Memorial Day Weekend

It's Memorial Day today, a day to honor those who gave their lives for the freedoms we enjoy, as well as remembering our loved ones who have passed on before us. I love this time to reflect and reminisce and express gratitude for lives lived by loved ones. 

Normally, Memorial Day is a three-day funfest, complete with lots of cemetery visiting near and far. This year, however, our visits were curtailed because Youth Conference starts on Tuesday, I have been largely responsible for the planning and implementing, and I spent all Saturday morning and into the early afternoon food shopping and organizing. We're going to have good food, but meals for 60 people require lots of foodstuffs. I shopped with Mandy Ficker (YW president) at Costco and Day's Market, then grabbed a few more things at Maceys when I stopped there for our own holiday food needs. It was a relief to have everything stowed at Jeri Covey's house, the base for our youth conference activities.

On Sunday after church, we met family up at the East Lawn Cemetery to see all our people with all the DeMartini people. We made a stop at George and Merlynn's spot, at John's, at Brian's, and then at Jeff, Grandma & Grandpa Hare, and my dad. I love these people and miss them. We ate donuts in Dad's honor, and talked about how good all these people were and are. I don't like talking about them in the past tense, as I know their spirits live on and are busily engaged in the Lord's work, just on the other side of the veil. I sure would like a peek through that veil! On Sunday, we also drove down to the Springville Cemetery to see David Davies and put flowers on his and his mother's graves. Kent took Richard to put flowers on his mother and sister's graves too. It was a lovely day.

This morning, we drove north to Murray and Wasatch Lawn. We had hoped to visit with Jonathan and Laurie at Murray, but they returned home from Hawaii in the wee hours of the morning and were headed to the cemetery later that day.  It was nice to talk about those we visited.

The pool was opened on Saturday, but today we went swimming for the first time. Well, Brandt and I went swimming for the first time; Kent and Blythe abstained. The water was wet and cool, the sun was shining, and we were partying together with family, enjoying being together. Suddenly, it felt like summer. Bring it on!