Memorial Day Weekend 2017

We are grateful to have had another wonderful Memorial Day weekend. We kept our tradition of spending Memorial Day weekend in Manti. We left on Friday evening. Blu rode in the truck with us and was great. He mostly slept on the seat between Alison and me or in Debbie's lap. He is such a good puppy. 

When we got to Ephraim we stopped for dinner at the Malt shop. It has been a minute since the last time we ate at the Malt shop. We met Kristin, Dan, and Skylee at the Malt shop. They arrived a little bit before us. We got there and ordered. Skylee had been sleeping, but she woke up shortly after we arrived. She was pretty happy to see her family. She came over to sit by us. After trying a couple of bites of Alison's cookie dough shake she decided she didn't like that one and told Alison she was going to share it with me. I was happy to share it with her. When Alison's grilled cheese came out Skylee asked her if they could share that as well. We just love how confident she is. It was fun to share our meal with Skylee.

After dinner, we headed to the Temple Hill Resort and set up the fifth wheel. We have camped here the last few years. It is nestled right in the shadow of the Manti temple. It is a very nice campground. After we got camp all set up Dan and Kristin took Skylee over to a playground. Alison and I took Blu for a walk around the Manti Temple. It was a beautiful night. We enjoyed a gorgeous red sunset from Temple hill.

On Saturday we woke up and made a big breakfast - cinnamon pull apart, bacon, sausage, and French toast. After breakfast, we headed over to the Manti cemetery. This was the first of many cemeteries we visited this weekend. Skylee was excited to help out with flowers on the graves.

Our next stop was Ephraim cemetery. On our way we ran into a roadblock - the Scandinavian parade was coming down the main road through town. We took a detour which allowed us to see a good chunk of the parade. The Ephraim cemetery is the most important step of the weekend. Visiting the graves is such a great tradition. We stand around the graves and tell stories that keep the memories of our loved ones alive. We visited Vail and Colleen's grave in Ephraim. We taught Skylee that there is a cow at Vail's grave because he had a ranch and lots of cows. Just as with the other years Skylee still loves to play with the cow at the grave. We noted that Colleen's date was fixed on the gravestone. It used to be off by one year, but they finally got it fixed. We knew that having the wrong date on her stone would really bug Colleen because she was so into family history and those types of things need to be correct. Colleen died about a month before Skylee was born. It is always special to talk about how she would have been able to meet Skylee in heaven. We made sure to use two stakes per flower on each flower we left at their grave (we were running low this year) because Vail taught his grandchildren that if you didn't use two stakes the flowers would fall over.

When we were at Joe's grave Blake talked about how he was the only grandpa that Blake knew. Blake was really puzzled, when Joe died, by the whole funeral thing - both the casket and the crying. We talked about how Colleen would always say that when she first met Joe he said she wasn't very big but that she would have to do.

We also visited Ivan and Eunice's grave. When Blake was first dating Debbie she told him she was Ivan and Eunice'a granddaughter and Blake was impressed because they were good people. Ivan was really a kind man. Eunice was a fireball. She was nice and very direct. Eunice was very proud that she graduated from the BY. Ivan used to wear a tan jumpsuit. He used to call it his zoot suit. Ivan was a custodian at Snow college. He was the kind of guy that you would just see around town. He was very involved with the rotary club and lion club.

Every year we have to put a flower at Cleon's grave or Afton Johnson, Blake's grandma would be mad. Afton loved his sister and worried that no one would put flowers on her grave. She told Blake that if he didn't put a flower on her grave every year, she would haunt him. Blake actually dedicated Cleon's grave.

Next year we are going to bring a pamphlet AC wrote to his grave, called True as I Live. AC had 6 or 7 kids. Blake can remember one of them, uncle Oscar.

After the Ephraim cemetery, we went to the Scandinavian festival. This has also become a tradition as well. We had turkey and picadellies for lunch. We were worried it wouldn't be there this year because last year Jack told Blake it was his last year. The Anderson family was there! We understand it was such a popular thing that the city council asked if they would come to do it again. The line was pretty long so Blake and I waited in line with Blu while everyone else went exploring. Everyone we saw lived Blu. They would stop and pet him and ask about the dog. Everybody loves Blu. We chatted with the people in line around us and Blake explained to them why there is a Scandinavian festival in Ephraim. Brigham Young sent a lot of Scandinavians to settle in Sanpete County. When AC settled there he spoke almost no English. They sometimes call Ephraim little Denmark.

While we were eating our food we listened to a great band, which played a lot of Abba songs, much to Debbie and Skylee's delight. Skylee was so cute she went right up the stage and danced her little heart out.

After we ate we walked around the Snow College campus. It was fun to be on campus. We rested in the shade while we listened to the end of the Yankees game. After hanging out for a bit, Dan and Kristin decided it was time for them to head home. After they left we took one more spin through the festival and bought a couple of pineapple floats inside of half a pineapple. It was a great treat.

We went back to the trailer and relaxed. Blu ran off to meet some of the dogs at neighboring campsites. So we chained him up. Blake and I were sitting with the door to the trailer open and Blu was laying by the door when some dogs came walking up the road. Blu took off like a flash and hit the chain really hard. We thought that probably didn't feel very good and would be a good learning experience for Blu. Next thing we know we hear a lady talking to him. I go out and Blu is over in the road sniffing this lady's dogs. He ran out the door so hard that he busted his puppy collar. We took a trip over to IFA to get Blu a new collar (much more heavy-duty than the last one). The girls working there loved Blu and they were sad when it was time for us to go.

Next, we went over to the farm and did some fishing. The upper pond was pretty clear of moss this year, but we didn't have much luck. Not that we really tried very hard. We got distracted by some horses. I also took Blu around the pond to chase a flock of geese. Blake took Blu into the corrals to herd some cattle. His instincts kicked right in and he was heading them off. It was pretty impressive.

That night Richard and Marcea came over to visit and we made a cherry cobbler. It turned out pretty well. We really enjoyed catching up with them. One of the best parts about visiting Ephraim is seeing lots of families. Richard told us how Vail gave him his 30/30 gun - it was his father, Howard, and he gave it to Vail the day he died.  He died young of a heart attack when Vail was 17.  Vail had a baseball game that afternoon, but Howard asked him to come to the farm to help. He came down to the farm and talked with his Dad while they worked on the farm. Eventually, he finished his chores and went to the baseball game. As he left the farm Howard told him that he could have the 30/30 because he wasn't planning on hunting that year. Vail gave the gun to Richard and told him to never sell it. Richard plans on giving the gun to his grandson.

On Sunday morning we got up and headed to Fairview. We have a few graves there to visit. In the lower cemetery, we visit Nancy Joy's grave. Colleen did a lot of work on family history and really figured out the Nancy Joy line. She actually replaced the Nancy Joy headstone. This is the line through which Alison is related to a soldier in the revolutionary war, which we learned about during our recent trip back east.

We drove down 89 and headed to Springville to visit my grandma Pat's grave. This has become a tradition in the last few years. We left a purple flower. We stood around the grave and talked about how kind she was and how much I loved her.

We stopped for lunch at the Little Acorn. I love that place. They have the best bread. It is a quaint place to eat.

We made our way to the last cemetery on our list - Payson. Debbie has a lot of families buried there. She also has an aunt and uncle that have a headstone but are both alive. We put some flowers on that stone and sent it to Aleene as a joke. Not sure that she really got it.

We took the scenic route back to camp. We made some Dutch oven dinner and Kerry and family came over and hung out with us. It was a great evening.

We woke up on Monday, packed up camp, and headed home. We were home and unpacked by the early afternoon. It was really nice because then we had time to enjoy Memorial day here. Alison and I went for a nice long walk around Daybreak lake and we sat on the rocking chairs on our porch and read for a couple of hours. Our last stop of the day was to the movie theater to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. We really wanted to see this movie before our Disneyland trip next week and we knew this might be our only chance as it looks like it could be a pretty busy week at work.

We are really not ready for this wonderful Memorial day weekend to be over. It was a great weekend full of time spent with family and remembering our family members who are no longer with us.