Either you are a Memorial Day person or you are not.  I believe that the number of people who are Memorial Day People is a much smaller number than the people who are NOT Memorial Day People. 

I love Memorial Day.  And I love cemeteries.  I know that is weird.  But I always have loved cemeteries.  (Except that one time that Ryan Vande Graff took me to the cemetery on a double date once and we sat around and told ghost stories--WEIRD)  I think it just goes way back as long as I can remember.  When I was a kid I spent half my life with my Grandparents.  My

 Grandpa (I think) self-appointed himself as the Circleville cemetery caretaker.  I think about every 3 days we would go to the cemetery and water, prune, spray, mow and visit.  Circleville had the best looking cemetery that I can ever remember visiting, and I've visited a lot.  Then we would go to Junction and clean off the graves in Junction.  Man, that's an ugly cemetery.  But, we would go and weed and prune and Grandma would tell me stories about all of people who were buried in the graves.  I remember my Grandpa telling me stories  of his baby

 brother, Dwight, who was buried next to his mother in Circleville.  There was no gravestone or marker and I always felt badly about that.  Well,  few years ago my mom's cousin was trying to do genealogy work and he couldn't find out a thing about this one brother, Dwight.  I didn't know a lot about Dwight, but I did know that he was buried in Circleville.  That made it tons easier for Cousin Jess to find out his birth and death dates.  We found out that he had died as a child.  Thanks to Grandpa for talking about his brother as we cleaned graves at the cemetery.  

Every Memorial Day my mom and dad would drive to Southern Utah and visit all of the cemeteries where our ancestors are buried.  It was an annual ritual.  

So this morning we got up and drove to Orem to visit the cemetery.  We drove past the Provo cemetery.  There must have been 4 million dollars worth of flowers.  It was a beautiful sight.  As we arrived in Orem, they were in the middle of a military ceremony with a military helicopter doing some aerial maneuvers.  Cole was totally impressed.  We got out and went to my dad's grave.  There were some very beautiful floral arrangements.  We tucked our flowers in with the other flowers and random coke bottles.  The rain had stopped and the clouds parted as the sun peaked out for a few minutes. 

My mother and father in law have bought burial plots in Orem since my dad died and was buried in Orem.  I think that they know that because my dad is there, and they will be buried there that they will always have a little flower or something on their grave.

The other good thing about Memorial Day is that it is the official kick-off to summer and boy oh boy do we ever need summer.  AND, we can finally wear shorts and white shoes and all of those other summer clothing rules that only apply after Memorial day!