Memorial Day 2014

We enjoyed a beautiful, traditional Memorial Day yesterday.  We've had some cold rainy days at the cemetery, but yesterday was gorgeous, if not a little too warm for my taste.

And, uh... I don't want to brag or anything... but our children happily and willingly go along with this tradition of early morning cemetery visits on Memorial Day.  Well, that is, they usually cooperate.  I don't know what they ate for breakfast, but our eldest and youngest were both kind of on one and they were less than pleasant for the first part of the day.  Things did improve as the day progressed and food was involved later.

Here we are with part of my Clark family at my Clark grandparents' graves.

We usually stand around (or sit around) and listen to Uncle Lane and my dad tell stories about Clark family ancestors.  This year's focus was on the Clark family (Ezra Thompson Clark, Amasa Lyman Clark) and the founding of the city of Farmington.

Our second stop is the Valley View Cemetery in West Valley City.  Here we have my Cannon grandparents, and Abe's Jolley great-grandparents.

We all look forward to our lunch out after the cemetery visits.  We chow down then the bigger kids enjoy listening to Grandpa and his political adventures.  He's currently heavily involved in the Davis County School Board primary elections right now.  They got to spend a morning with Grandpa a couple of weeks back delivering flyers to homes for his campaign.  They should have just volunteered, but grandpa paid them very well and even took them to lunch afterwards.

For the evening's activity we joined our friends, the Butterfields, for a cookout at a local park.  From the picture it looks like an ugly location.  Truth be told, it was ugly.   But we were desperately seeking the shade because our regular shady park is under construction.  The location was kind of ugly, but the evening was lovely-- the food was tasty, the kids ran around and played for hours on the city's last merry-go-round.  I don't know for sure that it's the city's last, but they don't put them in newer parks-- too dangerous.  It's too bad, because the kids love them!
By the time the evening was over I was beyond exhausted.  We hurried home to watch our summer guilty pleasure show, America Ninja Warrior.  I offer no explanation or excuses.