Change in plans

This week I was supposed to be heading out to Midland/Odessa area, at least for a couple of days. Never been to that part of Texas, plus I wanted to Save The Cheerleader and see where W's early failures occured. But, we found out on Saturday afternoon that Tini's grandfather passed away, so we're leaving later today for New Jersey for the week. Our company gives 3 days of bereavement leave, which really helps. I don't know if a lot of companies do this.
I never met her grandpa Joe, as he's had Parkinson's for a long time and couldn't travel to our wedding. We had been planning to go up sometime later this year. I guess he got pneumonia and slipped really quickly.
My grampy died back in 2004, while I was at field school in Belize. I flew up for his funeral. These occasions are weird, because it's a sad time, but it's also something like a family reunion and so everyone is usually pretty happy to see each other for the first time in a while. In this case, I'll also get a chance to visit my brother (who lives 45 minutes away in Pennsylvania) to see his new house and meet my second niece. I'm also looking forward to spending a day in New York City, which I haven't seen in at least 10 years. I'm going to give Tini the "old stompin' grounds tour"
We'll be back early on Sunday evening.