Happy Memorial Day

I would like to make mention of Memorial day, and share a few thoughts today...


OK, first I want to say that as I was thinking about Memorial Day this year, I realized that many of my best memories of my extended family especially center around Memorial day. This was particularly interesting for me to note as I remember dreading Memorial Day, knowing I would have to wake up early, and drive all over to just look at graves. However, as an adult, I realize those were great memories, and that a big part of visiting the graves was really to see the living relatives. As I remember it, we would wake up each Memorial Day at the butt crack of dawn (forgive my "potty talk", but seriously, it's true!!). At that point, we would make sure to cut flowers from the garden, make sure we had enough (and trust me, that was A LOT), then head out to Tooele (For those of you not from Utah that is said "too-willa") to see Papou's (my mom's dad's) family graves. In Tooele is where I would interact with second cousins, and my mom's dad's family.

After Tooele, we would stop at the Greek Cemetery in Salt Lake and see XiaXia's family's graves. I always thought that was cool as there were always priests somewhere nearby with their incense (which I always liked the smell of).

Then there was my Dad's annual last minute BBQ. Though we all knew he would inevitably end up doing a big old family BBQ, he never plans it in advance and we end up stopping at Dans on the way home from the graves to pick up all the stuff, while we call the family and invite them. Then the BBQ prep began quickly (and a huge crowd always made it over-I would guess they all expect the BBQ by this point, but just wait for the call and come on over). The BBQ was always fun and NEVER a small thing-the prep usually consisted of not just cooking, but setting up whatever new toy dad bought to play with in the back yard-usually something big like a volleyball net, a new slip n slide, a big pool, or all of the above. Seriously!

Lastly, in the evening after we were done entertaining and pretty much pooped, right when you thought the festivities were over, that is when the drive to Ogden to visit Grandpa's grave would come into play. We would drive out there and back and usually the day that began sometime around 5 AM would not end until around 11 PM or so.

We had a lot of fun and it did help us to always remember those that had passed on before in our family, and we would take particular note of those that were veterans of wars or that had died in war. This year we have been particularly thoughtful of the war at our house as Wesley's younger brother, Tyson is currently serving in Afghanistan. (this is a pic of him that I stole off his wife's blog)


That being said, I was particularly touched to see Wes give money to the Veteran's at the exit of Wal Mart today. We don't have a lot of money with moving and having just had a baby, but he still wanted to share with those that might need it more and help those serving our country. Sometimes I have a hard time paying tithing just because of how much money we lack, but somehow as I sat in the car and watched him giving, it was really touching and so I just want to say Happy Memorial Day-I love the picture above and repeat the sentiment-Never forget, ever honor!

Now, about Ender...

We were explaining to our kids that on Memorial Day you try to remember those that have passed on and those that are serving or have served our country. We talked to them about uncle Tyson being in the war, and we also talked to them about Aunt Cathy (who avid readers will remember died recently). (This is a picture of us with Cathy when she visited us here)



I told the kids that since we will be in Utah next week that we can visit Cathy's grave then. (This is a picture of my XiaXia-Cathy's mom-at her grave this morning. There is no gravestone yet, so my aunt Julie put a paper marker down for today.)




Now, I was thinking Wes and I had just had a very serious and informative discussion about Memorial Day and that they were sufficiently sold on the idea. They were pretty serious and understood well, then Ender said, as serious as could be, "After we go see Cathy's grave, can we please go see Checkers grave. He's going to need some flowers too." I thought it was pretty cute (and funny) that he loved that dog so much that months and months later it was still such a big deal when we were talking about remembering! So, here is a picture of Checkers...