Memorial Weekend

We are just wrapping up a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. I don't remember a Memorial Weekend that has been this cold and this rainy ever. But we have made the best of it.

Friday started a little crazy ;) but luckily it has calmed down. Saturday morning was spent on the yard working on sprinklers again, but I think they are now all fixed! Then we spent the afternoon in Santaquin with Mark's parents. We headed over to the cemetery to visit the Peterson graves. Unfortunately my kids and I have never met any of these relatives.

I've never been much of a grave visitor. I grew up in La Canada, Calif and our closest relative was 3 hours away. I don't ever remember going to visit graves on any holiday. On the other hand Mark was born and raised in Santaquin and visiting graves was a tradition.

When my father passed away in 1981 my mom had him buried in San Diego near distant relatives and because we were planning to move there. We visited a few times before we ended up moving to Utah instead of San Diego so we still never had a chance to visit graves regularly.


Then in 1993 my mom and I flew to San Diego for the San Diego Temple dedication, rented a U-haul and made arrangements to bring Dad to Utah. The cemetery loaded him in for us and off we went. It was a great trip. Since it had been 12 years since he passed away the emotions weren't so raw. My mom and I stopped at all the shopping outlets along the way. By the time we got to Utah we had lots of shopping bags around the casket. It was a trip I will always remember taking with my mom. We were then able to re-bury Dad in Orem and rededicate his grave.

We decided to visit the Orem graves on Sunday. We cut snowballs from our yard to place on the graves. We were able to visit my Dad's mother's grave, Orla Pritchett (picture to the left with my Dad, myself, and my sister Kim) and my Dad's brother-in-law, David Horlacher which are together underneath the tree with the bench at the North East corner of the cemetery. We then went to my Dad's grave that is at the North part about in the middle at the very top of the hill. He is buried next to my Mom's parents, Jim Jesperson and Doris Bender Jesperson. And just down from them are Grandpa Jesperson's sisters, Lenora Brown and Vera Jesperson. And just to the East by a couple of rows is my cousin, Chase Jesperson. We had a good time telling stories to the kids and wondering if they will remember any of them.

Cute Grandma Jesperson after her stroke

We've also been able to enjoy a few BBQ's with family. Kids enjoyed Grandma Pat's Wii. And we had a great time with neighbors on Saturday night when they invited us over for a campfire in the back yard to roast S'mores, yum!