even now at the thought.

Reason #1,478 why not to fly commercially. Welcome to the very very friendly skies.

PS: his “top” says, “Wet, Wild, and Very Ready”. Way to go buddy and thanks for making me look not all that bad anymore!

It took several months to plan and it was hard to keep it a secret, but we pulled it off! The DelFosse family had planned a family vacation to Disneyland and asked if we would come along. We gladly excepted since last time we all went the kids and adults had a great time. This time however we had agreed to stay at the same hotel so the kids could play all the time. The only catch was that the kids knew nothing about it. They did not know we were going to California, or Disneyland. we told our kids we were pointing the plane that way and letting it take us where it wanted to go.

The DelFosse family told their kids they were going to Sholow for the weekend. Well that was pretty fun. We landed in CA and the kids knew something was up. We checked into the Grand Californian in Disneyland and they thought that was pretty cool. The kids still had no idea that each other were both there! We went to dinner and then back up to the rooms. The kids still just thought we had surprised them by going to Disneyland and were very happy.

The front desk at The Grand Californian was notified of the “act” that we were putting on so when the DelFosse family checked in they had agreed to participate in the ruse. They had the kids perform a scavenger hunt and the last item to go to room 6300 (a closet they were told) to retrieve a cookie!. Well room 6300 was out room and you check out the video below for the goodness that followed.

The kids were a little shocked. You could tell their little brains were firing at full speed trying to figure out what was going on. It was classic.

We spent the next two full days playing and having a great time. The 1st day we got into the park at 7:00 am as special guests of the hotel. Check out some of the photos below, no one was there. We got on every main ride within the 1st 2 hours we were there. It was awesome. The kids had a blast and even had time to swim at the pool for a few hours 1 day. Hard to believe we were only there for 2 days.

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