What children need most are the essentials that grandparents provide in abundance. They give unconditional love, kindness, patience, humor, comfort, lessons in life. And, most importantly, cookies. ~Rudolph Giuliani

This weekend Ryan and went downstate to see my grandparents, and then to Connecticut to see my brother at school and to see my mom. (My dad was in Alabama this weekend meeting up some fellow computer chess programmers, so we missed him)

The earliest train on Saturday meant we were up and on board at 5:30 AM - which wasn't as bad as it sounds; we both were up, excited and awake with no problems. The ride itself was pretty uneventful and the train was surprisingly on time. Ryan read up on private equity and I listened to 4 hours of podcasts, which made it a relatively productive ride. We got in 6.5 hours later, and just in time for lunch with my grandparents who picked us up at the station.

After lunch there we spent the afternoon chatting, telling stories,playing games, and just generally catching up - until 5:00 when my mom came by to take us to visit my brother at his college. He goes to school about an hour away and seems really happy there. While we were there we went to pizza and enjoyed a delicious meal.

Finally we went back to my parents house and went to bed, not quite 24 hours after getting up.

Sunday we woke up and went to brunch at my grandma's again - she went all out and made french toast, bacon, fruit, and even lunch stuff (after all,"that's what brunch is, breakfast and lunch together!") so we had turkey sandwiches and brownies, too. And when we were done eating there were more stories and laughter.

Finally at 2:30 we were back at the train station again, loaded up with leftovers from brunch and tons of small things that people thought we'd like - including bag clips, marmalade, and t-shirts - heading upstate to Rochester. This time the train was sold out and we had to sit separately for a few stops until a double seat opened up.

I sat next to a wonderful older woman who was on her way to visit her grandchildren in Hudson. We talked for a while about her life and my life and it was truly fascinating.

One thing she said struck a chord with me: One of her friends has Alzheimer's and wasn't doing well, but his children couldn't take care of him because they all worked and had small children and just didn't have the time or resources. She said - "I guess that's something you just have to plan on - getting professional care, I mean. Families don't have time any more to take care of grandparents with both husband and wife working - the family dynamic has changed."

That made me really sad; family is special and I am glad we were able to go down to see everyone - even if it was only for a weekend. If something happened where we needed to take care of my grandparents, or even my parents, I hope that we would always have the time and the means to do so. I would hate to have them be forced into a facility if they didn't want to be there, and I would like to think that I would always be able to "make time" for family - regardless of what was going on.

Other than that there wasn't anything really exciting on the trip back. We ended up coming in a little late so at 10:00 we picked up some dinner and finally were back at home with a loving Charlie to greet us.

What a trip! We hadn't planned on going down, but circumstances changed where my grandparents couldn't come to visit us so we went to visit them instead. And it turns out we got to see my mom and brother too!