Diminished Population

After having an exceptional number of people here, there was a change today. This morning, early, Jared's orchestra departed for the Big Apple. They will be playing two concerts in New York City over the course of this week. So Jared and my mom left this morning and are now safely in NYC.
Unfortunate thing... Jared got sick the night before he had to leave. It was almost inevitable for he was the last kid in the family who hadn't caught it, but nevertheless it was a very un-called-for tragedy. (Praise God that there is no one left to catch the flu. The bug has hopefully been laid to rest for good now.) All that notwithstanding, my mother and brother are now occupying Times Square, leaving us all at home sorely missing their presence.
Our granddad also left this morning, headed towards my aunts/his daughters house. This brings the full house of a dozen occupants down to - imagine - a mere 9 people. Tomorrow will further diminish our population by sending Brady back to Virginia. Ah, life; you do carry on.

PS.
(if you would like to follow the NYC trip, my brother has promised to blog the week on http://words-insilence.blogspot.com/.)