Memorial Day 2016

Today was a beautiful day! We got up early and headed to Ephraim for the Scandinavian Festival and parade. We were running a little late, but we parked and made ourselves a spot with 7 minutes to spare. The kids love this parade because they throw tons of free things as well as the proverbial tootsie rolls and salt water taffy.

They were not disappointed.

We left town right after that and headed for the Axtell Cemetery. It was 10:30 and we had until 1:00 before we were meeting with my family. Every year my little brother plans a get-together for Memorial Day and this year it was a focus on my mom. She has been gone for 10 years next month. Hard to believe it has been so long.

I love the Axtell Cemetery. It is covered with gravel and rarely does it get any bigger. My grandma's brothers and sister are buried there right by their parents. After Axtell we drove into Centerfield and visited that cemetery as well. That is where Grandma Benson is buried and she is the one who taught me to make quilts, but if you've been with me for a while, you remember her.

We piled back into the van and drove to Gunnison where we let the kids run off some energy and we had lunch at the park. We were enjoying it so much we almost stayed too long and we were a few minutes late for my Little Bro's presentation about my mom at the cemetery in Ephraim.

We all gathered around her grave, 6 of her 8 children with spouses and grandchildren, and it was so fun to share memories. When the rain started to fall, we all took off for Grandpa's house, although by the time we got there (5 minutes later) the rain was gone. We took pics and visited a little while longer before we again rounded up the kids and headed for Mt. Pleasant.

We made a quick stop in Spring City to place flowers on the graves there and then we drove to Terrel's for some of our favorite donuts and fresh-baked bread. At Grandma's house, we were pleasantly surprised to find Uncle Brooks and his family in from California. We let them grill Princess's new guy and then Jay played the organ for us. It was an old pump organ and quite impressive.

We visited for a while longer and then we were off to the Mt. Pleasant cemetery. After placing still more flowers on grandparents and my sweetie's dad, we loaded up and drove to Nephi.

Grandpa's parents are buried there. Princess and Jay left us then and they headed for Santaquin which is where he is from. We drove to Lindon, hoping to place flowers on our little niece who passed away about 11 years ago. She would have been the same age as Taco.

We got lost and ended up at the totally wrong cemetery, but a nice guy in sunglasses pointed out our error and sent us down the street to the Lindon cemetery. Then we couldn't find the grave and there was not a directory, so we just wandered around until Crafty finally got us all in the right direction.

We stopped for ice cream and the Play Place at the nearest Arctic Circle. It was quiet and the kids had a great time running up and down the slide.


One last drive to home and we were finished. There are only two flowers left, and they can both be delivered to a West Valley cemetery tomorrow. I love taking the opportunity to remember those we love, particularly when we know them well enough to share stories with our kids and grandkids.

It seems to pull our family together, and what could be more important than that?

Happy Memorial Day weekend!