Closure

I had an amazing weekend with my family. As is our tradition, we end the summer by spending Labor Day Weekend at our Sons of Norway camp, Camp Norge.
This weekend was particularly good because my mom joined us and both of my sisters and their kids. We were all together and it was great.
As I previously posted, my sister Jeanie arranged with the US Navy to have my dad buried at sea. She got the "box" from the Navy just about the one year anniversary of his death. We all gathered at Camp Norge to open the box. It contained the flag they used during the ceremony, a letter from the Commander of the USS Reuben James, a video of the committal ceremony, three beautiful maps of the area with an American flag where the ceremony took place and the box camera she sent along. (I'll get the pictures processed this week).
The video was short but amazing. The Commander conducted a very nice ceremony with all of the sailors in their summer white dress. They committed their comrade Clyde Harris to sea and they had a 21 gun salute. We all cried, of course, but it was good. Turns out they committed him to sea in the same place where he won the Distinguished Flying Cross in WWII. His burial took place on May 12th. We all agreed it was a very fitting burial for our dad and we have begun to get some closure on his death.
The other great thing we did was that we were very "green" this year. In past years Pat and I have been appalled at the amount of trash we have created with paper plates, cups, plastic forks and the like. We bought plastic plates, cups and bowls and camping silverware. When we did this I figured it would be a total pain in the butt to do dishes while camping, but oddly enough, I actually enjoyed it.
We bought a 20 gallon thermos and a small water purifier. Every morning we fill the jug with water and we all have fresh water all day and no plastic bottles to dispose of!
We cooked all of our meals and washed our dishes, which were ready for the next meal.
The totally amazing thing about this weekend is that a family of 12, camping for a three day weekend had a total of ONE bag of trash! We recycled the cans and bottles of soda and beer, but we had very little trash.
It was very little work and everyone pitched in. I have discovered that we don't need to add to the landfill by camping with my family.